Oct. 27, 2026 9p
(WGTD)---A consultant who specializes in taking the pulse of voters in school districts that are considering putting a funding referendum on the ballot presented the results Monday night of a scientific survey done of voter attitudes in Kenosha Unified.
While seeing no red flags, Peter Leatherman stopped short of predicting whether voters in KUSD would pass it, saying it would depend on the state of the economy at the time the question is asked, along with voter attitudes on overall property taxes and the perceived consequences of disapproval. "The timing of this is always critical," he said.
400 district residents were surveyed. The margin of error was placed at plus or minus 5%.
Respondents overall gave the district good reviews and sympathized with KUSD's funding plight brought on in part by state aid that hasn't kept pace with inflation. 60% said the district was not adequately funded.
While respondents were given no specifics of the type or size of a potential referendum, 31% said they would support it while 30% would vote no. The rest said they'd at least be willing to listen and could be persuaded.
A key finding had to do with the state of personal finances. Half of the KUSD respondents said they were in households that were financially stressed. It's a percentage that's in line with the results of other surveys that Leatherman has conducted in recent months.
When compared to recent years, the number of stressed households is up significantly, Leatherman said. It peaked at over 65% at the end of the pandemic in 2023 and slowly declined to about 32% at the beginning of the year but then shot up. The Iran war and gas prices are to blame, he said.
Before the pandemic, the percentage of households feeling financially stressed was about 25%.
As the school board goes about deciding whether to put a referendum on the ballot next spring, the next step in the process is the rollout of the results of a study of district staffing levels. In early December, school board members are expected to begin debating what a referendum question should look like.
A referendum put to KUSD voters last year failed.
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