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10/26/2009
Attend Appleton Schools budget meeting tonight
If you believe this is not the year to increase taxes at almost a double-digit rate, share that with the Appleton’s (AASD) school board Oct. 26. The agenda is here. “Community Input” is scheduled near the beginning of the meeting at which time anyone can speak to the Board. Appleton East High School. 7:00. Probably in the LMC (Library); signs will point the way.
I wrote about AASD’s proposed property tax levy Thursday and offered one possible solution.
If the Board and taxpayers suggest bidding out the health care contract, with a potential $millions in savings, and suggest a one-year salary freeze, this would potentially bring down the tax levy to a compromise 5% increase. As I said earlier, this is not the year to increase the tax levy by 9%!
You can comment similarly Monday night or you can simply suggest to the board that the increase is too much in this recession year and ask them to go back to the drawing board.
Jay Weber shared a WEAC letter over the weekend (This is the type of organizing WEAC does behind your back) , asking its members to show up in force, whether in or out of the district, for a Watertown budget hearing.
Some of you receiving this communication will teach in other school districts, but we are asking you to please support us. We need members to fill the chairs and at the appropriate time when public comments are requested, voice your support for our public schools. We would love for everyone to arrive by 5:30 to ensure that we fill the most chairs. We will be attending this meeting to show our support and encouragement of the Board members to levy an increase in property taxes that is a 14+% increase over what was levied last year. If the Board chooses to levy less, there is a strong likelihood of program cuts and reductions in staff, increases in work load and added pressure to cut costs during our contract negotiations.
The letter goes on to detail why this huge levy increase is warranted. Interesting reading. I wonder if WEAC has done the same in hopes of filling the Appleton budget hearings.
Attend. Make your voice heard.
Jo Egelhoff, FoxPolitics.net
COMMENTS
By all means attend tonight's AASD school board meeting. Be a responsible taxpayer by seeking to rein in rising costs.
But before jumping to the overly simplistic solution fostered by the author of this blog, do some homework.
Read Mark Leschke's Letter to the Editor in Saturday's Post-Crescent.
Learn what happens in schools in addition to academic education because the community wants all kinds of other services for their children.
Find out what the cost of state and federal mandates have added to this year's budget.
Ask yourself, what will your family sacrifice to keep costs down, e.g. extracurriculars like sports, music, arts? Expensive special programs for the "gifted," for "non-traditional" learning, for life skills/values training? for before and after school childcare? for pre-schoolers?
As you consider the teachers' health plan with WEA Trust, discover why the AASD switched to it from Blue Cross (Hint: lowest cost bid) and the price of chasing different bids every contract year (Monitor, yes. Spend lots of valuable administrative dollars in a full bid and switch process every year, no!)
And, if you feel it's inappropriate for teachers to lobby on their own behalf to save themselves from compensation decreases as part of the budget process, think about what you do to protect your wages and benefits in your job. (Remember teachers cannot receive performance bonuses, reimbursed self-development, and until this year had an artificial ceiling on raises even during the "good economy.")
Yes, get involved. But restrain knee-jerk emotion with intelligent conversation and fact-finding.
Above all don't get snookered by ideologues and pundits who drop in with a few random pieces of data but refuse to commit the time and hard work to find positive, long-lasting solutions to very complex and divisive community issues. In all likelihood they will flit off to another problem somewhere else when the pot they stirred gets messy and begins to implode.
Dennis (Mon Oct 26 10:36:52 2009)
Dennis, Dennis, Dennis!
You are a WEAC Union Represntatibve, aren't you? The Union has been playing this same old tired strategy for over 40 years. Manage the Politics in Madison to create a VERY favorable political climate and relationship with the Dems. Then, "Play the fiddle" with the local Voters to continually enhance the economic "Package" of the Union Members. Dennis, that's how we got into this awful mess where 80 % of K-12 education is Wages & Benefits. Very simply, the Taxpayer can no longer afford the Total Compensation Package our Educators enjoy. (That's ALL Educators, not just Teachers). There is no logic for maintaining Educators, in a manner that the Taxpayers who pay for them, do NOT enjoy themselves. The "Folks" are losing their jobs, experiencing wage cuts, hour reductions, salary freezes, Benefit reductions, assumming ever increasing portions of insurance costs, etc, while WEAC takes a position that they are NOT part of the solution. Sorry Dennis, but it's not going to continue to be tolerated. GLS
GL Schilling (Mon Oct 26 16:37:28 2009)
G.L. -- Sorry, I'm to disappoint you. I am not now and never have been a WEAC Union rep. If you take the time to check, you'll find that I have been a harsh critic of much that the WEAC Union has done over the years. If elimination of WEAC didn't leave teachers defenseless in the face of moronic minimalists, I would lead the parade to shut WEAC down.
Now that we're beyond the false labeling, perhaps you might take the time to look at total compensation packages of professionals in the Fox Valley as well as job environment and expectations. (By the way most corporations and businesses in the service sector have about 80% personnel cost factors too.)
While you are at it, you might look at all the crap the community requires schools to do that has a very tangental connection to the cognitive growth of children.
If you truly want strong academic performance, carefully screen new employees (teachers and administrators), pay them excellent wages and benefits, and hold them accountable for clearly stated results.
Then drop all the other costly social service activity that adds programs and staff under the "education" banner to the AASD budget. (And watch parents scream.)
In the interest of self-disclosure, perhaps you will share your occupation, household income history, evidence of privation due to taxation, employment loss, wage and benefit impacts (oh yes, not just recent impacts but over the past decade too).
Have you children? Did they participate in any activities or reap any benefits from schooling beyond what they did in the classroom? You might note those too.
As the old maxim goes, "You pay for what you get, though you may not get what you paid for."
The community cannot require the schools to be all things for all people and not incur stiff taxes. Be a leader and demonstrate what you and your family have given up so costs can come down. Then I'll listen more closely to your vociferous protests.
Dennis (Mon Oct 26 17:22:24 2009)
Hi Dennis:
How's this for starters? My Wife and I are 73 years old and have "given up" 34% of our retiremen income since 2008, (and it's not likely to ever come back). Don't lecture me about sacrifices!
And by the way, I'm retired from a Fortune 500 Corporation, and yes, I was an Officer. If you knew anything about major Corporations, in capital intensive manufacturing businesses, you would know that salaries, wages, and all benefits total approximately 30% of total costs. You know Dennis, we're not all in the investment banking business.
And by the way, in education, the 84% is, "all for the children", isn't it?
GL Schilling (Tue Oct 27 19:40:15 2009)
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