Those for and against proposed Rochester school tax levy respond to the close results

Nov. 8—ROCHESTER — While half the voting base is celebrating its effort to avoid an increase in taxes following a referendum that could have generated $10 million a year, the other half is evaluating how that will impact the path forward for Rochester Public Schools as it finds a way to do without.

The proposed levy was narrowly defeated Tuesday, Nov. 7, with 50.72% of the vote, a difference of merely 318 votes out of more than 22,000. The referendum asked voters to decide whether to approve a levy that would have provided a dedicated funding source for technology needs for the school district.

"My first takeaway is that every vote counts," said Carol Shaffer, a committee member with a "Vote Yes" campaign organized around the election. "Especially in local issues. It is so important to get out and vote."

Rochester Public Schools covers 218 square miles, four times the size of the city of Rochester itself. According to the Minnesota Secretary of State, the votes within the city of Rochester favored the proposed levy by a margin of 9,876 to 9,842.

However, in the townships of Cascade, Marion, Haverhill and Oronoco, voters tilted against the initiative — especially Marion Township where the number of "no" votes was more than double the number of "yes" votes.

Rochester township was the exception and favored the levy.

There were independent get-out-the-vote campaigns organized both for and against the levy. Shaffer said the Vote Yes Committee did phone banking, attended every homecoming parade, spoke to social clubs and even attended events like Trunk or Treat to get voters to the ballot.

John Whelan, chairman of the "Say No To the Taxman" campaign, said he was ecstatic Wednesday morning after the election. Like Shaffer, Whelan said his campaign worked hard to spread the word about the referendum, albeit with a different end goal in mind.

"I think we had a huge impact ... we worked very hard to educate the public about the problems with this referendum," Whelan said. "The school district needs to analyze what they're doing and change what they're doing so that kids can get educated and proficient in basic academic skills."

The results of the referendum leave the school district searching for a new path forward amid a slew of financial challenges. RPS has spent the last two years cutting $21 million from its budget. The statement from the district went on to say that with the failure to pass the technology levy, RPS faces "additional cuts of up to $10 million leading to increased class sizes and cuts to key programs and services beginning Fall 2024."

"We are disappointed that we were unable to unify the community behind the needs of our students with regard to the referendum question," Superintendent Kent Pekel said in a statement Wednesday.

He declined to provide any further comment beyond the statement released from the district.

As previously reported, the failure of the referendum to pass will present some immediate challenges for

the district as it tries to come to an agreement with the teachers union, The Rochester Education Association, over their contract for the next two years.

One possible path forward for the district is an existing operating levy it has from 2015 that will expire in 2025. The district has the option to renew that levy at its existing rate, but it also has the option to ask voters to increase it. Pekel previously stated that he would wait to make a recommendation about what to do about the expiring 2015 levy until the district saw the results of the tech levy.

At the time it was approved in 2015, the existing operating levy was approved with just 50.6% of the vote.