MOORHEAD – The leader of Moorhead Area Public Schools said he was surprised that voters in the district rejected a referendum on a capital projects levy in last week’s election.
Superintendent Brandon Lunak said wherever he went, no one told him they were “absolutely against” the referendum.
“You were always cautiously optimistic that things would go the way you wanted them to,” he said.
Instead of,
the levy failed: 51.43% or 11,090 people voted no, and 48.57% or 10,475 voted yes,
a simple majority is needed to pass.
Still, Lunak said he was “encouraged” that the outcome was so close.
Voters fill out their ballot at St. Francis de Sales Church in north Moorhead on Election Day Tuesday, November 5, 2024.
Chris Flynn / The Forum
The levy would have generated $4.3 million annually over ten years.
with funding going towards curriculum improvements, facility improvements, safety measures, technology investments and transportation.
On a $250,000 home, the levy would have increased property taxes by about $15 per month, the district said.
Lunak mentioned six factors that may have contributed to the defeat of the levy.
He said he underestimated how many people voted early. The district was still trying to get the word out about the levy as those people cast their votes.
‘We have to make the decision even sooner. We really need to be at the forefront of the people who are voting early and voting absentee,” he said.
While the school district can’t try to convince voters, Lunak said, a “vote yes” committee could have done that. Several people in the community were approached for that job, but they all turned it down.
Misinformation also played a role, he said.
Some believed the money would have been used to complete construction of the new Moorhead High School.
Not true, Lunak said, adding that they cleared that hurdle with special legislation that allowed them to transfer some long-term maintenance funds.
Moorhead High School students are seen walking into their new school on Tuesday, March 12, 2024, as the old high school to its right is being demolished.
Alyssa Goelzer/The Forum
He also mentioned the teachers union’s “postcard debacle.”
accidentally sent postcards to residents supporting two school board candidates,
wrongly attributed to the school district.
“Some people said, ‘I didn’t vote for that because we felt like the school district was supporting candidates,’ and of course that’s not true either,” Lunak said.
Tax increases implemented by the city of Moorhead and Clay County earlier this fall also didn’t help matters, he said.
Now the school district will have to consider cuts of just over $4 million to close the 2025 budget gap caused by inflation and state-mandated programs that are underfunded, Lunak said.
However, school leaders are still processing the results of the levy referendum defeat and have not yet begun to identify where the cuts will come from.
The district will prioritize the cuts in areas that don’t impact classroom learning, he said, such as not renewing contracts with outside vendors and using attrition to reduce staffing levels when possible.
“We’re going to do everything we can to make sure that education is not affected, but it will be affected one way or another,” Lunak said.
Cassidy Bjorklund, one of four incumbent members of the Moorhead School Board who was re-elected last week,
said on election night that it was disappointing to see the tax referendum fail.
“Something will definitely change,” she said at the time, referring to the cuts.
Lunak said he plans to meet with his management team in the coming weeks to develop a cost-cutting strategy.
Those suggestions will be shared with the school board at a work session, perhaps in January, he said.