JANESVILLE Janesville School District Superintendent Mark Holzman and his administration have had a busy week planned as the Nov. 3 midterm election looms, and voters are set to decide on a $98-million school district operational referendum on the ballot.
Holzman and his administrative team are using the last few weeks before the election to publicly lobby on the districts financial challenges as the referendum heads to the ballot. It requires the district to paint a complicated portrait for voters that shows the stakes if the referendum fails.
This week, the Janesville School District has held a citizens , and earlier, on Monday, Holzman started the weeks referendum informational tour with a visit to the .
The superintendent told the council and voters, via the citys streaming public access channel that the school district, which educates just under 8,900 students, faces an $18.5-million budget gap in the coming year.
Holzman said the gap is partly tied to the states frozen funding model, but there are other pressures the district faces alongside many Wisconsin school districts: sustained cost inflation that comes alongside a continued falloff in student enrollments.
Holzman told the council Monday that if voters dont pass the four-year, $98-million operational referendum Nov. 3, the district may have to look at closing at least one school. But first, there would be serious cuts to an area that makes up as much as 75-80% of district spending: staffing.
Holzman laid out in stark terms the scope and weight those possible cuts, which could come starting in 2027 if voters dont pass the current ballot referendum.
What does that mean? Well, thats about $14.5 million in reductions from our staff, Holzman said. Thatd be about 145 people less than what we have now.
Cuts of that magnitude could eliminate close to 1 in 10 of the districts current 1,500 employees, about 750 of which are teachers.
Thats a complex decision, and it would be a difficult one for a district that has fought to make incremental gains in student proficiency in two core academic areas: literacy and math.
Recent state test scores show the district is continuing to climb in reading and math, with elementary school students performing about 7% above the state average.
Forward Janesville, the citys chamber of commerce, announced a full-throated endorsement of the referendum, urging voters to pass the spending measure. The chamber leaned hard into the districts academic gains the last two years, saying on its own website that School District of Janesville has worked to make leaps in student achievement. The chamber attributes part of that improvement in a stabilization in long-term employment in the district thats come in recent years.
That progress, combined with the systems now in place to sustain it, gives Forward Janesville confidence that continued community investment is warranted, the chamber wrote.
Holzman did not lay out Monday where potential staffing cuts could come from if the referendum failed, such as which grade levels in the district might be most significantly hit by cuts.
The district has lost a net total of about 450 students since September 2024, and has officially dropped below 9,000 students after more than a decade of sagging enrollment, according to a student headcount the district reported to the state in late September.
The biggest washout in Janesville schools students now is at the elementary school level, with a net decrease of 100 students across the districts 12 elementary schools.
If the referendum doesnt pass, Holzman said it would put the potential of a schools closure on the table.
Washington Elementary School flooded with five feet of rainwater and mud in its basement in April. The district has shuttered the school for at least two years pending major equipment and mechanical replacements needed.
That has put the 90-year-old elementary school on the citys west side in the districts crosshairs as a candidate for permanent closure if both enrollment decreases and district funding shortfalls warrant such a move.
The referendum probably puts Washington back in the conversation, but it also means we have to look at all schools, Holzman told the city council.
Washington is a candidate for FEMA disaster reimbursement the district said its pursuing following Aprils floods. Longer-term district enrollment projections show the area of the city that funnels students to Washington Elementary is among a few areas that could see future housing growth.
Holzman said if the referendum failed and school closure became a possibility, it would require the district to examine district boundary lines and how they distribute students specifically for the districts 12 elementary schools.