Tea Leaves, Budgets and Governance

Maureen Rickman raised some pertinent points in her recent post regarding MMSD budgeting. Observing some of the discussions over the past few months, I found it interesting that when a school board member asked about business services items, teaching and learning (should we really be spending money developing curriculum and "frameworks" in this day and age, never mind the fact that we live in the internet era, the UW and MATC are next door, and that many teachers choose the best tools for their students, regardless of local dogma?) or other items not on the proposed reduction in increased spending list, they never got very far. In one case, the response was (paraphrasing) "if you do that, it will come out of salary savings" which translates to a reduction in the district's equity.

If that is the answer, what can a board member do, in the absence of 3 more votes? Or, if the votes are there, and the Administration does not execute, what happens? What is the recourse? Navigating these challenges is not a simple task.

We'll soon have new leadership in some MMSD departments along with an eventual new Superintendent (props to the board member(s) who recognize this reality and route around the outages). The department changes may be the biggest news of all, particularly, given the timing - before a new super is hired - which is very important, in my view. Laurie Frost looks beyond the "fog". It's interesting that in so many facets of life, one has to step back and try to look beyond the immediate rhetoric.

There are no shortage of challenging K-12 issues at hand. Many on this site have argued (for years) that all budget items should be on the table. I think we're getting closer to that day. I also hope that we'll soon see the last of the "same service" or "cost to continue" or "cost plus" budget approach. After all, spending goes up every year ($333M in 2006 / 2007 to $339.6M+ in 2007 / 2008 - maybe more, we'll see this fall when the "final" budget is adopted).

Related:

• US K-12 Spending Climate
• Re-thinking K-12
• Peter Gascoyne's "A 5 Year Approach to budgeting"
• MMSD historic spending, staffing and student population
• MMSD Health Care Costs.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 4, 2007 7:58 AM
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