Thank you to the Common Council and the Board of Education for doing the right thing on the Tax Incremental Finance District windfall.
Thomas J. Mertz
Category Archives: Budget
Another Principal for a Day
Anjuman Ali of the Wisconsin State Journal was another Foundation for Madison Public Schools principal for a day (see here for Dave Zweifel’s report). Ali was at JC Wright Middle School, where our older son attends.
Where Zweifel ended with the most important message, Ali begins with it:
Madison’s schools are doing a remarkable job of educating children despite challenges posed by changing demographics and shrinking budgets.
But schools need our help to keep giving kids the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in life.
Ali’s words of praise for the Wright staff also ring true:
At Wright, I interacted with an extraordinary group of educators and staff, including Principal Nancy Evans.
As a parent, I can’t say enough good things about Nancy Evans and the entire staff at Wright.
The column highlights the insufficient resources we provide to schools:
There is a looming crisis in K-12 education not just in Madison, but also in other Wisconsin municipalities. And lawmakers, school officials and others have to recognize the magnitude of this crisis and act now.
Much of the budgetary crunch is due to Wisconsin’s school funding formula, which is seriously outdated. The revenue limits do not allow property taxes and state aid to keep up with rising costs. Lawmakers need to examine and change this system. Meanwhile, school districts have no option but to continue to find ways to become leaner
Ali calls for more volunteerism, more help from businesses and individuals and a plea to do what you can to make sure our children have the schools they deserve.
The city and the state’s healthy future depends on children getting a quality education and life skills. Please consider contributing to their success by supporting Madison’s public schools.
I agree with all of this, although I’d put a little more emphasis on enacting a school finance system that would make private contributions a bonus and not a necessity.
Thomas J. Mertz
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Filed under AMPS, Best Practices, Budget, Local News, School Finance, Take Action
You Haven’t Done Nothin’
But we are sick and tired of hearing your song
Telling how you are gonna change right from wrong
‘Cause if you really want to hear our views
“You haven’t done nothing”!
Stevie Wonder (listen)
The state budget deal has been announced. There are some good things for the schools, but the basic structure — with all the problems it causes — remains. Madison will have about a $5 million annual gap between allowed revenues and the cost to continue the same services. The kids in Park Falls will still have to do without so much that that they deserve. Glidden will continue to experience “educational amputations.” Districts all over the state will engage in divisive fights about which cuts will do the least harm, while few will be able concentrate on finding ways to do more good.
In my heart I know many legislators and probably the Governor want to do right by the schools, want to give Wisconsin a system that puts education first, a system we can be proud of. However, right now I look at the band aids in the much delayed budget and start humming “You haven’t done nothin.”
Thomas J. Mertz
Budget Agreement!
Announced this evening. Some details:
Initiatives and Tax Cuts Included:
K-12 Education
1) Funding for School Aids and the School Levy Credit of $525 million including:
a) MPS Academic Excellence Initiative – $10 million
b) High-poverty School Districts – $21 million
c) SAGE program – $27 million
d) Aid to Small Rural Schools – $3.7 million
e) Supplemental Special Education – $1.8 million
f) Four-year old Kindergarten – $3 million
Higher Education
1) University of Wisconsin System – Invests $159 million in the university including full funding for the UW Growth Agenda
2) Financial aid – $32 million
3) Veteran’s Tuition Remissions – $12 million
Jobs for the Future
1) Youth Apprenticeship Program – $1.6 million
2) WI Technical College System worker training program – $3 million
Economic Development
1) Renewable Energy Grants – $15 million in 2008-09 – $30 million in the next biennium
2) 2003 Act 255 Venture Capital and Angel Credits – $7.8 million
3) Dairy and Cheese Plant Modernization Tax Credits – $1.3 million
4) WI Development Fund – $1.4 million
5) Economic Development Promotion – $750,000
6) Soybean Crusher – $4 million
7) Paper Mill Energy Independence – $7 million
8) Ethanol and Bio-diesel Fuel Pumps – $750,000
9) Bio-fuel production tax credit – $2.6 million
Health Care
1) BadgerCare Plus – covering all kids
2) Tobacco Use Control Grants -$5 million increase per year
3) Family Care Expansion – $20 million
4) Foster Care Rate increases – $1.6 million
Tax Cuts
1) Health Insurance Premium Tax Deduction – $11.8 million in 2008-09 and $149 million when fully phased-in
2) Retirement Pension Tax Exemption – $2.5 million in 2008-09
3) Child Care Tax Deduction – $16 million per year when fully phased-in
4) College Tax Deduction – $4.8 million Budget Reserve
1) The budget will end with a reserve of $65 million. With a rainy day fund of $55 million, the state will have a total of $120 million in reserve.
More later.
Thomas J. Mertz
Filed under AMPS, Budget, Local News, School Finance
Quote of the Day
“Out here in Howard, we have growth of students, so consequently they would certainly want to see that amount of money come back to the school. I can understand that. However, I don’t think they want to see coming into one pocket with their property taxes and going out the other with all the taxes that the governor put on otherwise, and that’s where we’re making our stand”
State Representative Karl Van Roy
I really can’t make heads or tales of this as a policy statement (or of all the GOP flip flops and changes on the school portions of the budget).
As I understand it, the GOP now wants to spend more on K-12 education, but doesn’t want to pass a budget that would pay for the spending. That’s like Reaganomics or the way Bush is keeping the costs of the Iraq occupation off the books. Spending is easy; taxing is hard.
This may work as a political posture, but as policy it is juvenile and insulting.
Thomas J. Mertz
Filed under AMPS, Budget, Quote of the Day, School Finance
New Glarus Passes Operating Referendum
Congratualtions to our neighbors. 11 votes. Wow.
Thomas J. Mertz
New Glarus approves $500,000 for schools
State Journal staff
dhall@madison.com
NEW GLARUS — Voters here Tuesday narrowly accepted a proposal to exceed state-ordered revenue caps by $500,000 annually, an amount the district said is needed to adequately maintain technology and curriculum needs and make necessary repairs.
The unofficial vote tally Tuesday night was 616 to 605.
The $500,000 is a recurring amount, meaning the school may exceed the revenue caps by that amount each year. District taxpayers will pick up the entire cost of the increase in the first year it takes effect.
But after that, the state will pick up about two-thirds of the increase — or more than $300,000 — with local taxpayers picking up one-third.
The referendum was deemed necessary following the rejection of two referendum questions in March, when a $21.7 million building request was handily defeated but an additional proposal to exceed the revenue caps failed by only three votes.
Money raised by passage of Tuesday ‘s ballot question will be spent on technology and curriculum maintenance, new boilers at the high school and grade school and new compressor units at the high school, along with other basic building maintenance, according to a fact sheet produced by the New Glarus School District.
District officials estimated the effect of Tuesday ‘s referendum on property taxes for a home assessed at $200,000 would be $257 the first year and $87 per year thereafter, due to increased state aid.
New Glarus is about 25 miles southwest of Madison, and the Green County district currently enrolls 856 students, about 120 more than were enrolled in 2001, according to Department of Public Instruction records.
Filed under AMPS, Budget, Referenda, School Finance
MMSD Receives $710,000 in improvement grant from DPI
Madison schools will receive $710,000 from DPI to enhance principal leadership and to offer further professional development around curriculum differentiation. Read more here.
Filed under AMPS, Best Practices, Budget
TID and School Finance Op Ed
Thomas J. Mertz: Legislators need to focus on flawed school financing
Thomas J. Mertz, guest columnist — 10/06/2007 9:23 am
The earlier than anticipated closure of two tax incremental financing districts may provide Madison Metropolitan School District with $5.4 million — and an opportunity to temporarily escape the full effects of Wisconsin’s broken education finance system and avoid both budget cuts and a divisive referendum this year.
Communities and Schools Together, a grass-roots advocacy organization dedicated to securing the support our schools need, asks the City Council to support the closure of these districts and urges the School Board to use these unanticipated revenues to partially or fully offset the 2008-2009 structural gap between allowed revenues and costs under the state revenue limits.
CAST has been working since March to gather community input regarding an operating referendum. We heard an outpouring of support for strong funding of public schools. We would like to thank all those who have volunteered, offered support or provided input on their priorities to the School Board. We would also like to thank the board and the administration for recognizing the need for a referendum and beginning the process in a timely fashion.
Referendum campaigns are not easy. Madison values education but getting approval of any increase in taxation would be difficult. CAST is confident that district voters would affirm the importance they place on education by supporting a referendum. However, even a successful referendum might exacerbate divisions in the community. The closure of the tax incremental financing districts gives us an opportunity to avoid this for one more year.
In the coming year we will welcome a new superintendent. The closure of the tax districts and the use of that money for operating expenses will allow for a positive period of transition, instead of one devoted to healing the wounds of draconian budget cuts or a referendum campaign.
As beneficial as the tax windfall will be, it will not cure the ills of a flawed system of school finance.
After 15 years of finding efficiencies, cutting over $60 million and eliminating over 600 staff positions, every additional reduction threatens the education of our children, the health of our neighborhoods, and the economic strength of our region. The $5.4 million will allow the schools to continue doing the good they do for one more year, but it isn’t enough to restore all the valuable programs that have already been cut or expand the good with new programs like 4-year old kindergarten.
Absent reform at the state level, the next fiscal year will require an operating referendum to prevent even larger cuts. In order to again look at school budgets as an opportunity to do the most good instead of an exercise in doing the least harm, the state must act to address the fundamental flaws in the way we fund our schools.
At the CAST meeting there was a spontaneous and collective commitment to redirect our energies toward state school finance reform. Our current system is a contradictory collection of underfunded mandates requiring districts around the state to cut about 1.5 percent from their same service budgets annually.
The children of Wisconsin deserve a system that guarantees sufficient resources for all children to achieve, that provides for reasonable local control, that recognizes the diverse needs of our students and communities, and that seeks fairness in taxation and puts education first.
Until the next referendum, CAST will be working with ABC Madison (All the Best for Children) and the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools to support the resolution sponsored by Rep. Sondy Pope-Roberts demanding that the Legislature address the problems of school funding and all other efforts to bring about positive reform.
Community and Schools Together welcomes the prospect of setting aside referendum campaigns to work for fundamental changes in school funding at the state level. Please join us; our future depends on getting this right.
Thomas J. Mertz is co-chair of Communities and Schools Together.
The Capital Times © 2007
Filed under AMPS, Budget, Local News, Pope-Roberts/Breske Resolution, Referenda, School Finance
Quote of the Day
State Rep Brett Davis issued a column and a press release yesterday. In both he touts his support for enacting a full state budget and the assembly bill providing for separate k-12 funding.
I am doing everything I can to get a full state budget approved. Since the Conference Committee can’t agree on every part of the budget yet, at a minimum it is important a good faith compromise be reached now on education and aid to local governments.
Leaving aside whatever merits the passage of the Assembly bill may have as policy, only a fool would believe that it did anything but hurt the chances of getting a full budget passed quickly. I don’t think Davis is a fool but apparently he thinks we are fools. Davis wants to be seen as a moderate who is open to compromise and a friend of public education. Let’s review the record.
On On April 20th Davis said he was “crafting legislation” based on UW Professor Alan Odden’s adequacy plan “to overhaul the state’s school-finance system.” He added: “I’m committed to working as hard as I can for that [have the proposal ready and hold hearing in the Fall].” As of September 18th, his office could not give a progress report or timeline for the legislation or hearings.
On July 11th Davis joined with all but one of his Republican Assembly colleagues to pass a budget proposal that was filled with right wing policy initiatives and would have been devastating to Wisconsin’s schools (more here and here).
When on August 9th the GOP JFC members made a new and almost equally devastating education offer, Rep. Davis appears to have been silent.
As the weeks passed with little progress, the GOP realized that in addition to the much heralded defunding of state and local government programs that would occur due to a delayed budget (starve the beast), no budget would also mean increased property taxes. On September 18th they blinked and sought cover by having the Assembly pass a bill on k-12 funding and local government aids. These bills have zero chance of passing the Senate or being signed by the Governor. They are simply a way for the Republicans to save face after their previous games with the budget didn’t work out the way they wanted. They are also “political sideshow” designed to distract from the GOP’s failure to negotiate the full budget in good faith.
Throughout this period Davis, as Chair of the Education Committee, has refused to schedule a hearing on the Pope-Roberts school finance reform resolution, dismissing it as a political tactic. Funny that he didn’t vote against the political tactic of the GOP Assembly budget, didn’t point out the games being played with education funding in the Conference Committee and continues to champion the dead-on-arrival separate education funding bill — they are all transparent political tactics.
If Rep. Davis is sincere in his concern for schools, his embrace of the Odden plan and his desire for compromise then at very least he should schedule a hearing on the Pope-Roberts proposal and use this hearing to pave the way for a long promised introduction of his legislation based on the Odden plan. The Pope-Roberts resolution simply asks for a solution that meets certain criteria; according to Davis his Odden based bill will meet (or come close to meeting) those criteria.
This seems like a perfect opportunity to work together and move toward a solution, the kind of opportunity a moderate who cares about schools would jump at. Too bad Rep. Davis is too busy tying himself in knots by working for a full budget while stumping for means to take the pressure off the Conference Committee; by attacking supposed Democratic political ploys while participating in GOP charades; by playing to moderates while trying to keep the WMC money flowing.
Davis may think that with a few words in a well crafted press release he can paper over the contradictions in his actions and statements. This time the gap between words and actions is too big and the record too clear for him to get away with it. Free advice to Rep. Davis – maybe next time act like the moderate who values education and looks for compromise that you claim to be and you won’t end up in such a twisted mess.
Thomas J. Mertz
We are not alone #17
Things have been bad in Park Falls for a long time. A $850,000 referendum failed in April. After that they announced an unbelievable set of cuts:
music teacher, one half-time high school physical education teacher, one half-time high school English teacher, one elementary school teacher, one .6-time middle school music teacher, and one special education aide. Further reduction includes five positions due to attrition/retirements.They are currently working on a consolidation with Butternut (another struggling district). Apparently the consolidation will produce some temporary savings but in the long run the combination of a basic state funding system that is designed to fail, declining enrollments and “sparsity” will take them right back where they are now (unless of course our lawmakers enact real reform).
Sparsity is used to describe the special issues faced by large geographic districts with small enrollments, for example the need to staff a French or chemistry class for only a handful of students. These sorts of diseconomies of scale along with the need to maintain schools within a couple hour drive of student’s homes create real challenges and our funding system denies districts the resources they need to meet these challenges.
Meanwhile, (according to the Park Falls Herald) “Impacts of cuts in school district felt”
This is the part that got to me:
Elementary School Principal Michael Plemon addressed the board during his administrative report about the “desperate need for a guidance counselor” at the elementary school.
“I believe strongly that we need this at the elementary level,” Plemon said. “We have got a kindergarten class and a first-grade class, I’m not exaggerating when I say this, where I could already be in a situation of suspending kids from school. We’ve got a few kids in that situation that need guidance. These are children that need help and discussion, and a place for them to go and get some guidance.”
Plemon said he is able to handle the situations and discipline on a day-to-day basis, but that those students aren’t getting the help they need to change the behaviors, and that the concerns include the other students.
“Children today come with a lot more social issues than they once did,” Plemon said, noting the need for assistance with issues including grief, loss, self-control and other social skills, especially anger management. “You’re looking at five to maybe 10 kids in the elementary, but they have this anger management issue every day. Other kids are getting hurt because of this.”
“It is an area I believe is vital for our elementary school,” he said.
Waller said a good rule of thumb is one guidance counselor for each principal. The district currently has one guidance counselor, working in the high school and middle school. Waller said the item would be on the agenda for the October meeting, but many board members felt the need was important and asked if it could be placed on the agenda for the meeting scheduled for tonight, Thursday, Sept. 27.
In response to a question from board member Jean Gottwald, Schuchardt said the position was not in the 2007-08 budget but could be added.
How long can this insanity go on? Make some noise! Call, write, visit any and all legislators and don’t let Governor Doyle off the hook. Come November, let’s work statewide to elect people who will fix this.
Thomas J. Mertz
Filed under AMPS, Budget, Elections, Referenda, School Finance, Take Action, We Are Not Alone
AMPS 