School question approved

A strong showing in the city of Medford was the boost that was needed for approval of a $22.6 million school infrastructure referendum in the Medford School District.

Area voters approved the referendum on a vote of 3,893 to 3,538.

“Congratulations, Medford! Together we have successfully passed our school referendum. This is a significant achievement for our community and a great investment in our kids,” said district administrator Laura Lundy in response to the victory.

Lundy’s sentiments are echoed by school board president Dave Fleegel.

“A heartfelt thank you to the voters of Taylor County and their support for investments in the structures of our school district. Special thanks to all who took public stands in support of these investments in our community,” Fleegel said.

“I’m excited to see these

See VOTERS on page 4 improvements take shape. In this time of relief, and celebration I've been thinking a lot about the amount of areas in our county that the referendum did not pass, and sincerely encourage those that did not support our public education system to reach out and set up a time to discuss the why. Perhaps it was based completely on a drive to not pay any more taxes. I can completely understand that, if there is another reason I truly want to know the why so that we can work to better any areas that may be lacking in our district — 715-560-8213 is my contact information,” said Fleegel who described himself as being born raised and proud to be part of Taylor County.

The largest items in the referendum are expansion of the tech ed space at $6.4 million including connecting the tech ed building to the high school, the addition and upgrades of classroom space for core science and language arts programs at $6.2 million including adding an accessible entrance from the lower level of the high school, and $7.9 million on infrastructure projects including furnaces, roofs and addressing bathroom and plumbing issues at the high school and $468,000 for renovating the bathrooms outside the middle school gym which date from the 1950s.

The Medford Area Public School District has made multiple attempts over the years to get voters to approve a referendum, coming the closest in the 2020 election when it was defeated by just a few hundred votes. More recent referendum attempts were soundly defeated.

The game-changer for this attempt was that is was largely community-driven with community members getting the ball rolling on it a year ago with discussions about community and school needs. When school board members voted to go to referendum they paid attention to and closely followed the results of a survey done in July gauging support for projects and tailored the referendum to address those concerns.

The referendum had its strongest support in the city of Medford with 1,318 votes in support to 904 votes against. As with previous referendum attempts, voters in the village of Stetsonville supported the referendum with a vote of 155 in favor and 114 opposed.

What is different this time compared to previous referendum attempts is that in addition to the city and village, the measure had a much stronger showing among rural voters in the district. While only taking a majority in the towns of Medford and Little Black, the referendum had strong showing among town residents throughout municipalities in the district, even among those where there was a majority of no votes.

Town voting breakdown was as follows Browning 243 yes, 268 no; Chelsea 225 yes, 239 no; Deer Creek 140 yes, 244 no; Goodrich 125 yes, 158 no; Grover 13 yes, 23 no; Hammel 217 yes, 233 no; Holway 155 yes, 182 no; Little Black 329 yes, 314 no; Maplehurst 6 yes, 5 no; town of Medford 887 yes, 722 no; and Molitor 80 yes, 132 no.

With the passage of the referendum, the tax impact on district property owners will be a total school tax rate of $5.99 per $1,000 of equalized value for the coming tax year. This is expected to drop in future years due to the 71% state aid kicking in after the first year of debt service payments. Long-term tax impact will also be influenced by the actual interest rate the district is able to receive for the bonds. The district’s bond advisors with Baird have built their projections on an interest rate that is a worst case scenario and well above what is being seen in similar borrowings in recent months.

Other school referendums

County voters also had the opportunity to weigh in on if the Owen-Withee School District can exceed the revenue cap by $500,000 a year through the 2026-2027 school year. County voters favored the measured with 81 voting yes and 69 opposed. Portions of the towns of Roosevelt and Holway are in the Owen-Withee school district.