Category Archives: finance

by | September 15, 2009 · 9:06 pm

Recipe for Disaster(s), Or the Wisconsin Democrats’ Fall Agenda

I just read the release and memo on the Democratic agenda for the Fall legislative session.  The agenda is  a recipe for disasters.

The disaster that matters to most of us in the state is already in progress as school districts cut programs and services while raising property taxes at rates that have not been seen for years (read this report from Kenosha, look at Rhinelander); as municipalities trim essential services, cut investments that would lead to recovery and growth while also raising property taxes  and fees (here is the latest from Eau Claire); and counties axe public safety and  safety net programs, close nursing homes and like everybody else, raise property taxes and fees (here is a recent report on Dane County).  This Fall budget season is bad; the 2010-11 will be worse if there isn’t bolder action from the state.

The disaster that probably matters most to the Democratic leadership will come in the 2010 elections.  Their vulnerable members will lose if all they bring back to the voters is window dressing campaign finance reforms and tougher drunk driving laws (this isn’t quite fair, some of  the agenda is good — Green Jobs in particular –,  but it is not anywhere near sufficient to meet the crises we are facing).  Even the Democrats in “safe seats” (like in Madison) may well find themselves surprised by challengers from the left who demand better and bolder action.

I don’t care what their polling says, they need to take their heads out of the sand and look around at what is happening with the schools, with the counties, with the cities and most of all with the families they claim to be “Standing Up” for.  They need to look beyond November 2010 and act in the long term interests of our still great state.  Mostly they need to recognize that the revenue and budgeting assumptions they have been working from cannot be sustained.

Some realize this.  Representative Cory Mason is proposing a jobs program funded by higher taxes on those earning over $1 million annually.  A “Save Our Services” campaign has started, seeking to fund essential services via an expanded sales tax base (info on the October 1 Madison rally here).  Last night the Madison Metropolitan School District Board of Education voted unanimously in support of a resolution calling for a sales tax increase dedicated to school funding.  This idea is the focus of a “Pennies for Kids” campaign that the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools is in the process of initiating (this is just beginning, stay tuned).

Many of us would like to see even broader changes in our state’s taxation, budgeting and investment policies, but something has to be done to meet the crisis and these are good steps.  the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future and Wisconsin Council on Children and Families Catalog of Tax Reform Options for Wisconsin is still the best place to begin thinking about revamping the entire system in order to achieve adequacy, equity and sustainability.

If the Democrats stick with their “do little or nothing” agenda, the crises will grow all around the state and come back to hit them hard in November 2010.  When that happens they will have no one to blame but themselves.  With power comes responsibility, with failure of effort and accomplishment comes accountability.

One closing observation:  There is nothing in the Democratic agenda about Governor Jim Doyle’s “Scramble for the Crumbs”/ Race to the Top package.  I hope this indicates that many in the party are too smart to sell what is left of  their souls for a lottery ticket in a rigged game where the payoff is one-time funding far below the needs of our schools ($80 million is what I hear).

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | September 9, 2009 · 12:42 pm

Obama’s Speech and the technology needed to view it

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Well, President Obama gave his speech to school children yesterday (text here, video here) and although the Republic didn’t collapse, the hysteria has continued.

So much has been said about the speech that I’d rather point out some things about access to the speech and technology in education, including recent actions by the Madison district.

As I indicated in a previous post, I’m glad that my children had the opportunity to view this speech in school with their teachers and their peers as a civics lesson.  However, the circumstances were less-than-ideal.  It was brought to my attention that the teachers who instruct my children will have to huddle their class around a computer unless the school decides to hold an all school assembly to use the one projector the school owns to stream it online and blow the image up to a viewable size.

It is not normally an option for them to view it on television in the classroom as they do not have access to C-Span.  At the last minute they were able to tune in on a major network and watch it on the television in their room.

Nowadays, technology has become so pervasive, so essential, so advanced in society, that that the integration into classroom instruction is imperative.  Our children have grown up with technology as their number one way of getting information.  Technology provides for the important bases of communication – the storage of past data and the instant feedback on present information.  Technology continues to expand its beneficial influence into better communication and interaction between teachers and students from all across the globe, better instructional materials that reach out to more people than ever, and better information transfer at lightning speed, among other things.

The transfer of knowledge in education becomes smoother because technology assists in transmitting it in a faster and clearer way.  Technology allows participants in the two-way learning process to communicate and interact better with a variety of audio-visual tools.  Interactive technology and the sharing of resources and curriculum including new knowledge and processes are necessary to demonstrate complex concepts in a clearer manner to our children.  Sesame Street figured this out 40 years ago when I was a child and I defy you to show me one child in our school system that cannot identify the character Elmo.

Technology can be used in many ways as an integral part of the curriculum to meet the needs of diverse learners.  Extensive studies and model schools have shown that educational technology enhances student learning in many cases. Some recent reports have indicated that students who have access to online materials perform better than those who do not. For examples see: Pamela Mendels, “Study Shows Value of Wired Classroom,” “Effectiveness of Technology in Schools, 1990-1994,” (a comprehensive review of over 130 recent academic studies which found that technology can lead to improved performance most notably in math, science, social sciences and language arts),  and  Summary of Current Research and Evaluation Findings on Technology in Education.”  Technology is the answer to all the needs of schools and students, but in 2009 our schools do need to make effective use of the tools available. In the current school funding climate, this is difficult.

MMSD is working to address the gaps of technology in our schools.   This draft Information (Library Media) & Technology Plan was approved by the MMSD Board of Education on June 8th.  The plan reflects the input and ideas from hundreds of staff, students, parents, and business and community partners collected during the 2008-09 school year.   The plan is a road map for what the community believes our priorities should be relative to technology use in our schools.

Input from stakeholders in its development was essential. It is not a static document, but one that is dynamic and subject to change – as technologies do.  One specific objective states we must: “…create a technology advisory leadership team that includes students.”  Some of the key ideas suggested in the technology plan are: an emphasis on professional development when teachers are provided new technology in order to fully maximize its value. A wireless network across all schools.  More use of mobile internet devices like laptops, netbooks, and smart devices like iTouches.  Making the learning management system– Moodle —  much more easily accessible to all teachers and students.  Exploring newer software tools that can save time and expand access like Open Office (as an alternative to Microsoft Office) and cloud computing (like Google Docs).  Enhancing the use of technology as a curricular area and a service learning focus.  Opening the schools as “lighted school houses” with technology as a bridge to the community.

This last is very important because as Madison and other districts move towards increased reliance on electronic communication, the gap between those families with easy access and those without becomes more important. At the same time, the fragile ties between the schools and some of the neediest families will be further strained while the benefits to the most well positioned will increase.

Lots of good ideas.  Some of these are being funded via the ARRA Stimulus IDEA and Title I monies, some from the operating budget and some are on hold till funding can be found.

Let’s hope that the next time the President wants to address the students of this country and encourage them to really take their learning seriously, find out what they’re good at, set goals and take the school year seriously, our classrooms will be a part of the 21st Century educational system.  Teachers and students need to be encouraged to participate in civics lessons in a medium that they have grown up learning in.

Jackie Woodruff

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by | September 4, 2009 · 7:08 pm

Right and Wrong — MMSD Board Members on School Finance, State and Local

I had not recently thought about what was said by Madison Metropolitan Board of Education members as they passed their initial budget in May, but the happenings in Washburn brought them to mind and reminded me that the struggle to recognize that investments in education are a state responsibility requiring a state solution isn’t over in Madison.

As we now know the state budget produced multiple financial problems for MMSD (we know this, but you wouldn’t know it by going to the MMSD budget page or the news releases, or the “recently in the news” — they missed this from Board President Arlene Silviera and everything else that has happened since January).  As a result, the entire Board of Education has been in one way or another looking to the state for long and short term help.

Back in May, that was not the case.  One member got things right; most were too happy with what then seemed like a positive budget to bring up the long term state issues; one got things wrong in an offensive and dangerous manner

Johnny Winston Jr. is the one who got it right.

He revealed the truth, school finance is a state and federal problem and requires at the very least a state solution. Recent developments at the state finance level have moved us further from that solution.

For a variety of reasons (listed below), until the latest state budget Madison had enjoyed relatively painless budgeting in the most recent years. At the same time, the state school funding system remains broken, any of the varied nips and tucks that have been made at the local level have only provided limited relief, they’ve only been partial remediations – and temporary. The real fix has to come at the state level, it must be comprehensive and it must be sustainable.

Lucy Mathiak is the one who got it wrong.

In addition to her misguided championing of local solutions to a state created problem (see here for MMSD’s official and correct position), Mathiak mostly misidentified and wrongly interpreted the main factors that contributed to the recent lack of major harmful budget cuts in Madison.

Here is my list, in approximate order of importance:

  • Tax Incremental Finance District closure windfall (over $5.4 million).
  • Successful Operating Referendum, ($5 million for 2009-10).
  • Confused and overzealous fiscal conservatism in the 2007-8 budget (scroll down), resulting in a $4.3 million general fund surplus (added to the Fund Balance).  Astute readers will remember that the 2007-8 fiscal year was the year that MMSD was a rough budget season and that schools were almost closed and many harmful cuts were made (in my opinion, the two biggest factors in this surplus were underestimates for state special education funding and local salary savings, see more here).
  • A new management team. Superintendent Dan Nerad and Asst. Superintendent Erik Kass have brought new eyes to the budgeting process and found some savings and efficiencies. However, as their experiences in Green Bay and Waukesha demonstrate, there are serious limits to what any management team can do to stave off harmful cuts.
  • Losing students to open enrollment. This made FTE cuts less painful for the 2009-10 budget. The benefits of this are limited and only work when efficiencies of size are present, but because the structural gap in the state finance system is based on per pupil funding, fewer pupils means a smaller gap.

Right and wrong, partial and temporary, these factors are all about played out. The party is over and the bills must be paid.

As Asst. Superintendent Erik Kass said, 2010-11 is looking “ugly,” and I’ll add that this ugliness has nothing to do with mythical local mismanagement (in fact the recent surpluses and the harm caused by the cuts and conflicts that created those surpluses reveal that the very Board members Mathiak praises had pushed the district too far on issues of  budgeting and were the ones closest to mismanaging) and the solution will not be found via equally mythical miraculous local administration and governance.

The new state budget has brought back to MMSD the hard choices needed to make the cuts that do the least harm and to find the fiscal strategies that can be sustained. The Title I and IDEA stimulus money will soften the blows, but that is yet another partial and temporary band-aid.

The self-serving myths Mathiak mouthed back in May are dangerous because they make it harder to convince people that school finance reform must be a priority.  I’m glad I remembered what she said, because these falsehoods must be countered at every opportunity.

Join the movement for real education funding reform.  Check out the School Finance Network; become a member of the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools.

If you do these things, you will be going a long way towards righting some very significant wrongs.

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | September 4, 2009 · 3:32 pm

Sandbagged! Now Teabagged?

School districts and school finance reform advocates were sandbagged by Governor Jim Doyle and the Democratic controlled Legislature.  For years they had said “if you put us in control, fixing school finance will be a priority.’  We helped put them in control, districts built preliminary budgets based on the assumption that even if they wouldn’t enact a fix right away, they also wouldn’t make things worse.

But that is exactly what they did, make things worse.

They did this in many ways.  They cut the money targeted to the neediest students and districts via categorical aid.  They cut the amount of total revenue available to districts to well below “cost to continue.”  They upped the property tax credits, money that never goes near a classroom, and called it more money for education. They saddled school boards and districts with the unwelcome dual tasks of finding new savings and raising property taxes (for more on how this is playing out in Madison, see here and here).  Sandbagged.

Now — as districts are finalizing their budgets,  setting their tax levies and raising property taxes — the teabagger anti-tax crowd is coming out.  So far the only report I’ve seen is from Washburn, but more may well be on the way.

The Ashland Daily Press reports that   80-90 people showed up at the district budget listening session, many came to protest.  On August 18th, the Board of Education had passed a preliminary budget with what is being called a 24% tax increase in the local property tax contribution (I did the math and the mil rate will go up about 15%, not small, but not 24% either).  Like in Madison, there is a combination of a recent referendum, high property values, and most of all, the miserable state budget.  At the time the budget was passed District Superintendent Sue Masterson laid out the choices:

“We are not happy about it, but there is nothing we can do about it.”

… Masterson said cutting back to what would essentially leave “reading, writing and arithmetic” would be damaging to the community. She said that as part of the referendum process, many cuts had already been made and that the district had made as many cuts as they could without cutting the quality of instruction. She said that further cuts could result in dramatically larger class sizes and might require building changes that the district couldn’t afford in any event.

“The only way you cut now is putting 40 kids in a classroom, eliminating programs, which will result in an exodus of new families and existing families from local schools,” she said. “Consumer science programs, music programs, tech ed programs — when you start cutting those kinds of things… well, today’s public education families expect a rounded education,” Masterson said.

This hasn’t changed, but now the voices from the community are louder and more strident.  The Daily Press described the message from the September 1, 2009 listening session (let me note that MMSD has scheduled no listening sessions on their budget revisions):

One message came across loud and clear: The amount of the increase is unacceptable — and they expect the school board to go back to the budget and rework it so the increase is much closer to the 9 percent increase approved last November in a referendum allowing the district to exceed revenue caps. The tough economy makes a big tax increase especially difficult, many said.

…”The bottom line is we need to cut, and we need to keep Washburn houses filled with families.”

As is usual with these things, they were less forthcoming when asked for suggestions about what to cut and how to save:

Many at the meeting were unhappy they were being asked for suggestions for cuts when they didn’t have a line-item budget to look at for ideas, and others said the reason they hire an administrator and elect a school board is to make intelligent fiscal decisions on behalf of their constituents. Still, some suggestions were made.

Those included delaying improvements to the bleachers, cutting the food service program, and cutting administration costs by sharing an administrator with other school districts.

It is likely that there are some savings to be had, but after 16 years of struggling with annual cuts due to revenues that have been inadequate by design, the potential savings are minimal.

I have some sympathy with the people who are unhappy with the tax increase.  They are correct that too much of the investment in education is coming from property taxes.

I also have much admiration for the Board and administrators who are defending education as a valuable investment and have not yet given in to the anti-tax sentiment (contrast with Madison, where sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between the district and the anti-taxers).

The ones I have no use for are the those who say –as one attendee did — they are  “sick of hearing the excuse ‘the state did this to us.'”

This is both wrong — the state did do this to them — and counter productive, because  it cuts off productive protest directed at the state officials who actually have the power to make things better and electoral action directed to replace the ones who sandbagged us.  Getting mad at district officials over this makes no sense.

We’ve heard this sort of thing in Madison before (one sitting Board member still mouths these ridiculous ideas on occasion), but mostly the message that school funding is a state responsibility in need of a state solution has been heard.  This needs to happen all around the state.  Join the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools to help make that happen.

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | September 3, 2009 · 1:17 pm

MMSD Budget and the Death of Journalism

Vodpod videos no longer available.

On August 10, 2009 the Madison Metropolitan School District had their first public discussion about how they might address the the multiple fiscal messes handed them by our state budget-makers.  AMPS previewed this meeting that day.   No professional media saw fit to do likewise.  The issues on the table involve tens of millions of dollars and the the future of the children of Madison.

I attended the meeting and can report that there was not a professional journalist in the room.

Five days later, WISC-TV broadcast the story that appears at the top of this post.  Yesterday morning, the Wisconsin State Journal front page, headline, above-the-fold article was on the MMSD budget and what was presented and discussed at that meeting almost a month ago.  I want to note that there is nothing in the WISC-TV report or the State Journal story that was not before the public back at the start of August.  I have not seen any other stories on the MMSD budget.  Both stories are “competent,” neither was timely and there are some important things that our local media missed.  So new(s)?

Because they were not in the room and apparently did not bother to view the video of the meeting, both reporters missed some fairly big news.  That evening Asst. Superintendent Erik Kass revealed that for the 2008-9 school year MMSD will likely run a $5 million to $7 million surplus.  That’s a lot of money and directly effects the current options before the district.  This surplus follows a $4.3 million surplus in 2007-8 (also largely or completely ignored by the media, despite the fact that MMSD almost closed schools that year and did make major cuts that now appear to have been unnecessary).  The rebudgeting of teacher and substitute allocations being proposed by the administration is based on these surpluses (there was also some cuts that weren’t called cuts back when the preliminary budget was passed and they appear to have been based on similar rebudgeting).

This sad state of  journalism is hardly breaking news.  To cite three recent treatments, Robert Godfrey previously posted on the death throws of education reporting; Andy Hall — a great education reporter — saw the handwriting on the wall and moved on; Brenda Konkel has been noting the dearth of good local journalism and how this diminishes the basis for engaged citizenship; and my old friend Bill Wyman gets a lot right in his “Why Newspapers are failing” post.  I want to add my voice to these and fill in some of the of the other gaps left by our so-called reporters.  Here goes.

If you accept the lowered standards of television news in 2009, the WISC-TV report is actually pretty good.  It gets the basic facts right, gives at least minimal context and even includes multiple sources (two to be exact — Supt. Dan Nerad and MTI Union President Steve Pike).  I’d like more on the wider context of a broken state finance system, the dilemmas of other districts and maybe some reactions form Governor Doyle and the legislative leaders who thought the choices they made were good policy (hello Mark Pocan, hello Mark Miller…we won’t forget who is responsible for this mess).  Even the presentation of the financial information is relatively clear and relatively complete (at least in comparison with the State Journal), something which is not easy to do in a television news report.  My biggest complaint on this one is the lack of timeliness

If you don’t know the topic, The State Journal article  reads like a competent by-the-book, fill-in-the-blanks, news piece.   The problem is that journalists are supposed to know more about their topics than most  readers.  When they don’t, they miss things that the public should know.  Gayle Worland,  State Journal, misses some things.

I want to be clear that this is not about Ms Worland’s failings; I understand that the pathetic business model of local reporting doesn’t allow for, value or reward the development of expertise or the kind of digging beyond the quotes from easily accessible sources that real quality journalism is based on.  I also want to offer a special tip of the hat to Ms Worland for at least doing the leg work to get Andy Reschovsky’s perspective.  In this day and age even a little thing like that shows some professional pride.

One reason the WISC-TV story gets higher marks is that it gives passing mention to an option being floated by the district to refinance debts and use this opportunity to avoid paying $6.69 million in debt service in 2009-10,  a development that does not appear in the State Journal.

I have some questions about this idea and how much is being saved in the long term, whether is best to both refinance the debt and pay some or all of the debt service in 2009-10, and perhaps most significantly are we getting a second opinion on this move; because the proposal was designed in consultation with the Robert W. Baird company, who will profit from refinancing and whose current Managing Director of public finance in Wisconsin is David W. Noack, who, in his last job, sold Wisconsin school districts some “dubious securities,” which have since collapsed (there has been no publicly released documentation on the debt refinance proposal yet).  Lots of questions, none of which are even hinted at in either news story.

Given the centrality of taxation to both stories (especially the State Journal’s) I have to wonder why neither story saw fit to mention that under MMSD’s current plan the property tax levy will be about $7 million dollars less than is allowed under state law.

Again, this is big news. and the reporters didn’t get it.

Among other things it means that the authority granted by the November, 2008 referendum will not be employed (technically, the referendum authority will likely be used and other authority won’t be used but the dollars and cents come out the same).   It also means that for the first time in recent memory (ever?) Madison will not be providing the maximum possible financial effort on behalf of our children.  That gives me pause.

I’m guessing that some of the blame for missing this fact should be allotted to incompetent public relations and spin by the district.  We’ve been hearing about the “Partnership Plan” ad nauseum but now that there is a real action on the table which will mitigate potential local property taxes and can be expressed in dollars and cents, they miss the opportunity to shine the light where it would be most impressive.  You need big screaming headlines:  MMSD REFUSES TO TAX TO THE MAX:  TAXPAYERS SAVE $7 MILLION. Instead this fact isn’t even part of either story.

A side note:  Regular readers will know that I believe a big part of comprehensive school finance reform has to reverse the trend of increased reliance on property taxes, so I have some sympathy with the anti-property tax rhetoric.  However, I do think that much of the what we have been hearing since Superintendent Nerad arrived is subtly counter-productive for comprehensive reform.  Two big parts of the Partnership Plan were that “Mitigating property taxes is good” and that “We can continue to cut and not harm education.”  The anti-property tax message sounds a whole lot like a general anti-tax message unless presented very carefully.  When there are cuts in services and allocations we are being told either that there are no cuts or that the cuts will have no impact on the education being offered.  This invites people to say “keep on cutting” and to forget that there have been cuts for 16 years.  Nerad has made a good case for supporting education and comprehensive reform in other contexts, but the result of these mixed messages is cognitive dissonance.

Back to the State Journal story for two last, quick items.  First, other than the Reschovsky quote, there is little in the way of context or the state finance system or even the local context of 16 years of cuts.  Last, the quote from Erik Kass on the 2010-11 budget near the end is true and needs to be heard:

“These (numbers) are ugly.”

Local news sources have an essential role into play in keeping local institutions and government vital and honest.  To fulfill this role requires that reporters develop expertise and have the time and space to cover stories in some depth.  If the reporters don’t tell the public what is going on, most people won’t bother to seek out the information themselves and will consequently neglect opportunities for involvement and vote from ignorance.   This is what is happening in Madison.

I read school related news from around the state and in the local weeklies and I find a much higher level of coverage of local news than we see in Madison.  These papers serve their communities.

As Bill Wyman notes in the essay linked above, one reason that newspapers are failing financially is that they aren’t providing news.   So, as the Wisconsin State Journal and Capital Times parent company touts their revamped (and ugly and hard to navigate) madison.com,  perhaps offering timely and well-informed stories about local matters could be given some consideration too.

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | August 31, 2009 · 6:23 pm

WAES School Funding Reform Update

waesgraphic

From the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools; table of contents below, click here for pdf of the full update.

  • Now is the time to sign up for funding reform discussion
  • Madison and Beloit newspapers call for funding reform
  • Racine and Stevens Point looking at ways to head off budget cuts
  • WCCF fights for, wins changes for Homestead Tax Credit
  • Four WAES members renew membership … now it’s your turn
  • WASB resolutions for 2010 are due on Sept. 15
  • New report compares public, private school expenditures
  • Group says it’s time to “get real about helping rural schools”
  • DPI has great glossary of school-funding terms
  • Help WAES correct e-mail update glitch
  • School-funding reform calendar

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | August 25, 2009 · 5:03 pm

Ready, Set,…No

traffic light redGeneration X, “Ready, Steady, Go” (click to listen or download)

1910 Fruitgum Company, “1, 2, 3 Red Light” (click to listen or download)

With  much joy and no little fanfare, the preliminary budget passed by the Madison Metropolitan School District in May restored the “Ready, Set, Goal” conferences that teachers and parents found so valuable.   With the opening of school less than one week away “Ready, Set, Goal” conferences are not on the schedule.  At best they are on hold — perhaps until after the potential to shape those crucial days and weeks –; at worst they will not happen at all.  Very disappointing.

Apparently there are contractual issues that have not been settled.

I don’t know what the issues are.  I do know that with most of four months to work with, there should have been a way to make the conferences happen.

There had been or is  a memorandum of understanding in place  to establish “the terms… should finances become available to reinstate the program.”  MTI included a desire to renew that understanding in an April 2009 negotiations update.  I can’t find a copy of the memorandum, so I don’t know what those terms are/were.  I also don’t know if one or both parties are seeking changes to those terms.

While on the topic of “I don’s know,” (lots of them today) I’d like to know what is being done with $267,000 cost included in the preliminary budget (since shifted to stimulus/ARRA sources).

I’d also like to know why at their last meeting the Board was told that they needed to approve $98,918 in ARRA IDEA funding and $160,576 in ARRA Title I funding for “Ready, Set, Goal” conferences in 2009 and what will happen with that money?

Mostly, I’d like to know how such a positive thing went awry.

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | August 20, 2009 · 12:04 pm

Schools and (Property) Taxes — Misdirection, Wrong Direction

conjurerAs the state budget was being finalized we heard a lot from the Governor and legislative power players about how they had not raised taxes significantly (and here).  That talk was meant to direct attention away from the the very significant increases in property taxes that the state budget required from school districts who needed to honor contracts and preserve as much in the way of educational quality as possible while dealing with the biggest gap in recent memory between revenues allowed and/or  provided by the state and educational costs.

This misdirection has bled into outright falsehoods when the Governor has asserted that ARRA stimulus money will provide sicgnificant property tax relief (see here also).

I don’t like this misdirection and I really don’t like that the shift to property taxes is the wrong way to go with school funding.  Governor Jim Doyle knew this in 2005 when he issued a column titled “Freeze Property Taxes, Not Education.”  Both the budget he signed and his recent proposals that would allow districts to raise property taxes if they jump through a series of hoops indicate that he has lost this knowledge.  See here for a position paper from the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools and here for a plan from the School Finance Network that would adequately fund education and provide property tax relief.   Maybe someone from the Governor’s office could take a look and refresh his memory.

A recent editorial from the Oshkosh Northwestern asserting that “Property tax bills will define Doyle’s legacy” indicates that the misdirection didn’t work.  I hope not, I hope that when the bills come due the anger is directed at state officials and not the struggling local school districts.

School property tax levies will not be finalized until October and the bills won’t hit taxpayers until December, but the size of these property tax increases is starting to become clear as districts around the state consider how they will balance the books.

Racine is considering a 12.08% , mil rate increase.  At a community meeting on the proposal the message was that raising property taxes isn’t good, but it is better than more cuts to education:

Speakers favored raising taxes over cutting district staff or programming, which they said would harm children’s education and subsequently harm the local economy and the future.

“We can’t expect our children to be productive and informed citizens if we don’t adequately invest in their success,” said Jennifer Levie, 39, of Racine, a Unified parent and educator. “It’s unacceptable that we would have to make additional cuts to other critically needed programs.”

Taxpayers seemed to feel this way despite the recession and Racine’s high unemployment rate.

“I feel the crunch sometimes when our taxes are raised but I know it is worth it,” said Maria Morales, a Racine Unified grandmother, senior citizen and city taxpayer who supports a tax rate increase. Morales was one of 13 people who spoke at the budget hearing, attended by about 50 community members.

At the local level the choices are tough because at the state level our elected officials refused to make the tough choice to revamp Wisconsin’s revenue system.

Things mostly are in place for for very bad school budget choices in 2009-10 and 2010-11 (a “Cents for Schools” sales tax could provide some emergency relief as well as the basis for longer term school funding improvements).  If we want to stop this trend from extending further, the time to act is now.

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | August 19, 2009 · 5:04 pm

How Long, How Long Blues

Leroy Carr. “How Long, How Long Blues, Pt. 1” (click to listen or download)

There was an interesting quote from my State Representative, Mark Pocan, in the Wisconsin State Journal story on the prospects of Governor Jim Doyle’s agenda as a lame duck.

But Pocan acknowledged fundamental reforms of school financing would be difficult to achieve soon given that they would likely cost money that the state doesn’t have.

“The real comprehensive change of how we fund schools is going to be difficult to do over the next eighteen months,” Pocan said.

“Difficult,” does not mean impossible.  Unfortunately, this sounds like yet another lowering of expectations.

One sure thing  is that we’ll never know how difficult if Pocan and his colleagues don’t try.

Another sure thing is that there has been no public attempt at comprehensive school funding reform in the months since the Democrats won control of both houses under a Democratic Governor (and no, Doyle’s stitched-together attempts to win favor from Arne Duncan do not count).    Please try.

Reading Pocan’s remarks I was reminded of FDR’s first hundred days and what could be accomplished with political will.  Here is a list:

First Hundred Days Legislation

March 9 – June 16, 1933

March 9 Emergency Banking Act

March 20 Government Economy Act

March 22 Beer-Wine Revenue Act

March 31 Creation of Civilian Conservation Corps

April 19 Abandonment of Gold Standard

May 12 Federal Emergency Relief Act

May 12 Agricultural Adjustment Act

May 12 Emergency Farm Mortgage Act

May 18 Tennessee Valley Authority Act

May 27 Securities Act

June 5 Abrogation of Gold Payment Clause

June 13 Home Owners Loan Act

June 16 Glass-Steagall Banking Act

June 16 National Industrial Recovery Act

June 16 Emergency Railroad Transportation Act

June 16 Farm Credit Act

Doyle has about 540 days left.  If he or members  of the Senate and House want to fulfill the promises they have made over and over again, if they want to redeem themselves for what they did to education in the most recent budget, if they want to have something positive to run on in 2010, if they want to invest in our state’s future, if they want to leave a legacy they can be proud of…comprehensive school finance reform is a must and they have to get to work now.

Please try.

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | August 18, 2009 · 2:08 pm

“Let’s get to work.”

United States Office for Emergency Management. - 1941

United States Office for Emergency Management. - 1941

A hopeful voice emerged today in an editorial in the Wisconsin State Journal, a venue that wasn’t always convinced in the past of the need for education finance reform.

School finance reform should be at the top of Gov. Jim Doyle’s to-do list before he leaves office.

Reform won’t be easy.

Yet fixing the state’s broken system of paying for public education has always been a monumental task. That’s why so many politicians — Democrats and Republicans — have largely ignored it for so long.

Doyle, who announced Monday he won’t seek a third term, has advantages in pressing for major change now, even if he’s viewed as a lame duck.

The Democratic governor won’t have to fear the political repercussions of reform because he’s leaving anyway. And his fellow Democrats who control the Legislature might be happy to let Doyle take ownership of the thorny and complicated issue. Then Doyle can be the fall guy if special and local interests balk at difficult yet necessary state decisions.

Without reform, school districts will only face more pressure to scale back, threatening the quality of public education that’s so vital to a strong economy.

Doyle and the Democrats lifted state-imposed limits on teacher raises earlier this year. That means the biggest expense for schools — employee compensation — is about to jump.

At the same time, Doyle and the Legislature cut state aid to schools while maintaining school revenue caps. That leaves schools with less money to pay its climbing expenses. And the vise will only get tighter.

We hope Doyle was serious Monday when he pledged to “move forward” with school finance reform despite his looming departure.

Doyle told the State Journal editorial board in February that he would unveil far-reaching changes to state policy on school finance this fall. Without a lot of detail, Doyle suggested he would require savings on health benefits for teachers. He also would allow districts more revenue if they agreed to a list of best practices to improve student performance with accountability for results.

The effect on property taxpayers is unclear.

Doyle has talked about fixing school finances for years. He’s made a few tweaks but never finished the job.

As Doyle said to his staff at Monday’s press conference: “Let’s get to work.”

I myself remain skeptical, but hopeful, Governor Doyle will “finish the job.” We’ll keep you posted of any new developments.

Robert Godfrey

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