The Demographic Realities of School Tax Elections

A suburban district employs tracking technology and commercially available data to generate decisive community support of its funding proposals

The fact that the old bear in Gary Brookins’ long-running “Pluggers” cartoon soon will be in the senior citizen majority does not bode well for public school leaders planning future tax elections.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the aging of baby boomers means that by 2030 there will be more folks over 65 years old (78 million) than the total number school-age children. (76.7 million) The challenge appears even more daunting when the demographic onion is peeled back to count parents of school-age children. In most cases, parents of students represent less than 25 percent of all registered voters living within the school district. And this is now — a full decade before we hit the tipping point forecast by the census.

These demographic realities — while challenging in their own rights — are further encumbered by local, state, national and inter-national events that also influence the psyche of voters when they cast their ballots for or against a school tax referendum. The persistent impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is one example of a contextual variable affecting voters on election day.

Fortunately, school system leaders now can harness powerful public and commercial databases and technology-driven solutions that can rise to the challenge. The South St. Paul Public Schools in Minnesota used two of these strategies — (1) building a voter file and target structure and (2) mapping identified “yes” voters to their rooftops — in executing its last school tax election.