More on the annual meeting.

The Herald-Independent covers the Annual Meeting here.  It has a rundown on the numbers and budget challenges facing the district:

Our expenditures such as utilities increased by 5 percent, 7 percent, health insurance by 9 percent,” Rossing said. “The district has worked very hard [to balance the budget]. We had to cut $811,000 out of the budget to get to the balanced budget tonight.” 
Last year, the district cut $929,531 from the budget. “It’s definitely changing the way we’re educating our students,” Rossing said.

I would add that the $811K cut in services is on top of a $1.1M reduction in staff compensation.

On a related note Jerrud reported last night that our September count of district resident students has decreased by 36 over last year.  This will negatively impact funding over the next few years.

I agree with Mike Mikalsen's point about the decision process at these meetings.  With the small number of residents present voting on the levy and property dispositions, it is not particularly democratic and may not reflect the wishes of the district as a whole.  But whether we use a special meeting or the annual meeting the same process is the one dictated by the state law.  This needs to be fixed.

The article does misstate the number on the tax levy, the $126 figure given is the reduction in property taxes on a $200K home compared to last year's taxes.  The estimated levy for that home would be $2462.

Annual meeting follow-up

Thanks to everyone who attended the annual meeting last night -

After significant debate the community approved the motions authorizing the board to lease the Maywood property and sell or lease the Nichols property.  Concerns were raised about capacity for future growth, appropriate use of the sites, and the facilities for MG21.  These are all issues the board will have to consider before taking any action.   The district doesn't have any "deals" pending, but the authorization will IMHO increase the chance that we will be able to take advantage of any appropriate interest that comes along.

Authorization is only the first step in the processes that will involve the district, community and the municipal governments, and any agreements would have to conform to local zoning and use provisions.

Slightly more interesting than usual

This year's MG school district annual meeting will be held Wednesday, Oct 5th at 7pm in the IMC at Glacial Drumlin school.

In addition to the usual budget approvals three items will be put before the electorate for approval.  These items give approval to the board for the sale or lease of the Nichols building and site, lease of the Maywood site and sale of 2 residential properties on Jerome Street across from the high school.

The Madison School District has expressed interest in leasing the Maywood site for their Nuestro Mundo Elementary Charter School.  This would be a great opportunity for our district to cut costs while maintaining the building and provide a different opportunity for MG students.  We don't have any prospects for the Nichols property, but by getting authorization it will communicate to potential developers that we are serious about moving forward.

Update:  the meeting booklet can be found by clicking here. 

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.

MG retirement in the news

The Christian Science Monitor reports on the wave of teacher retirements in the Wisconsin with coverage of the MG district and an interview with retiring history teacher Tom Howe. MG has seen 17 teachers retire this year, considerably more than average.

I do think the article falls short on a couple of points:

1) It fails to explain why many teachers are retiring this year: Teachers eligible for retirement are doing so for guaranteed access to retirement benefits that are part of existing contracts, these benefits will be at the sole discretion of school boards in the future.

2) The recent changes to WI law will result over the next several years in less turnover of senior teachers, not more, even including the increased retirements this year. The reduced pay and retirement packages will have teachers working longer before retiring. This will result in actually slowing the "changing of the guard" that the article identifies as a silver lining.

3) I think the idea that replacing senior teachers with new teachers might improve student outcomes is speculative and unproven. While it may be true that younger teachers have attitudes more aligned with current school reform efforts, this isn't necessarily better than experience. In fact we know there is a positive correlation between the level of teacher experience and student achievement.

It should be noted that early retirement benefits were initially introduced to save districts money by encouraging senior teachers at the top of the pay scale to retire. The explosive growth of health care costs, the major early retirement benefit, has significantly changed this equation, although I estimate we still at least break even.

Budget time again

At Wednesday’s (9/14) meeting the Board reviewed the 2011-12 budget that will be presented for approval at the District's Annual Meeting (Oct. 5th). Although the numbers aren’t final until the September enrollment counts and the certification of state aid in October, the estimated general fund expenditures for the year will be $33,753,104. Due to factors including a $650 reduction in the per pupil revenue limit and a $1.4M reduction in state aids, the budget started with a deficit of approximately $2.75M (about 8%) relative to "cost to continue".

The operating fund deficit was closed in three ways:
1)About $900K in cuts that were approved by the board last spring, these include the consolidation of Maywood and Winnequah Elementary schools as well as staff reductions: your student may have noticed larger class sizes, particularly in the high school.
2) Use of $850K in federal ARRA (stimulus bill) funds. The $850K is equal to the cost of about 15 teachers that the district can continue to employ. The ARRA funds have to be used this year and next, we chose to use the entire amount this year.
3) Just over $1M reduction in compensation for the teachers and staff. A teacher will see a reduction in take home pay equal to 12.8% of the health care costs plus half the WRS pension contribution.

Total local property tax collections for general fund revenues are limited by the revenue cap and should be down slightly, but less than 2%.

Fact checking

Update: the version I submitted to the Herald-Independent can be found here. The links to the data I reference are here:

WI pK-12 spending as a % of GDP:

WI pK-12 spending in inflation adjusted dollars:

1998-99 School year expenditures per pupil:

FY2008 Expenditures per pupil:

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Original Post:

Total Wi school funding in 1998 was $7,527, not the $4,956 reported by Sunny in her recent column. Corrected for inflation that's $9899. In 2008 average spending was (correctly reported) $10,791. In real dollars that's an 8% increase, less than 1% per year, not the whopping 64% increase reported by Sunny.

So were did that 1%/year go? Not into the pockets of teachers, who have been losing ground to inflation in the last decade, and not into smaller class sizes (average class size has been creeping up in Wisconsin.) No, any employer will tell you that health care costs have been increased by more than 50% over this period - and school districts feel the same effects. The fact that cost increases are slowly squeezing the life out of our schools is another reason we need to fix the broken health care system in this country.

On with the facts: In 1998 scores on the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) ranked WI in the top 3 among states- but Wi scores have stagnated while the rest of the nation has (on average) been improving significantly. In the latest results WI ranks 15th and falling. These results mirror the funding situation: In 1998 WI had schools among the best funded in the nation, but since then funding has stagnated while on average other states have increased spending. Between 2000 and 2009 average spending in the US on education has increased 17.9%, while in Wisconsin spending has been flat since 2003. As Wisconsin funding for schools sinks to the national average, our test scores have also.

More facts: spending on schools has been sinking as a share of GSP (Gross State Product) for more than a decade. The education "piece of the pie" is smaller than it has been. That means public schools are more affordable now than in 1998, and educational professions are becoming less attractive compared to other endeavors. The recent changes to WI school funding will probably put us below the national average - we should not be surprised when our test scores follow.

These facts reinforce something simple I learned long ago: You get what you pay for. Education is not exempt. I wish our politicians could learn it too.


PS: Apparently Sunny got taken in by CNS news- a Conservative "news" organization which falsely reported the 1998 number - using a slight of hand to link to the wrong report from NCES.

Real Estate:

By law and policy the district can only sell or lease real estate with authorization from the electorate at a public meeting. At last Wednesday's board meeting we unanimously approved three measures to be placed on the agenda of the October 5th annual meeting. The three measures seek authorization from the public to:

1) Sell or lease the Nichols property
2) Sell the two residential properties on Jerome street across from the high school
3) Lease the Maywood property

None of the proposals require we do anything with these properties, but the give the board the authority to take advantage of any opportunities that might come along.

I have said before that I think the district would be better off with the Nichols property working for the community rather than sitting (largely) idle. It is a prime piece of real estate in Monona and could be of significant value to the community. To my knowledge there are no plans or proposals in the works, but finding the right project for the property is likely to take some time. Public approval will let potential developers know we are serious, and makes it more likely that someone will invest the time and effort to develop a proposal.

The Jerome street properties are two houses adjacent to the District tennis courts across the street from the high school (these are actually in the city of Madison.) We've been talking about doing something to upgrade the tennis facility for years - and the neighbors would prefer something to these unoccupied residences. The houses are used by the district for storage, but they aren't really of much value to us - selling them could provide some revenue for much needed facilities maintenance and upgrades.

No one is interested in selling the Maywood property, I think we should keep it for potential future needs. But finding a paying occupant would be of financial benefit to the district, better maintain the building and address some of the community concerns associated with an unoccupied school. As I noted we have seen some interest from the Madison school district as a location for their Nuestro Mundo charter school. An arrangement could be substantially mutually beneficial.

Nuestro Mundo

Today the WSJ covers Madison's Nuestro Mundo charter school and its search for new space. Nuestro Mundo combines (50/50) English language learning students with traditional students to provide a "dual language" program. This enables ELL students to progress in English proficiency and an foreign language immersion program for the traditional students. The data appear to indicate that this program is quite successful and it is popular in Madison.

The Madison School District is looking for more space because the program is crowded into Allis Elementary alongside the traditional elementary program. To that end Madison has contacted us about the possibility of leasing space in the Maywood or Nichols buildings. Nothing has been decided, but I think an appropriate arrangement that provides a financial benefit to the district, additional opportunities to MG students and "keeps the lights on" in one of our unoccupied buildings is certainly worth pursuing.

Two articles on the topic are in today's WSJ - but they aren't available on-line. I'll link to them when I can.

On a personal note - my summer hiatus from writing this blog wasn't intentional. It just happened that way. I have to say its been a big relief to take a break after the intensity of last spring's debates. I'll try and get back in the swing.