$1.95 million operational referendum to be on April ballot

CLINTONVILLE – Residents of the Clintonville School District will be asked to approve a $1.95 million per year for five years operation referendum in the spring election, April 7.
At a special Clintonville Board of Education meeting Jan. 26, the board officially approved resolutions that approve the operating referendum question and its inclusion on the April 7 ballot.
The vote was unanimous, but prior to the vote, Board President Glen Drew Lundt threatened to vote against having the operational referendum question placed on the spring ballot.
Lundt told the board he was “having a hard time” with the board’s Jan. 14 meeting when he said the board could not agree to work together.
“If we can’t as a board, at least give the impression that we can work together, we are wasting our time with a referendum,” Lundt said. “If I’m going to vote yes, I’m going to hold every one of us to a high standard, and that means we need to earn the trust of the people.”

He said he would probably vote against the proposed referendum resolution unless all board members agreed to work together.
Board member Ben Huber said the district is in a rare situation in which it can solve its deficit issue with an operational referendum while also having local property taxes decrease.
Lundt said he agreed with Huber, but “this chaos in the community from certain people has to stop. We are not bad people. We are on a good track. And that means the seven of us have to unite and say, ‘Yes, we’re responsible and we earned it.’”
Clintonville Superintendent Troy Kuhn said the district needs to show the public that the district is making progress.
Board Treasurer Jason Moder said he feels the district has taken a lot of steps over the past few years to improve the district’s finances.
“I would go out on a limb to say that we probably have a better understanding of the financials of the district than we’ve ever had before, ever. I believe we have a solid plan of what we need,” Moder said.

Huber presentation
Earlier in the meeting, Huber presented a chart to the board and the public gathered at the meeting, in which he said showed how an approved referendum would help the community and district. Huber claimed that the property taxes designated for the school district would be reduced by $1.4 million over the five years of the proposed operational referendum.
“That’s how much our local property taxes will be reduced during the referendum process,” Huber said.
He said even though the district is asking the district’s residents to approve an operational referendum, local property taxes would be reduced because the district would receive more state aid.

“So, we’re going to get more state aid, but we will actually be paying less dollars in taxes,” Huber said.
Huber said he did not guarantee that property taxes would decrease for all district property owners if a referendum were approved.
The district’s proposed deficit for the 2026-27 school year is projected to be $1.2 million, Huber said. Budget deficits are also projected for the following years.
“If we would not pass the referendum, we will be here as a board deciding possibly whether to cut all athletics or cut five teachers,” Huber said. “And after we’ve had that difficult conversation, we will have realized we’ve only got one-third of the way there if we did that.”
Huber said passing a referendum would also allow the district to add funds to Fund 46, which is the district’s maintenance fund. In addition, it would allow the district to move expenses from Fund 80, the community services fund, to Fund 10, the general fund.
“If we were to pass this referendum, all of these good things would happen,” Huber said.

Kuhn statement
Also prior to the vote Kuhn addressed statements that have been made about the district cutting all athletics and closing Dellwood Childcare.
“I have talked to every single one of the board members individually and not one of you have told me that in a meeting,” Kuhn said. “Can we do better? Yes, we can do better. We should always be striving to look better. But this all or none philosophy that keeps getting thrown out in the public needs to get squashed because that puts people on edge, and we don’t need the community on edge because when they’re on edge then they don’t trust or support us. So, we need to be united, move forward and get the correct information out to the public, so that, hopefully when we go out to referendum, they can vote on the facts.”