KENOSHA, Wis. — Just months after voters rejected a $115 million referendum, Kenosha Unified School District officials are already preparing to ask taxpayers for more money—this time potentially as soon as November.
During the Tuesday, April 28, 2026 school board meeting, Superintendent Dr. Jeffrey Weiss made the district’s intentions clear.
“What we’re hoping to get from the board… is a direction on whether or not we should be pursuing an operational referendum for November,” Weiss said.
Weiss tied the renewed push directly to the district’s current financial situation.
“I think we’re beginning to see… in the budget and some of our budget realities,” he said.
The Kenosha Unified School Board currently holds a supermajority of Democrats, and insiders tell Kenosha County Eye it is “almost without question” that the board will ultimately vote to send another referendum to voters this fall.
“It seems like they’re just going to keep trying until it passes,” one KUSD insider said.
Chief Financial Officer Tarik Hamdan underscored the district’s financial outlook during the same meeting, pointing to declining enrollment and limited revenue growth.
“We know that our possible revenue limit increase is going to be stuck at $325 per pupil… We also know that our enrollment is going to continuously decline. We don’t see any relief in sight,” Hamdan said.
The renewed push for a referendum comes despite what many viewed as a clear message from voters in February 2025, when the $115 million proposal was voted down in a district widely considered to lean heavily Democratic. The rejection was seen by many as a rebuke—not just of the referendum itself—but of the district’s spending priorities and leadership.
At the same time, many taxpayers are still asking a fundamental question: where did all the savings go?
The district’s “right-sizing” plan closed multiple schools, and in some cases, buildings that had recently received hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs were torn down. Critics across the community have called that decision wasteful, with some describing it as the kind of thing “only the government would do.”
Despite those closures and cuts, the district is again signaling it needs millions more from taxpayers.
Frustration over that disconnect continues to grow, particularly among staff.
“There’s too many chiefs and not enough Indians,” one teacher told Kenosha County Eye, pointing to what they described as a bloated administrative structure.
For many residents, the situation raises serious questions about accountability. Voters rejected a nine-figure referendum less than a year ago, yet district leadership is already preparing to return to the ballot with another request.
While no formal vote has been taken yet, the direction appears clear. The board is expected to decide in the coming months whether to place a new referendum on the November ballot—setting up another high-stakes showdown between KUSD leadership and taxpayers.
