ENROLLMENT IS DOWN. SO WHY ARE TAXES GOING UP?

It’s the question every homeowner in Waukesha should be asking. And the answer comes down to one simple fact: We are losing the competition for families.

District leadership likes to say that enrollment decline is happening everywhere. They call it a "national trend."

But I looked at the data for the last two years, and the numbers tell a different story.

-THE DATA DOESN'T LIE-

I compared our district to our neighbors:

 Rest of Waukesha County: Enrollment dipped just 1.2%.

 School District of Waukesha: Enrollment plummeted nearly 8%.

That gap isn't a national trend. It is a local failure to retain families.

The School District of Waukesha’s failure to attract and retain families is effectively creating an "EMPTY DESK" tax being passed on to you.

Here is how it works:

In Wisconsin, state funding follows the student. When a family leaves, the revenue leaves with them.

But our bills don’t leave.

To fill that budget hole, the district has to ask property taxpayers to pay more.

We are literally paying higher taxes to subsidize empty seats.

-THE SOLUTION-

There is no path to sustainability, much less excellence, through poorly planned cuts and ever-increasing taxes. We cannot just accept "Managed Decline" as the current leadership would have us believe.

We have to compete. We have to promote what makes us great. We have to invest in our schools, students, programs, and teachers. We have to stop accepting the narrative that the only way forward is higher taxes paired with service cuts and weaker schools.

I’m running for School Board to make Waukesha a "District of Choice" again. We need to find out why families are leaving, fix the issues, and win them back.

The only way to stabilize our taxes is to stabilize our enrollment.

Vote Mitch Gallagher. Let’s stop the exodus and protect our community's investment.