KENOSHA, Wis. — The Kenosha Unified School District Board of Education voted Tuesday to spend $26,000 on professional polling as it begins exploring yet another operating referendum after voters rejected the district’s previous $115 million request. Board members Bob Tierney and Sabrina Landry opposed the expenditure, while Board President Carl Bryan, Rebecca Stevens, Todd Price, Robin Cullen and Mary Modder voted to move forward.
(File Photo by Kevin Mathewson, Kenosha County Eye)
The previous referendum sought $23 million per year for five years, or $115 million total. Despite that rejection, the district is now formally exploring whether to pursue another referendum in April 2027. District documents say the new polling could help determine whether to pursue a referendum, how much money to request and what might be included.
Superintendent Jeffrey Weiss and his administration recommended hiring Morris Leatherman Company for $26,000 to conduct the referendum-related community poll. Polling could begin Sept. 28, with results returning to the board Oct. 27. If the board ultimately proceeds, voters could see another referendum on April 6, 2027.
Several residents questioned why a district facing serious financial problems would spend another $26,000 on referendum polling after voters already rejected its previous request.
Amanda Meyer, a KUSD parent, taxpayer and founder of Kenosha Students First, criticized the proposed spending while KUSD simultaneously warns about a $17 million structural deficit and dwindling reserves.
“This administration wants to spend roughly $42,000 for ERS services and potentially tens of thousands of more on corporate polling,” Meyer told the board.
Meyer said a quick community poll she conducted found 57% would not support the proposed expenditures without a town hall, while 42% opposed them outright.
Valerie Kretschmer also urged the board not to spend more taxpayer money on another referendum consultant.
“Every additional dollar should be carefully evaluated and prioritized for our classrooms, not another consultant to determine whether we should pursue another referendum,” Kretschmer said.
Kretschmer said KUSD had already spent significant taxpayer money on consultants and referendum planning and questioned why the district was continuing down the same path without first addressing its underlying financial and operational problems.
During the board discussion, Tierney and Landry strongly opposed immediately spending the $26,000.
Tierney said KUSD was doing the process “backwards.” He argued the district should hold town halls and listen directly to taxpayers before paying for another poll, particularly because KUSD already paid for polling before its previous unsuccessful referendum.
“We should be going out to the community doing town halls, having them speak to us here and address their issues first,” Tierney said. “Before we spend a dime on it, I think we should just start by listening to the community.”
Tierney also pointed out that KUSD already had data from its previous referendum effort and questioned why the district should spend more money before listening directly to the taxpayers who will be asked to pay more.
Landry agreed that KUSD was proceeding in the wrong order and questioned spending money on polling before addressing residents’ concerns.
“We’re wasting our money on this poll,” Landry said.
Rebecca Stevens, however, argued that the $26,000 professional poll would help KUSD identify different groups of voters and determine whom the district needed to reach.
Stevens then made one of the most striking comments of the discussion while explaining why she supported the expenditure.
“As a grandparent, I’m gonna vote yes. I know that because I have grandchildren, but how do we influence our other people?” Stevens said.
Stevens continued by explaining that polling would allow KUSD to identify different groups of voters and determine whom it needed to reach.
“If you don’t reach out to all the groups that vote, you don’t know who to reach out to if you don’t have the information,” Stevens said. She said the district needed a clearer picture of whether voters would support another referendum.
Tierney pushed against the idea that the solution was influencing or convincing reluctant taxpayers. He argued that KUSD first needed to listen to the people it would be asking to provide more money.
Bryan also supported spending the $26,000. Price called the expenditure “well worth” it, while Cullen supported pursuing multiple approaches to community engagement in addition to professional polling.
The five-member majority ultimately approved the $26,000 expenditure, with only Tierney and Landry opposed.
A KUSD parent of four told KCE after the meeting that the vote showed district leadership had not gotten the message voters sent when they rejected the $115 million referendum.
“This school board is out of control,” the parent said. “We voted down the $115 million referendum because we shouldn’t be rewarding district administration and the board members for getting us into this financial ruin. Yet they still keep wanting to spend money to try to convince people to vote yes. They’re going to keep putting this up for referendum until it gets a yes vote.”
KUSD’s own timeline shows the referendum process continuing throughout the remainder of 2026. The board is scheduled to review the polling results on Oct. 27 and continue referendum discussions in November. If the board decides to proceed, it would move toward drafting ballot language in December, with final approval required no later than Jan. 26, 2027, for another referendum to appear before voters on April 6.
24 Responses
how much is the mold remidation project going to cost at Reuther ?
hope we hear more about what’s going on at reuther with the mold issue , school starts soon
Do you really think they care about your children? Sit with that for a while..
exactly~ they only care about themselves
They need to sell that building. It costs tons of money to operate. The city would buy it in 10 seconds flat and then we could put that $$ toward the deficit. Won’t cure the problem but will add to the solution. Give it up KUSD and sell it ….. I don’t care how much money u have “”sunk” into it …it’s gotta go!!!
it’s bad. Teachers couldn’t even work in the building this week. School isn’t going to start on time. how do you clean mold up in a week. close the building like kristine says. And close it now. People are sick there. On going problem with mold. Our students and teachers deserve better. there’s room to send the kids to the other better buildings . Efficiently rating is lower than projected at other buildings, this would raise them
SELL THE BUILDING TO THE CITY GET THE HARBORSIDE REUTHER KIDS OUT OF THERE STOP “SINKING MONEY IN THT SCHOOL”. it’s got to go. YET THEYLL STILL ASK FOR MORE MONEY don’t here anything good about that place
Talk about pissing money away, holy crap! Voters rejected the referendum which in my opinion was a pretty accurate poll. Do they merely want to conduct a poll to decide what shade of lipstick will look best on that $115,000,000.00 pig until we accept it and vote yes? KUSD currently spends almost $15,000.00 per student which is already way too much. When taxpayers say NO, why isn’t that an acceptable answer and drop the issue? KUSD should live within their budget and focus on the three R’s. Once every child consistently masters and exceeds at the basics, maybe we can debate money again.
You notice they always have the referendum votes during the Off-elections when few people vote? Weiss needs to go asap
There Aught to be a Law
Not only can Schools decide whether to place their referendums in the Spring or Fall did you know they can place a final referendum ask on the “primary” election day ?
Really ! They can pick any one of the 4 separate voting dates !!
I find that disingenuous to have the power to “shop” for what date they might think they will get the “right” voters to show up. This last failed one was on the primary date ! Remember that ? I do.
Think about this for a minute.
As with our recent sheriff primary, we still have to show up in November to vote for the actual winner. Even though it is all but certain the primary winner will be the fall winner. We still need to show up.
In the school referendum world they can pick any of those dates for their “one and only final vote” !!! No primaries on Referendums.
I think all voting both Spring “non partisan” elections and Fall General federal office partisan elections should only be on one date once a year.
The clerks say that forces too many things on a single ballot but the fall general November election is the one day a year in that the most people show up.
And isn’t that what voting is all about ? Getting the most people to decide ?
As for the Polling companies.
These polls are designed to get whatever answers the board wants. Select questions that steer answers in the same directions.
A waste of money but a necessary evil in themselves.
The district has the polling they need . We just did this and went down that road 3 years ago. Take that data and use it ! Spending more money on probably what will be the same polling results. Either way it’s not going to pass.
Most countries spend way way way less per student with much greater results.
Many other countries have different “home environments” than we do.
Parents today don’t teach and control and discipline their children at home so when they are in school and out in society they do well. Or at least better.
Parents today expect the schools to teach children EVERYTHING !!
Our Jobs as parents is to teach our children to leave home.
From age 2 on up.
Respect others. Take care of yourself. Physically and mentally. Learn how to clean up. Cook for yourself. Manage money. Control your emotions. Pick better partners.
This list is endless of the things parents don’t do anymore raising their children. Boomers are the last generation that had good parents.
The board does not need another poll, it needs a backbone. So much for listening to the stakeholders. What a waste of time and money. They keep digging the sinkhole deeper. Vote them out, except for Sabrina, who along with Bob, are the only ones with common sense.
Bunch of fucking weirdos running things…
Weis and the entire pornography pushing school board need to go immediately. Weis would save the district about $500K, which could go toward improving the school’s basic requirements. WE do not want another referendum. Teach the kids the basics. Get rid of all the woke classes, groomer teachers and pornography in the schools. My gosh, they just closed so many schools, and they still can’t make it? I think KUSD needs an audit.
SURPRISE SURPRISE SURPRISE
What a bunch of morons…$26K on a useless poll. Stop wasting taxpayer money.
Count on the lazy “conservative” population to do little like always … and
let them get away with it ……
They probably need more money to pay for the lawsuits for their pedophiles.
More people need to get out and get involved in what these evil people are doing at these board meetings! There was only like 12 people from the community there . The administrators and board work together ! Us as parents , members of the community and tax papers need to work together ! Let’s flood these meetings .
Kusd is loaded with wasteful spending and everyone knows it. The people making the decisions dont care because its tax payer money and not their own. People are struggling and Kusd needs to tighten things up
Cancel and deconstruct KUSD, reform a new school system based on merit and stipend/performance pay. AI can do 80% of the administrative work and 50% of class work with the remaining ‘qualified’ employees for instruction and oversight. Based on the costs and performance, this can’t be any worse than what is being churned out as ‘success’ now.
We need to referendum to (1) require KUSD to balance their budget within two years; and (2) prohibit any referendums to increase taxes for three years.