Credit where no credit is due--

In this week's Herald-Independent Tom Reason delivers kudos to the school board for the decreased mill rate taxpayers we'll see in next year's bills. But no thanks are necessary, really - because it's not up to us! The tax levy and mill rate are essentially determined by the state funding formula.

This is how it works: the state has a complicated formula based on enrollment and previous funding which dictates the "revenue cap": the maximum revenue each district can raise. The state then tells the district how much of that revenue the state will provide. The difference between that state aid and the revenue cap then can be levied on local property. The mill rate ends up being the amount the district can levy divided by the total value of property in the district. (If property value goes up the mill rate will go down and vice-versa, because the total amount is fixed.)

So the slightly smaller levy this year is a natural consequence of the state budget which cut $650 per pupil from the magic funding formula for the revenue cap, nothing we on the board did.

Of course the school district could choose not levy to the revenue limit, but even after the million dollar reductions to compensation related to the "budget repair bill" the district was still more than $1.5 million in the hole. The deficit was made up by using all our federal stimulus funds and more than $900K in cuts.


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Speaking of budget cuts - the administration reported that there are 29 class sections in the high and middle schools that exceed class size guideline of 30 students.  Last year that number was 4.

We can argue about how to best manage the situation, but the big picture is that we can't cut the budget a million at a whack without reducing services to students.

Belated board meeting wrap up...

The board approved the charter school planning grant application after a presentation by Nancy Gagnon and some of the other proposers, although many questions remain to be answered during the planning grant period.  The charter school proposal as presented calls for up to 180 seats (3 grades of 2 sections of 30 students each), very preliminary budget numbers were about $950K/year in operating costs.  The proposal calls for a school that is an "instrumentality" of the district: although it has a separate governance board it would not be a distinct fiscal entity - this is the way our current charter school (MG21) is operated.  The school would use a "project based learning" model and feature an environmental and health sciences curriculum.  Ann Schroeder raised concerns that there was not sufficient room n Winnequah for 180 Middle School students.

The next step would be to negotiate and agree to a charter in December of next year.  IMHO any agreement would have to be budget neutral - the costs of the charter school should not exceed the differential savings of taking those students out of our existing program -  anything more would result in fewer resources for students in our existing programs. 

The board also approved open enrollments for next year.  Out of a total of 206 applicants we accepted 125 based on available space.  This includes 55 4K, 20 Kindergarten students at Winnequah, and 30 high school students. 

We also got a look at an updated budget forecast: we are anticipating a $3.1M deficit representing a proposed budget reduction of 5.5% per student.  The deficit can be offset by projected savings of $1.1M in WRS and Health insurance payments (the pay cut to teachers), $100K revenue from open enrollment, $850K in Federal Jobs Bill revenue, $245K savings from the Maywood/Winnequah consolidation,  $340K from staffing maximization (reducing staff and moving them around to match student needs) and $362K in program and services reductions (more on those next time).  This leaves us with a projected negative $88K balance on the year, plus whatever is required for remodeling in Winnequah due to the consolidation.


P.S. The H-I website embeds my cell phone video of the 1812 overture played by the combined 4th-12th grade orchestras at the bottom of the front page:  http://www.herald-independent.com/, check it out!

No "rainy day" ahead

In this week's column about the last school board meeting, Adam refers to our budget reserve as a "rainy day" fund that will be eaten up by future deficits. Problem is we don't have a "rainy day" fund. At the end of the last budget year we did have cash on hand of nearly $5 million, (what we call the "budget reserve") but this is necessary for the day-to-day operations: payments to the district come in large lumps at long intervals (the schedule can be found here), in order to meet our obligations before and between these payments we have to spend down our cash reserves and then some. In fact we still need to do a few million dollars in "cash-flow" borrowing each year to keep us solvent between state payouts. So there is no pot of money sitting around for us to spend.


The "budget reserve" does dramatically reduce required short term borrowing and avoids the resulting interest payments, each dollar reduction to the budget reserve results in higher interest costs to the district. Further, the size of the reserve helps maintain the district's bond rating, which helps reduce the cost of any district borrowing. This is why the board recently passed a policy recommending a 15% "budget reserve". At the time I advocated for some teeth to this policy- requiring a plan to restore the budget reserve to 15% should it drop below- but the majority of the board opposed this provision.

If the budget forecast predicted a year or two of deficits before returning to a balanced budget, then it might be okay to spend down the reserve temporarily to preserve programs and refill it later. But the projections show a continued and growing deficit for the foreseeable future, so spending down the reserve would only increase costs and make future cuts worse. It will be tempting for politicians (like me) to spend the reserve now to avoid unpopular cuts, but IMHO this would be short sighted and only leave the district in worse shape in the future.

Press release

Sobol to run for Monona Grove School Board
Press Release December 11, 2007

Peter Sobol announces candidacy for the Monona Grove School Board.

“A few years ago Kristin and I brought our family to Monona from California, driven in part by a desire to find better school options for our children. Our research convinced us that this area has some of the best public schools in the country. The tangible community support and pride for the Monona Grove schools convinced us that this would be an excellent place to educate our children.”

Sobol will seek to maintain the range of programs and improve the quality of education that brought his family here, and believes it will continue to attract other young families. “I consider this successful school district as the most important asset of our communities, and a continued quality public education as key to its future.”

Sobol consistently supports the continued unity of the school district, “The partnership between Monona and Cottage Grove has been successful for more than 50 years, and we have every reason to believe that it will be successful for the next 50. On the other hand we see that school districts much smaller than ours have trouble offering the full range of program options that this community has deemed important.”

Sobol has also supported the construction of the new middle school approved by voters in last spring’s referendum as the best option. “I believe the new school is, in the long term, the best and most cost effective way to meet the district’s need for improved middle school facilities. I look forward to my children attending what will be a fine facility”

Sobol believes that the Monona Grove school district needs to find ways to meet the needs of every student, through expanded Gifted and Talented programs at the elementary level and AP programs in the high school. “Our teachers need to have the support and resources to service the unique talents of all students, and challenge and develop the abilities of even the brightest. I can see how the World Languages at the elementary level and International Baccalaureate programs that are being evaluated by the district may be important steps toward meeting these needs.”

Sobol also seeks to improve the communication between the school district and families by soliciting input from parents through systematic surveys and evaluations. “The families of our students are the school district’s “customers”, and their evaluation is a key measure of school performance. I have yet to meet a parent in the district who did not have unique and useful insights into the education of their child”.

As a homeowner in Monona in the MGSD, Sobol appreciates the need for careful fiscal management of the schools. “I came here from a hi-tech manufacturing company in a very competitive market. As a department director I was constantly working to find ways to achieve goals most efficiently and made choices that would be both less costly and most effective in the long run. Just as it is crucial that every decision that School Board makes be examined for long-term cost effectiveness. Our experience in California shows that the broad educational programs we value here (including music, arts and sports programs) can be lost without careful management of resources.”

Currently Sobol works with a partner developing scientific instrumentation under federal contract, and as a consultant in analytical chemistry. Previously Sobol was for several years a technical manager and department director for a Fortune 500 company in Silicon Valley. Born and educated in the Midwest with a Master’s degree in Physics, he has worked in Minnesota and California as an analytical chemist and in scientific instrument and software design. He has co-authored several scientific papers and one reference book on Photo-electron Spectroscopy. “I believe my background as a scientist and corporate management experience will bring useful skills and unique perspectives to the school board.”

Sobol and his wife, Kristin, an artist and free-lance illustrator, live in Monona with their two children Katherine and Will. Both children are students at Nichols Elementary.