The Monroe School District apologized to taxpayers in a two-page letter they shared with News 3 Investigates on Friday, after weeks of complaints about an $88 million school referendum that passed in November that drove up property tax bills far more than had been advertised before the election.
MONROE, Wis. — The Monroe School District apologized to taxpayers in a two-page letter they shared with News 3 Investigates on Friday, after weeks of complaints about an $88 million school referendum that passed in November that drove up property tax bills far more than had been advertised before the election.
On Thursday, News 3 Investigates reported how residents had felt misled ahead of the election, that saw the referendum to fund a new high school building pass with about 54% of the vote.
“There are a lot of people upset about it,” Dale Howarth said, a longtime resident of the district.
While the referendum had been frequently advertised by the district as costing an extra $13 per $100,000 in home value, many were shocked to open their property tax bills weeks later to find they owed hundreds for the referendum instead.
Here’s what happened, according to the district: the referendum rate of $.13/$1000 (or $13/$100,000) was based on 2021 home values. Nearly all homes had increased in value this year, however; all of that increase was then taxed at the full mill rate of $9.33/$1000, or $933/$100,000.
So, a home valued at $200,000 in 2021 and then its fair market value raised to $240,000 in 2022 would have a school referendum tax rate of $26 for the first $200,000 — and $373.20 for the extra $40,000.
On Friday, the district said that while the methodology they’d used to predict the year-over-year increase in levy rate was accurate, they hadn’t realized how the extra property valuations would impact the referendum — and therefore weren’t able to pass that information on to voters beforehand.
“We failed to adequately recognize, and therefore communicate, the impact of property valuations for net individual tax increases,” the district said in its letter on Friday. “The large valuation increase reduced the District’s levy rate and levy rate increase, making the new debt from the referendum appear to have little or no impact on property taxes.”
It was that miscalculation which left voters feeling duped — upset they hadn’t known the full impact before voting through the $88 million.
“I feel we were misled,” Howarth said.
The district said in their letter that in hindsight, they hadn’t understood how individual property owners would be impacted until property tax bills arrived. Because of that, they failed to capture the potential net impact for owners who had large increases in home value.
“For that, we apologize,” they said in their letter. “This was not intentional; we value transparency and honesty. Had we fully understood the impact the unprecedented increase in valuation had on the mill rate, we would have communicated that.”
Read their full letter to voters below:
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Naomi Kowles is an investigative reporter for WISC-TV News 3 Now and Channel3000.com. If you have an investigative story you would like her to look into, she can be contacted at nkowles@wisctv.com.
