SUPERINTENDENT ACCEPTS VOTER MANDATE

The Brainerd School Board certified last week's levy referendum election at yesterday's board meeting and began talking about budget cuts at a meeting this morning. A record voter turnout - 57% - defeated the referendum by 33-hundred votes; 62% of voters said no to the increase request. Superintendent Jerry Walseth said he got the message. Walseth said it may sound hollow but it's not. "We asked for a mandate and we got one," he said, and he believes "the vote was never about education but about money." The Brainerd Superintendent said it was "an overwhelming amount of tax dollars and our folks let us know it was not something they could sustain now or in the future and we respect that."
Walseth said the community's role in education will have to grow larger now that the district faces a leaner budget.