Brillion Public Schools (BPS) is committed to providing the best education for every student and maintaining safe, welcoming schools for our community. Like many districts across Wisconsin, we are facing structural funding challenges that impact day‑to‑day operations and our ability to maintain programs, services, and staffing levels our students rely on. In December 2025, BPS mailed an independent survey to better understand community priorities and funding tolerance; more than 600 respondents participated, and the Board of Education used the results to guide their next steps. 

At its regular meeting on Monday, January 19, 2026, the School Board of the Brillion Public School District approved a resolution to place a non-recurring operational referendum question on the April 7, 2026, ballot. Based on feedback from the community survey conducted this Winter, the Board authorized a resolution asking voters to allow the district to exceed the state revenue limit by $2,275,000 per year for three years, beginning with the 2026-2027 school year and ending with the 2028-2029 school year. 

State revenue limits and inflation. Wisconsin’s school funding system caps how much districts can receive from state aid plus local property taxes. After a 2009 inflation freeze, buying power has not kept pace with rising costs, creating a gap in many districts, including BPS. 
Expiring Operational Support. BPS voters approved a non‑recurring up to $2 million per year operational referendum in April 2023; that authority expires after the 2025–26 budget.

Increasing student needs and rising costs. Costs for staffing, special education, student services, transportation, utilities, insurance, and technology have grown substantially. These pressures are statewide. Dozens of districts continue to use operational referendums to maintain educational programs and services under state revenue limits—recent examples include Valders ($1.75M per year) and Omro ($1.9M per year for 5 years), which passed an operational referendum in November 2024. Seymour also approved a three‑year, $15M operations package in April 2024. 

Statewide trend data from DPI and media analyses show dozens to more than 100 school referendum questions per cycle, many of them operational and many passing—evidence of a broad, statewide response to revenue‑limit pressures.

An operational referendum is a voter‑approved measure that allows a district to exceed the state revenue limit for a defined period (non‑recurring) or on a continuing basis (recurring). If approved by voters, funds would be used to maintain current operations and strategically strengthen services aligned to community priorities identified in our survey results. Based on results from the December 2025 community survey, the district elected to seek a three-year non‑recurring referendum.

Community survey findings indicated weighted support in the area of $2.5M per year for a three‑year replacement operational referendum, which would address the forecasted structural deficit and preserve core programs, class sizes, and student supports.  Staying true to the "only levy for what we need" approach utilized during the 2023 referendum, the Board of Education chose to ask for the lesser amount of $2.275M.

Important: An operational referendum pays for people and programs (staffing, curriculum, student services, transportation, utilities, technology licensing), not major construction. Capital projects are addressed separately through a facilities (capital) plan.