Wondering where all of the KUSD referendum propaganda is coming from? Not surprisingly, this aggressive effort to tax you out of your homes is coming from the teachers’ union. People are still struggling to afford gas and groceries, but the teachers’ union believes they deserve more of your hard earned money than you already contribute.
It’s in your mailbox, on your social media, and you can’t scroll YouTube without seeing their constant ads. Quite a hefty investment to convince taxpayers to vote for a $115 Million tax increase! In the summer of 2024, teachers union associates registered the “Say Yes to Invest” referendum campaign committee, a full three months prior to the KUSD school board’s November 2024 vote to go to referendum in February of 2025.
How did donors to the “Say Yes to Invest” campaign know the vote would pass? Well, not hard to predict, given that board president Mary Modder is a former KEA teachers’ union president, and the KEA has supported liberal hacks Rebecca Stevens, Yolanda Adams, and Todd Price for years. In partnership with the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, they also invested in the 2024 campaign to elect far-left extremist, Sabrina Landry.
Consider that the current cost of a stamp is $0.73. The combined populations of Kenosha, Somers, and Pleasant Prairie is about 128,000. If the campaign sent mailers to even just 50,000 addresses, postage alone would cost $36,500 for ONE mailer. However, they have sent several mailers to thousands of homes, racking up expenses for printing, addressing, and postage. OK, they might get some bulk mailing discount, but let’s go with the standard price for this purpose. Suppose they mailed flyers to 50K homes 4 times – that’s $146,000 just in postage!
Then, add all the digital advertising, email spamming, and mass texting. Let’s say they have another $50,000 invested in that. This speculation pushes them to $200,000 in propaganda spending to fleece you out of more of your hard earned money than KUSD is already grabbing.
The “Say Yes to Invest” campaign is separate from the other plethora of propaganda coming to you directly from KUSD. State law prohibits school districts from advertising “vote yes” or “vote no”, but for a district in financial crisis, they sure have used a crap-ton of your tax dollars to send out a lot of influential materials, too.
Follow the Money
Who are the people funding this effort? The seed money shows in the most recently filed campaign finance reports, but you won’t be able to see where most of the money came from until after February 10th, which is the next filing date set by the state. The February 10th report will only cover expenses between Jan.1st and Feb. 2nd. The campaign can continue to take donations and spend money up until and after the February 18th election, but there isn’t another report filing deadline until March 24th. A lot of money can be spent on this campaign between Feb. 3rd and election day, Feb. 18th, and voters will not know who tried to influence a local tax hike until after they vote.
What do you think about the possibility of non-KUSD residents investing in efforts to raise YOUR taxes? You aren’t likely to know who REALLY funded this effort until AFTER you have voted.
The bottom line is that most of the referendum dollars would be used for step-and-lane salary increases for faculty, staff and administration raises, adding new positions, and increased investments in fringe benefits, like health insurance. Don’t forget, KUSD is also caving to the union’s long-time demands for more teacher prep time, at a cost of $4.2 million PER YEAR. No wonder the teachers and their friends are exploiting the needs of kids to get your “YES” vote – it means more money for them.
Interestingly, the Kenosha Education Association failed to submit their union recertification vote results in 2024 in violation of ACT 10. Are they even a certified union at present? If the liberal State Supreme Court overturns ACT 10, the unions are likely to drive wages up to unaffordable levels. If you think KUSD is at risk now, wait until they have to cut ⅓ of teachers and class sizes triple because of collective bargaining that makes everything unaffordable.
There is clear evidence that more spending on K-12 schools in Wisconsin has NOT led to better outcomes. In fact, in some cases test scores are worse in 2024 than they were in 2022 and 2023. It’s not pandemic learning loss causing this, it’s too much focus on social justice, social emotional learning, restorative justice, gender ideology, and CRT. Cut out the unnecessary garbage, and use the time to focus on reading, math, science, and social studies. Then maybe the community will be more willing to invest.
Remember, the KUSD school board voted to allow boys in girls’ bathrooms, locker rooms, sports, and private spaces.. They WILLINGLY put your daughters in danger. This is the same board so strongly supported by the teachers’ union, who are now spending so much to overtax you for their own benefit.
Hold them accountable! VOTE NO! on or before February 18th.
One Response
I don’t understand why they need so much extra money when they just closed a bunch of schools. I get they said they’d be worse off if those didn’t close, but I think it still does not add up. I think we should farm more. Who cares about groceries when you have everything you need in the yard? And more community gardens! Teach the kids these life skills with Earth. It heals us.