Community survey signals support for referendum

IOLA – A new community survey indicates there is strong support for a revised operational referendum in the Iola-Scandinavia School District after a previous referendum was voted down at the spring election earlier this year.

The district mailed an operational referendum survey to about 2,500 registered voters in June and received 211 responses. According to the executive findings, 91% of respondents are familiar or somewhat familiar with the district’s budget challenges, and about 84% agree that the district’s most urgent financial needs must be addressed now.

About 73% of respondents indicated they would definitely or probably support an operational referendum on the upcoming November ballot.

The survey tested two potential referendum amounts to deal with the district’s financial shortfall. The first option proposed increasing the revenue limit by $1.2 million for the 2026-27 school year and $1.5 million for the following three years. That would result in an estimated tax increase of $25 per $100,000 of fair market property value. About 67% of respondents supported that option.

The second option proposed a larger $1.4 million increase in 2026-27 and $1.7 million for the next three years, with a $30 tax impact per $100,000 of property value. About 63% of respondents supported that option.

Survey recommendations advise the Iola-Scandinavia School Board to advance the first option on the November ballot due to its higher support margin and lower tax sensitivity risk for older and fixed-income community groups.

The district is considering a new referendum attempt after a previous operational referendum failed by 176 votes in April. That measure would have allowed the district to exceed state revenue limits by $1.6 million in the 2026-27 school year and about $2 million annually for the subsequent three years.

According to the recent survey, voters rejected the April measure because the tax impact was too high, communication was ineffective, and there was a perception that the district had not reduced expenses enough.

Prior to the spring vote, residents had pressed District Administrator Chris Nelson for clearer line-item budget explanations and questioned specific expenditures. Nelson clarified that several of the expenses were not paid with general tax dollars, but rather through student pupil activity accounts, team fundraising and staff fees.

Nelson also noted that state aid has failed to keep pace with inflation. If it had, the district would receive about $2 million more in the 2025-26 school year alone.

Following the failed referendum, the district planned about $500,000 in cuts for the 2026-27 budget. That included cutting two full-time teaching positions in business and physical education, reducing field trips, implementing district-wide wage freezes, and delaying Chromebook replacements and maintenance updates. Even with the reductions, Nelson said the district still faces an estimated $1.1 million deficit.

Based on the survey results, the recommendations to the board include redesigning the district’s communication campaign, prioritizing physical mailings, which voters identified as their most trusted source of factual information, and holding community town halls to clearly explain where state funding limits fall short.