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12/12/2008
Taxpayer bailout for AASD?
The news is out. Appleton’s school board is recommending a referendum for the February 15 ballot.
Taxpayers, whether you are employed or unemployed, stretched thin or not, trying to prop up your savings because your job is teetering on the brink – or very well may be teetering in the next three or six or nine months – your school property taxes will increase at about triple the rate of inflation next year. And then the next and then the next.
I’m not sure that makes sense to me. A Post-Crescent article earlier this month shared details of the ‘tiered’ approach: $3.9M the first year, $3.5M the 2nd year on top of that, another $3.5M on top of that the 3rd year and then that same $10.9M every year from there on out.
Here’s why the Appleton Area School District (AASD) – and practically every other school district in Wisconsin – is in red ink mode and, in AASD’s case, is asking you and me what we think about digging deeper into our pockets.
- State funds provide for a major portion of school budgets – and in exchange, school spending is capped to increase at about 2.5% annually.
- State law (the QEO) allows wage and benefit costs to increase by a minimum of 3.8% to avoid potential union contract arbitration.
- Wage and benefit costs at AASD actually rose not 2.5%, not 3.6%, but closer to 5% in the last budget.
Do the math, as superintendents, business managers and school boards must do throughout the state. Revenues increasing by 2.5%. Employment contract costs rising by 5%. I guess you’re going to pretty quickly dig yourself a hole.
Now, wouldn’t one solution all along be to increase costs by 2.5% instead of 5%? (More easily said than done, certainly, as it’s union contracts we’re dealing with. Here’s one district – out of state – that gets the economic picture, as do more and more municipalities and school districts throughout the country – forgoing 5% raises to balance their budget.)
AASD’s school board says that to properly educate our kids, to remain a “strong school system” and “an asset to the community,” we must fund those increases. So ask the taxpayers, when they themselves are having wages frozen, slashed or eliminated all together.
Ok – it’s on a hugely smaller scale, but isn’t it a piece of what got General Motors in trouble? And look who else is looking for a taxpayer bailout…
Jo Egelhoff, FoxPolitics.net
COMMENTS
Great article Jo. The school board is going too far here. They should be having mercy on the taxpayer.
I bet the teachers would take a freeze in pay for a year if they were asked (nicely).
David (Fri Dec 12 06:39:43 2008)
It is 3.8%, not 3.6%, plus .4% for additional graduate credits.
Mary (Fri Dec 12 07:13:18 2008)
Perhaps if we went to two-year-old kindergarten we could broad the base of support for the referendum!
Ray (Fri Dec 12 07:46:56 2008)
Jo,
Just to clarify, the state allows per student revenues to rise about 2.5%-3% per year. However, if student counts are rising, the district's total revenues will rise faster. Since 1999-2000, AASD's total revenue limit has risen an average of 4.1% per year. In three of those years, the increase topped 5%. Schools, like the state, need to think longer term. In years when revenues are growing faster than expected, they need to put money aside for times when revenues grow more slowly, rather than give it away in continuing expenditures.
Dale (Fri Dec 12 08:53:49 2008)
Helpful commments, all. Ray, your thought about 2K was great. Mary, yes, thanks for the correction. 3.8 is correct, and I've corrected the typo in the piece. Dale, thank you for your insights.
Jo (Fri Dec 12 13:35:35 2008)
Before the ASSD comes to use for more money, perhaps they need to look inward and see what administrative postions they can either cut all together or reduce salerys on.
michael potter (Tue Dec 16 19:51:01 2008)
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