By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
While most of the reaction to Gov. Scott Walker’s recently released bi-annual budget seemed to fall on the University of Wisconsin system, local school districts will be faced with funding cuts as well.
Burlington Area School District Superintendent Peter Smet explained Monday night at the general School Board meeting that the district will be looking at roughly $500,000 less in categorical aid.
Districts are being told, Smet said, that the revenue limit increase is zero, plus a drop of $150 per pupil in categorical aid. Multiply that times the number of students in the district, and Smet arrived at the half-million dollar loss.
“Burlington School District will have $500,000 less to deal with next year than we had to deal with this year,” Smet explained after the meeting. “Those are the early reviews.
“It’s going to be very challenging for local school districts to deal with,” he added.
School districts will not get solid estimates on general state aid until the summer, but have to build a budget over the next several months and approve it in the fall.
The final budget will be approved after state aid numbers are finalized in October, pending total enrollment in the district.
BASD has been fighting several issues over the last few years, including declining enrollment. The “tools” provided to the district through Act 10 – Gov. Scott Walker’s legislation that limited public union bargaining power and required employee contributions for retirement – are still available, but in large part have been used.
Smet said the district is in a position where it has to balance the needs of students, parents and teachers.
“We have to maintain a competitive environment to attract and retain quality employees, and we have less resources to do that with,” Smet explained.
The district is also waiting to find out what employee benefits will costs for the year.
Smet said the administrative team – which includes Business Manager Ruth Schenning and school principals – will meet to craft a budget to respond to the information they have so far.
“It’s going to take all of our collective expertises to find a solution that is reasonable and balanced for all parties,” Smet said.
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I was led to believe that this awesome, must have it 4K program would help Burlington get more state money. And based on the current rankings, where are these quality teachers we need? Waterford?
If you would of read the whole 4k agenda, you would of read that the district would be on the hook for the price of the whole 4k program for the first year. Facts are a butch aren’t they!!!
Eliminate Schedule B… will save the district close to $300,000+ a year.
What is Schedule B? A quick Google brings up mostly DOT/DMV sites…
Thanks.
Schedule B is a pool of money that is used to pay staff for doing extra during the school year. Ex: A teacher will be listed as the “class adviser” will make anywhere from $600-$1600 extra per year depending on what they do. “Class Adviser” to me = Guidance Councilor so why is it needed? Other examples are staying after as a chaperon for an event of some sorts, etc.. coaching, etc.. To some, many will say this is just penny pinching and all that but honestly… a penny saved is a penny earn as the old saying goes. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Thanks for the info – appreciate that!
There is also a saying “penny wise pound foolish.” While you can point to instances of abuse (such as a sport coach getting paid to show up for a few hours and do next to nothing) or argue priorities – most of these positions when calculated on an hourly basis – including the fact of no benefits added – are a fraction of the rate the staff is paid at for regular duties. Considering it enhances the relationship with the students making the main duties more effective – and that lacking volunteers or resources to screen out unwanted volunteers/part-time employees would be significant – in most cases this “add-on” pay is a great deal for taxpayers.
Maybe if when ACT 10 was available, the School Board would have used those to allow for an increase in contributions to the Teachers. Instead they said an increase of Health Insurance Cost isn’t something we can do to our Teachers since they have sacrificed too much already.
Those quality teachers are there every day teaching our children. It is sad that people feel the need to attack the men and women who are dedicated to educating our children rather than recognizing the harm that Governor Walker has done and continues to do.
enough of the hyperbole already. Because one suggests school district employee’s healthcare and retirement contributions should fall in line with the public sector doesn’t mean they are “attacking” teachers! Enough of the BS rhetoric!
Would you also then be willing to pay them cash compensation in line with the private sector? These folks have at minimum bachelors degrees and many have masters degrees. People make a rational economic decision to trade out the mobility and cash compensation in exchange for security and benefits, and you’re looking to cut that out to save yourself a couple hundred bucks on your property taxes.
Start privatizing some services…janitorial service, grounds service, food service, nurses, get rid of grade school counselors (absolutely waste of money), Library aides…really, aides for the library???? Health Aid ?? Associate principals, family and consumer services teacher, Administrative Assistant to the Asst. Superintendent,
??
Amen! Thank you for the points you brought up. If the school district cant find ways to reduce spending, they are not trying very hard.
“The more informed you are, the less arrogant and aggressive you are.” ~Nelson Mandela
I think if you spent time in our schools you would have a better understanding of just how important each position is to the education of the students in our district. Library aides, for instance, are now responsible for managing the school libraries since there has been a dramatic cut in librarians over the past years. Not only are they responsible for daily checking in/out of student and staff library materials, reshelving of all those materials, processing incoming and outgoing interlibrary materials, processing new materials for staff/student use, etc…..they are also responsible for supervising and assisting students sent to the library for research, study hall, and computer lab use….and most of them also have added extra daily ‘duties’ including morning and after school bus duty, outdoor playground duty, lunch room duty, and crossing guard duty.
Spending time in our schools would also reveal to you just how important and necessary school counselors are…not only to students who specifically need their services in sensitive and personal issues….but also by working with staff and teachers to
create and maintain a socially healthy and safe environment for learning.
And in case you had not heard Walker is not satisfied with damaging public education alone. He is slashing funding for one of the finest university systems in the world. As stated by the UW Madison Chancellor “To give you a sense of the size of $90 million, if I eliminated the five smallest schools here at the university, simply, completely shut down and gave no more money to and closed the schools of business, law, nursing, pharmacy, and veterinary medicine, we would not quite fill the hole for that $90 million,” Chancellor Rebecca Blank on what Scott Walker’s anti-education measures are doing to UW Madison.
Scott Walker will have to continue to attack education. His policies have resulted in declining tax revenues for the State. A large deficit is looming.
Walker has been a GIFT to education and a GIFT to kids. MORE money for the classroom and test scores are up all over the state since ACT10!
Test scores are not up. What scores are you talking about? If it is the 4th 8th and 10th grade scores most of the ups and downs of those are due to the selection and changes of the tests. I do not think that we have had any testing strategy that has remained unedited or totally replaced in the last 15 years. So, they are not a reliable instrument. If you are talking about the ACT test then those scores are also down. For decades Wisconsin was ranked #1 but we have slipped to sharing a broad berth of the #2 levels in the last two years.
Instead of just assuming that school counselors are a waste of money, why not talk to the award winning counselor in your school system? She spent many years as grade school counselor and now is at Dyer. Perhaps she can give you real information about the problems that today’s students face and why school become their only safety net and support system.
It is hard to believe how gullible people can be. The district is losing $500,000 dollars funding from the state and you are blaming the district? For what?!? Educating your children? All this Monday morning cost accounting isn’t going to change the fact that we (yes we! these are our schools!) are going to come up short this year. All this Act 10 tool box nonsense does not come close to compensating for the lose in revenue. Those one-time savings are gone.
The district depends on those dollars to educate YOUR children. I am not sure what the district is going to do about the lost. Salary raises are below the cost of living, teachers are paying into retirement, insurance and healthcare benefit are now at or below that of private sector. The list of cost cutting measures taken over the last four years is endless. Now what? You should be more concerned about how this shortfall will effect you and your children than trying to fix problems you don’t understand.
Start privatizing some services…janitorial service, grounds service, food service, nurses, get rid of grade school counselors (absolutely waste of money), Library aides…really, aides for the library???? Health Aid ?? Associate principals, family and consumer services teacher, Administrative Assistant to the Asst. Superintendent,
Yes, I read your earlier suggestions. By the way the food service is already outsourced and sorry you feel counselors are a waste of money. But let’s say the district does all of these things. That’s not even close to a half million dollars. Then what? The problem isn’t how the district spends money. The problem is the continued lost of state aid over the last four years. Dollar for dollar our district is getting lest money from the state then it did in 1998 and it continues to get less money each year yet the demand is that the quality of education must improve each year. You can’t have both and no matter how many half-baked quick-fix ideas we come up with it will not change the fact that this is more than a school district problem. This is problem for the entire community. These are our children and our schools.
I cannot speak for all the services some want to cut but the libraries in the elementary schools employ 2 librarians, one of these rotates through all the schools and obviously cannot be in all of the schools all 5 days of the week. Thus library aides are needed to check in and out books for the kids, file books etc. So feel free to sign up and file books as I do as a volunteer, its a never ending job, these kids read a lot.
Huh … Why is it that Burlington had a mass exodus of teachers last year? If only there was some reason, something that we could identify that might indicate why they would want to leave and teach elsewhere. I guess we will never know. Now that BASD will be short $500,000 there won’t be any money to hire a consultant to figure this out. If only we knew the reason.
Would you believe that the fifth most important service export for the US is….Education! It is also one of the fastest growing exports. Yet our governor has chosen to attack one of the most prestigious institutions of higher learning in the world, UW Madison. Continue to undermine education and you undermine an export market that could soon be greater than $150 billion per year! But we will lose that market unless we maintain our educational standards and invest in education.
Yes, this is a community problem and truly a statewide problem. Sadly, quick fixes will not work. We have a governor who gets his “Big Bold Plan” from people out of our state and the plan is very anti-educational. Local newspapers all across the state are reporting the huge impact on their schools. The “tools” for the schools have all been used and the result was to cut about $8000.00 or more on average a year from teacher’s salaries and benefits. That “tool” been gone for awhile. Let’s look at higher education. The cuts to UW Madison are huge, $90 million. They could close the schools of business, law, nursing, pharmacy, and veterinary medicine, and not fill the hole for that cut. All the other universities had a similar impact. Layoffs will start soon. The decline of our educational system kindergarten to doctoral has begun. Our reputation as a state is on the slide. One researcher who was expected to come to UW Madison is going elsewhere taking along with them all the grants and corporate funds. That’s free outside, non taxpayer money. The funds were enough to give a very large team jobs. Gone. As for hitting the teachers has helped, you are wrong. PLEASE do not say that test scores are up. In Wisconsin the ACT test score for decades put us in first place nation wide. We are now in with several states in a wide second place berth. This is a drop. As for the elementary, middle school and high school test scores, you must look deeper. The tests that you are talking about are not the SAME test. The tests have changed over and over again in the past 15 years. They cannot be used as an accurate predictor.
The UW system has its problems. Costs are getting out of control yet “esteemed, tenured” professors are earning high 6 figure salaries while only teaching one class. The college debt in this country is out of control. The Rising costs are making it hard for lower income people to even attend secondary school. Funny thing is the liberal democrats are the ones running these schools yet at the same time putting education out of reach for low wage earners. Time for change.
I’m not a liberal Democrat but even so I fail to see your point on how cutting funding will control the cost of a college education. If the state is not willing to fund colleges then where in the name of all that’s holy do you think the money is going to have to come from to pay for a college education. It will be dumped in the lap of the students. How’s that for putting education out of reach for low wage earners. Time for change alright.
The trouble with teasing out extreme examples such the “esteemed, tenured” professors earning a high 6 figure salary is that it distorts the full truth and is meant to mislead. Politicians on both sides do this all the time and we should avoid those distortions. You cannot look just at the outliers when reviewing a complex system such as a university. Those “esteemed professors” may be researchers who command a huge salary but are also the “rain makers” who bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars well above what they are paid from grants and corporate donations. The median salary at UW Madison is $51,000 with the average (this will include the outliers and the coaches with the huge salaries) is $62,846. These salaries compare to Marquette and other Midwestern universities. As for tuition, the state run universities (or liberal run) charge on average $8,760.00 while the nonprofit private universities charge $26,500 on average. These include some of the lower price two year “institutes”. Marquette’s tuition is $36,000. So, the state schools are a great bargain and should be preserved and supported as a state treasure. In some areas of the state they are the main economic engine.
The University of Wisconsin System’s Annual Accountability Report of 2013-14 shows UW Madison faculty in 2012, on average, taught 2.0 group-instruction courses and had 6.3 hours of direct contact with students per week. In addition, they taught an average of 6.6 students in one-on-one directed study or research settings.
I did a quick search via Madison.com and The highest-paid Prof. I could see was $296,000. There are a dozen or more Dean’s many of them making well over $400,000
i believe Susan Theresa answered your allegations.
Again, we have gone to use the outliers as the example. This does not lead to a full understanding. Researchers and Deans come with years and years of experience, much like CEOs. They also find and bring in outside money. Deans work to get grants and fund-raise much of their day. They bring in far more than what they are paid. Another example would be the football coaches for the Big Ten (or 14) who make about 5 million but the sport also generates money to the good. You cannot make easy judgements from the outside. I cannot explain to anyone the salary scale of a company such as Abbott Labs where the CEO makes $20,529,515 and the researchers make $140,000. There is probably a good reason for the salaries. They must feel as if the CEO brings a value to warrant that amount. I know that you feel that you have a say in salary oversight of the UW System because you help to pay for this in your taxes. Unless you are a shareholder of Abbott you probably do not feel that you have a say on their pay rates. However, if you buy drugs, or certain brands of paint, or contacts, or if you have diabetes, you probably pay more to Abbott Labs than what you pay towards the UW System.
To judge and state that salaries of Professors and Deans are out of line and that they bring little value to the system, based only on a quick Google search is not a fair and thoughtful analysis. It leads to snap judgements and may influence others to judge, vote, and make decisions on limited information of a complex system. How do I know this? Someone who knew more than me corrected me when I made a similar statement. So, I did deeper research and found that it is very complex. I am sure that there are a few free riders in the 1000s and 1000s of UW employees but they are not the reason to bring down the entire system and label it as being mismanaged.
This was the point DMankel stated… “UW Madison faculty in 2012, on average, taught 2.0 group-instruction courses and had 6.3 hours of direct contact with students per week.”
It is fine to pay them a very large salary, but maybe they should put in a little time to actually work. If not we have to pay another teacher to work. Which believe it or not would cost more money. That is kind of what is being talked about, making some of these high payed people actually work. Shouldn’t be an issue.
What is average? In statistics there is the mean, the mode, median and the range and all are considered “averages”. You must always look to see which one gives the best picture of the real situation. The “average” wage, for example, for Abbott Labs would be $10,304,757.50 because of the huge salary of the CEO. But the “average” worker there is not getting that amount, so is it really the average?
When talking about time spent in the classroom the “average” can be skewed just as dramatically. There are researchers who are expected by donors to spend most of their time just doing research. Those around that faculty member benefit and share in the work and in turn pass that along to others (students) in a manner that can almost be called “on their behalf” so that the focus on the research is continuous and productive. Universities cannot be viewed as a “school” with “face-time” as the model for learning much like a high school. We have to shift our mind set when viewing situations that are not totally knowledgeable about. There is a thing that is called “the illusion of knowing” which frames our thinking and makes us blind to what is really there. It happens all the time. The trick is trying to be aware of that and doing more careful thinking. That’s pretty hard.
I’m glad that some researcher just may have found the cure for AIDs while not teaching much at all. I would not want the next big thing in cancer to be delayed by an outsider’s requirement that that researcher lecture and grade more students because that seems right.
John I don’t think you understand the way that a world class learning community functions. Those professors are engaged in ongoing research that contribute to our understanding of science and technology. If they spend 6.3 hours of direct contact with students per week it is backed up by hours of work in the laboratory, in consultation, in formulating and disseminating knowledge. Walker dropped out of college but had he remained to do graduate work he might have appreciated the importance of the research conducted by these intellectual giants (which does not describe our governor). Their research has advanced our knowledge of medicine, surgery, basic science, and human behavior. Their research is also why thousands of graduate students flock to US universities. Those foreign students have the potential to bring in $150 billion to the US economy, the fifth most important service export.
Glad we are all about solving UW Madison’s problems but closer to home our community has it’s own issues. OUR schools have lost funding that they did not deserve to loose. This is especially problematic after a continuous lose of state funding over the last five years. We can all point fingers at the “District” say it is their problem, and spout all sorts of quick fixes but bottom line is these are our community’s schools and these are our community’s children and like it or not this is our community’s problem and not just a problem for the “District”. And like it of not with this short fall in state funding our financial investment in our schools just may have to go up.
The bottom line here folks is that Education should be our “sacred cow.” There should be a law that protects the State’s Education Fund from being raided when it comes to the folks in Madison trying to plug holes in the State’s budget.
It’s pretty simple… President, US Senate, Congress, Governor, State Senate, Assembly (of any party) says I won’t raise your taxes, gets elected based of statements like that. When it comes time to fix budget shortfalls at the Fed or State level they all scramble to save face saying, “I held strong and kept my promise to my constituents” while in reality raiding more important programs to assist in fixing budget shortfalls, thus creating a trickle-down effect from the Fed to the State to the local level…. and who gets the worst of it you may ask? “THE LOCAL LEVEL”
So you have elected officials at the local level who become vilified trying to: A.) Keep taxes low while trying to maintain a quality education. Basically the guys at the local level have their hands tied year after year trying to do what’s best for everyone when in reality it’s the folks at the State and Federal level who cause issues like this. Of course there are many factors that contribute to loss of state funding so I am not saying this is the soul issue of this discussion.
First of all, state aid is tax dollars. Secondly, there many things the district can do, some of which I’ve outlined above to shave significant costs…not one time costs, but annual real dollar savings! We simply don’t need counselors in grade school. Contract out some maintenance and other services. Do we really need to pay life long retirement for janitors? It would be much cheaper, year after year, to contract it out. And that is just one very simple example. Food service is another.
Frankly we dont need you or anyone telling school what they need. We need full vouchers to all parents with knowledge and testing standard for schools to get payment and let the marketplace decide. You’re talking out of your …
“First of all, state aid is tax dollars” Yes public schools are funded through public tax dollars. That’s why they are called public schools. I will never understand why some people find this surprising.
Food Service is already contracted out through Aramark. Has been for years……….
I also feel you completely missed the point of my entire statement D Mankel… I think for the most part we agree on some things, other things, not so much.