The annual meeting for the West Bend School District is on Monday, July 27th, at 6 PM at the Badger Middle School cafeteria. This is the meeting where the voters of the district aprrove or reject the proposed property tax levy. Of course, it’s only an advisory vote, but it’s important for the public to show up and share their views.

This time, there are a couple of other things on the ballot. Here’s the agenda:

a. Resolution No. 1 – Tax Levy

b. Resolution No. 2 – Disposal of District Property

c. Resolution No. 3 – Board Member Compensation

d. Resolution No. 4 – 2016-17 Annual Meeting Date

I’ll have more on the merits on these in the coming days, but first a few comments…

It is highly disappointing that there is so little information available on the district’s website. For the levy discussion, all that is available is the post card that the district sent out:

That’s it. No information on total spending, projected state aid amount, etc. There isn’t even the actual text of the resolution.

The same is true for the other resolutions. I can go back through some news stories and public comments and piece together what they are voting on, but as an elector in the district, I would have hoped that they would have made it easy for me to find all of the information I need to make a decision before getting to the meeting.

As a general rule (and it’s true with my kids too), if I don’t have enough information to make an informed decision, the answer is “no.”

I’ll have more in the days to come, but I highly encourage everyone in the district to attend. The people with a vested interest like teachers, staff, parents, students, etc., are more likely to attend, but it’s important that Joe Schmoe taxpayer show up too, since they represent the largest stakeholder constituent block.