By Hannah Davis-Reid
WXPR
TOMAHAWK – Governor Tony Evers visited the Tomahawk School District as part of his annual statewide back to school tour.
Every year, Governor Evers tours schools around the state for back-to-school season.
Earlier this month, he stopped at the Tomahawk School District and visited classrooms in the elementary, middle and high schools.
Tomahawk will have to go to referendum again to cover operational costs. That won’t be on the ballot in November, but February seems likely.
They passed a referendum in 2022, but in 2020 and 2021, their referendum attempts both failed, each by less than 60 votes.
Evers says that while he’s learning a lot on his back-to-school tour, he’s frustrated.
“I’m hearing about things we should have fixed a gazillion years ago. Good example, the school district goes for the referendum to keep the doors open every two or three years, and if they don’t succeed, that’s a problem. It’s a huge problem,” he said.
He said referendums should be used for fixing schools or building them, but not keeping the lights on.
Evers says that the school funding formula for Wisconsin needs to change.
“Every year we change the funding in some fashion, and it’s like we’re moving deck chairs on the Titanic. And instead of saying, okay, these schools need to use referendums primarily for building issues, building new, fixing, areas beyond that around education, State’s got to kick it in,” he said.
The 2023-2025 state budget provided an overall increase of nearly $1.2 billion in spendable authority for public school districts, including state categorical aids. The increase, which is permanent, is the largest statewide revenue limit authority increase since revenue limits were first imposed on K-12 schools in 1993-94.
Governor Evers also addressed school safety.
With the start of the school year, there have been a number of lockdowns and threats at locations around the state.
Evers says that he thinks lowering the temperature in politics could help.
“Schools need to be safe. They’ve all, are in a position to be safe, and they do a great job, but just think about how it was never an issue when I went to school, a long time ago. We were concerned about possible nuclear war, but we weren’t concerned about the next door neighbor coming in with a gun. And so things have changed dramatically,” he said.
He says safety needs to be a top priority.