Shell Lake School District Seeks Outside Help with Referendums

SHELL LAKE, Wis. (WLAK / WBZH) The Shell Lake School District will turn to a consulting firm for help with school referendum messaging after failing to pass two last year.

The district proposed a four year non-recurring operational referendum in the April election after tweaking another referendum proposal that failed in the November election. The April version would have allowed the district to exceed the revenue limit by $505,000 this school year, growing to $1.7 million for the 2028-2029 school year. It failed by less than 100 votes.

At their August meeting, the Shell Lake School District Board voted to hire the Donovan Group as a referendum consultant. According to a Spooner Advocate report, the consulting firm will assist the district in communicating the importance of the referendum funding to area residents and conduct periodic community surveys. They hope the partnership will more clearly communicate the need for the referendum funding and help residents fully understand the process.

With dozens of school referendum questions being proposed in each election, districts that fail to pass their referendums have often been forced to make difficult budget cuts. For some districts, that has meant staff layoffs or cutting programs. Other districts have been forced to permanently close schools and redraw their boundary lines.

The nearby Spooner Area School District also failed to pass a referendum in April, leading district officials to consider a unique solution in partnership with the Shell Lake School District. The proposal included the two districts and the Northwood School District sharing some administrative staff between the three schools, as well as a physics teacher from Shell Lake.