Here is an excerpt from the article in this morning’s State Journal that deserves comment: Matthews said it was worth looking at whether layoffs can be avoided, but he was less optimistic about finding ways to achieve that.
He said MTI’s policy is that members have to have decent wages, even if it means some jobs are lost.
The last teachers contract provided a 1 percent increase in wage scales for each of the past two years. This year’s salary and benefits increase, including raises for seniority or advanced degrees, was projected at 4.9 percent, or $8.48 million. Teachers’ salaries range from $29,324 to $74,380.
“The young teachers are really hurting,” Matthews said, adding that the district is having difficulty attracting teachers because of its starting pay.

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The Capital Times has posted consolidated links to its referendum coverage, editorials, and forum responses to editorials on the May 24 questions. The URL is:
http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories/index.php?ntid=40948

Representative Frank Lassee’s May 19 weekly column focuses on school funding in Madison.

For Public Schools: $9.6 Billion:
Madison schools spend above average, nearly $13,000 per kid

To read the column, go to:
http://www.thewheelerreport.com/releases/May05/May19/0519laseenotes.PDF

Click to view a larger aerial image
Crestwood elementary school has sat on top of a hill (aerial photo) for over 100 years. It’s geography is cartoonish as it is on the top of a hill while the playground, or as the students call it, the “battlefield” lays far below a slopping grassy hill and the street in front of the school drops below quickly to Old Middleton Road. During our Wisconsin winters with ice and snow the students rarely enjoy the playground or the “battlefield” as it is too slippery to return to class and muddy when not slippery. Therefore, the students spend most of the year playing on a tar surface blacktop that doubles as a parking lot for large events. CAPT, Crestwood Ass. Parents And Teachers, has had an ongoing discussion with the district for 10 years to resurface the blacktop, which is cracked and falling apart, and add a playset for the winter months but have been discouraged by the $50,000 to $60,000 estimate quoted to solve this problem.

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I oppose the Leopold School referendum.
I oppose it not because I’m a Republican (I’m not), not because I’m a Democrat (I’m not, though the Mayor would have you believe that that would constitute an oxymoron — a sad commentary on what it means to be a Democrat, seems to me), but because opposing the Leopold referendum is the responsible decision.
(My political leaning, if you must know: A left wing conservative! “Always do the right thing, leaving as much money as you can to do more right things.”).
The Leopold referendum wastes $10M over 15 years.
The only real motivation for this blindness was “we promised the Leopold parents back in 2002”, and great lobbying by the Leopold crowd — to the potential detriment of other schools and kids in the district. Placing this promise in perspective, in 2002, when the promise was first made, the estimate for a new school at Leopold was $7M. In 2004, the initial estimate became $11M; the referendum now calls for $14.5M — a 200% increase from 2002. Quite a jump!
The most responsible decision the Board could have made was to construct another addition to the Leopold school, borrowing up to $10M from the State Trust Fund (no referendum is required), as we did for the 2003 addition to Leopold. And we wouldn’t have to pay for a new principal at this new school, at $100,000+ per year, because their wouldn’t be a new school! Another savings. (Or maybe build the $7M school, originally promised?).
Our savings of $10M over the referendum is the difference between the 15-year cost of the referendum and the anticipated principle and interest payments back to the State on the $10M loan. Our 15-year cost is $23M, not the $14.5M, which is the money we get to keep. The $23M is this $14.5M plus the 60% increase Madison taxpayers are required to pay under the State’s Equalization Forumla — we’re paying welfare to other school districts!
What could we do with the $10M not spent on the Leopold site? Make additions to southwest schools to accommodate expected growth (also limits growth at Leopold), and additions to schools on the east side: both will be needed anyway.
And this would have been the prudent thing to do, given the flux in the Ridgewood apartments area, which calls into question the growth estimates for Leopold.
The School Board failed to follow their own policy and consider an addition to Leopold as an alternative, instead jumping full speed ahead, without deliberation, to building a new school. In fact, the Long Range Planning citizen committee, that was charged with the initial deliberations, spent the majority of their time at meetings, practising their Leopold referendum campaign speeches, instead of deliberating over the substance. Their lack of even reasonable due diligence in the execution of their responsibilties leaves the voters to make emotional instead of logical and factual decisions.
Send the referendum back to them. Demand that do their job. When they’ve done their due diligence, then we can talk.

Ed Hughes wrote this letter to the Isthmus Editor (5/12/2005 edition) 210K PDF. Jeff Henriques also comments about the Isthmus’ recent Madison Schools coverage (5/12/2005 edition) 210K PDF.

Don, thank you for pulling together the historical data. When I reviewed the historical financial analysis a couple of thoughts came to mind:
Of the District administration’s current budget, $40 million for special education and ESL currently comes from the operating budget. If the district received half of the amount of money to cover this unfunded mandate, revenues in 2002 – revenues would have been $318 million that year – the same amount as the 2005-2006 balanced budget.

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When I listened to the Board discussion on Monday, one Board member said that if you don’t get it and vote for the referendum, Varsity sports will be on the chopping block to go next year. I cringed. I’ve been a fine arts education advocate, but I also lettered in three varsity sports in high school and know/experienced the importance of athletics. We need to vote yes in the referendum, but we also need to change the way we do our education business during the year.

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The heated discussion between fine arts and sports is not helpful nor is it valid. This district seems to have a hard to financing both as part of the districts curriculum. For parents like myself that have children that love the arts AND athletics I do not favor eliminating one or the other.
My 4th grade daughter has art, music, and strings twice a week each. She also has P.E. three times a week. At the elementary level they reduced the amount of recess the students have which is an issue for my very busy 1st grade son. The current budget proposal is asking for elementary P.E. as well as music and art to increase the number of students in each class which will eliminate positions for all.
Madison is one of the only large school districts I know of that does not have school sponsored sports at the Jr. High Level. And the current proposal would move many of the 9-12 athletics to MSCR and not under the school districts budget. Perhaps the reason parents of athletics are not at the board meetings is because the options are to restructure the system so it will survive, whereas for elementary strings they are proposing elimination. That is why I am excited to see some discussions about other options for strings if the referendum fails.

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The report entitled What We Know About Spreadsheets by Professor Panko of the University of Hawaii analyzing the literature on accuracy of financial spreadsheets shows a truly appalling result — significant errors, and furthermore, reliance on the accuracy, and denial of problems.
As I look at the spreadsheets for the budget and list of maintenance projects justifying the referenda, I’m overwhelmed by their complexity and my inability to feel comfortable with their calculations.
I’m no expert at using spreadsheets, relying instead on real databases and batch processing to handle such complex tasks. I have no doubt that MMSD Business Services folks are quite good at spreadsheet use, but spreadsheets are incapable of being maintained even if accurately created in the first place.
And spreadsheets are simply incapable to allowing the timely generation of multiple budget scenarios. The delay in pulling together the budget for this year (from multiple sources), a typically manually intensive process when using spreadsheets for financial and budgeting analysis, shows their inadequacy.
To make the budgeting and financial aspects of MMSD transparent, and analyzable by the public, and capable of generating multiple budget scenarios requires a drastically improved system. And my demands that contracts and decisions affecting the budget (such as cuts proposals) be handled only within the confines of a published set of budget scenarios, make the need to move away from spreadsheet use imperative.

WIBA’s Vicki McKenna interviewed Madison School’s Board of Education member Lawrie Kobza today. MP3 Audio (17.4MB) – about 40 minutes into the segment.

WIBA’s Vicki McKenna interviewed Sarah Kidd & Nancy Mistele today. Kidd relates quite a bit of data from the 1990’s, including district size and administrative staff changes. 17MB MP3 audio file (48 minutes).
Kidd & Mistele also discussed 1990’s Crestwood & Emerson expansions.

Mike Johnson takes a look at a Medicaid reimbursement program that pumps about 700K into the Madison Schools annually. The article provides a useful look at the strange way (and the costs) in which the money finds its way to local districts.

“The reason Madison started in the Medicaid reimbursement program could be summed up in two words: revenue limits,” said Joe Quick, the legislative liaison/communication specialist for the district. “Despite the somewhat cumbersome paperwork and a reimbursement formula where the state skims money off the top, the school district’s efforts are financially worth the work.”

The proposed 05-06 budget distributed on May 3, 2005 projects 70 less FTE for the next year. Once again, the comparison raises questions:

• General Administration: 5 FTE increase
• Elementary Education: no change in FTEs (so why such a big hit to elementary specials? – still not explained and continues to appear punitive in light of no planning over the past year – especially punitive to elementary music education, embarassing)
• Secondary Education: 28 FTE cut
• Business Services: 30FTE cut in non-food services? – but is the work model changing, because their budget numbers did not go down that much and in fact dollars increased for next year?

Questions, questions and more questions that could be addressed in a straightforward manner with a presentation to the School Board. What is this board waiting for?
Download file comparing staffing for 04-05 to budgeted for 05-06 Source for comparison is MMSD data – staffing history prepared by MMSD last fall and the current budget document released on May 3, 2005.

MMSD says that you cannot compare the numbers for the 04-05 budget with the proposed 05-06 balanced budget because they were not developed at the same time and do not include all the grant money. Confused? Of course – any reasonable person would expect that the information presented side by side could be compared.
When comparing budgets from year to year, you need to be sure that you have budgets that were developed at the same time of year, or at least contain similar information. I’ve done the entry, which you can download and look at for your self. Here’s a summary of key changes:

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The MMSD board and the public need and deserve a presentation of the proposed budget for 05-06 including a comparison with the previous year. That’s basic budget 101.
What was distributed publicly by the MMSD Administration were financial summaries without any text that would explain:

• specific measurable goals for next year – by district by department
• changes in spending by department
• what grants are outstanding – how much and what departments would be affected by grants, are the administrative, teacher and other staff that are paid through grants included in this budget
• what changes are anticipated in programming and staffing? For example there is not change in FTEs for elementary educ, but the Supt in proposing to eliminate 30% of the music education budget

The written material that supports the financial statements will be available later this week –
The public needs to ask Board members to ask for a presentation of the budget with comparisons to last year made so that the Board and the public can understand what is being proposed.
I’ve made comparisons of the FTEs and the budgets – I have the budget for 04-05 that was produced last May that can be compared to the May budget just released for 05-06, which I will be posting.

I don’t understand the only MMSD document posted on the district’s Web site for next year’s budget. Maybe someone can help me.

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7MB MP3 audio file from their WTDY appearance. (last 20 minutes only – sorry). Bill Keys is a former teacher and current member of the Madison Board of Education. Thuy Pham-Remmele is a retired Madison schools teacher.

Committee chairs build a record for the public –

• a) by the agendas they set for the year,
• b) by how those agendas relate to the key issues facing the board
• c) by the thoroughness of the topics addressed in those meetings and
• d) by the recommendations developed and decisions made

. We will be able to tell from the public record those board members who

• 1) use meeting times well by the issues they address,
• 2) are reaching out/engaging the public in meaningful ways,
• 3) are listening and assessing different viewpoints,
• 4) are seeking creative and innovative directions for the school district in these difficult, challenging financial times for our children’s education, etc.

Based upon the record, we will have information that we can use to evaluate a board members’ record as a committee chair during the next election cycle.

I’m wondering if the MMSD’s 2005/2006 budget is floating around… somewhere? I’ve heard that it was released to the BOE members earlier this week, but I’ve not seen any sign of it on the District’s website. Stranger still, President Carol Carstensen required Board members to have their amendments in by noon today (5/5) – roughly 36 hours after receiving a budget, that, as far as I can tell, is not available to the public.
Ed Blume noted earlier that Milwaukee’s proposed budget is online.
I find Carol’s extremely short Board Member Amendment turnaround to be unusual, given a $320M budget…. Why?
The District’s 2004/2005 budget is available here (8.6MB PDF).
UPDATE: Ed Blume emailed a link to this 82 page 2005/2006 budget summary – pdf file. FWIW, the previous budget document – link above was 368 pages.

Minnesota Public Radio:

The bill represents a $622 million (12.6 Billion Package) increase in state aid over the next two years, although not all schools would get an equal cut. Each district could count on having $284 added to their basic per-student allowances in two installments, raising it to $4,885 by the second year.
School districts in high poverty areas, those with low property tax bases and ones that shift to a new teacher pay system would be in line for greater funding boosts. Statewide, the schools will see an average of $665 more per child in fiscal years 2006-07.

My view is that we lose a great deal of influence as we rely on state/federal funds.

I agree whole heartedly with Mr. Pay’s comments to Johnny Winston Jr., that the MMSD School Board is not taking a long-term financial or educational look at elementary strings that shows increased numbers of middle and high school children taking orchestra and band will save money for the district while providing immeasurable personal and educational benefits to children.
However, there are two other reasons why this is a bad decision that come to mind – one is standards and the other is, in my mind, an even bigger economic impact than benefits from larger class sizes.
The long-term educational and financial fallout from cutting elementary strings will cost far more than the annual $500,000 cost of the program. I predict a decision to cut elementary strings will cost the district millions in the long-term.

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Last evening the Madison School Board received the proposed budget for the 2005-2006 school year – whoopee. A new software system was given as the reason for the delay. A new software system does not guarantee good long-term educational and financial decisions for the district. Software and hardware are tools through which you analyze assumptions. They are tools that facilitate a process. However, by the amount of time spent in board meetings talking about software and hardware, a person could easily come away assuming the box is the process.
Our School Board members believe now that we have the budget document, they are all set. Budget document, cut list. What more could the public ask for in a budget process – I mean, we have the outputs.

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Ken Syke, district spokesman, told Channel 27 News, “There have been a corps of people 10, 12, 15 people who have been working 16 hour days, 14 hour days for weeks — not just working on the budget, but on this whole migration. We’re changing our whole payroll system, we’re changing a lot of our human resources.”
How much did the district pay in overtime wages? How much has the district spent in total on the new Lawson Software? Read more.

Roger Price, MMSD Assistant Superintendent, watched intently as people drifted into the room for the hearing on the school budget at the Warner Park Community Center.
When he spotted school board members, Price quickly handed them a memo that read in part:

Our goal was to provide the total budget and district profile on April 29. We are very close to completing the written parts of that document. The fiscal and staffing sections that will be imported as part of the total report are not completed. This is not due to a lack of effort, but rather to the vast amount of inputs and the complexity of the work that occurs when implementing a new software system and putting in place a system that will sustain us into the future. . . . This work was completed in time to prepare the necessary reports had all of the internal technical working of the new system performed the first time. As you may know if you have been involved in implementing new systems, that is almost never the case. We have experienced some delays in the actual processing and marrying of the numerous data elements. (Complete PDF memo)

In other words, the new $6 million software package doesn’t work, even though implementation probably began in late 2003 or early 2004. (Motions in board minutes)

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Joe Wineke, Don Severson & Mitch Henck discuss the upcoming Madison School Referendums, administrative consolidation and the budget in this 40 minute mp3 file (via 1310)

James Buchen:

It will come as no surprise to weary taxpayers that Wisconsin hosts one of the most expensive public school systems in the country.
We rank 8th in per capita spending for elementary and secondary education. The seven states above us tend to be either high cost states like New York and Connecticut or states with very small populations like Alaska and Wyoming. Taxpayers shoulder this burden by paying high property taxes and high state income taxes. In fact, on average, 44 percent of the property tax bill goes to fund public schools and 40 percent of the state budget is devoted to funding for K-12 public education in Wisconsin.

Alan Borsuk:

A year after laying a 13% property tax increase on the city, Milwaukee Public Schools officials are proposing a budget for next year that projects an increase of less than 1% in the amount to be collected in property taxes to pay for schools.
But a budget proposal for 2005-’06 that continues reforms launched by Superintendent William Andrekopoulos and contains no major new steps is based on two big assumptions: That Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle’s state budget proposal, calling for a shift of more school funding back to state government, will win approval from the Republican-controlled Legislature; and that the School Board and the administration will win an arbitration proceeding with Milwaukee’s teachers union that focuses largely on health insurance costs.
The MPS proposal was presented to board members late Tuesday. They are scheduled to spend the next month working on it.

This is an e-mail sent to the Madison CARES listserve. Enjoy. By DENNIS A. SHOOK – Freeman Staf (April 16, 2005)
The hardest question on any test for a state legislator is what should be done to fund education?
Some legislators would answer “nothing” while others would answer “whatever it takes.’” But common sense tells us the right answer has to be somewhere between those two poles.
It is not a multiple choice question, with one or two right answers. It is more like an essay question that could cause even the most terse college student to fill several pages with an answer.
The latest round of referendum questions statewide showed the public is generally of the belief that education receives enough of the public’s tax money already. Yet school districts like Racine are considering ending extracurricular activities such as music and athletic programs. That could well cause an exodus from that city’s public schools to private schools or force families to relocate to other communities entirely. That surely can’t be what anybody wants, even the most ardent teacher bashers.
How did we arrive at such a state?

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I watched the school board last Monday talk about the process for the “budget” up until the referendum. The original timeline had public hearings being completed prior to release of the 2005-2006 budget. Why? As Superintendent Rainwater says people don’t care about the budget; they only care about the programs, courses and services they want to save. I care about the budget process and so do other parents and community members.

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Dennis Shook:

Way back in the corners of our collective political consciousness I am beginning to sense that there is an answer beginning to form. It probably involves consolidating many school districts and putting in place some kind of insurance program that keeps employee costs under control on the expenditure side.
On the revenue side, it also seems we are all starting to become more aware that not every sector in our economy is pulling its weight. Most every comparative study of tax burden during the past few decades has seen a dramatic shift of the burden onto the individual property taxpayer and away from the business sector. There are also a lot of taxable entities that are not being taxed at all, like nonprofits and even fraternal and religious organizations.

via wisopinion.com

A national survey of K-12 salaries appears in a recent issue of Education Week.. Among other things, the Educational Research Service that conducted the survey found that the gap between salaries of teachers and those of education professionals in higher paid positions–principals and superintendents–has steadily widened over the past decade.
Local point of interest—the salary paid to Madison Superintendent Art Rainwater in 2003-04( $153,150) exceeded the average for superintendents in the Great lakes states ($114, 026) and the average for superintendents nationally with the same years in office ($109,254) for 2004-05.

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Senator Ted Kanavas (R-Brookfield) has asked the Legislative Audit Bureau to audit the Waukesha School District’s use of “community service funds” (called “Fund 80” by Madison Metropolitan School District) to finance high school pool project.
The following article from the April 15 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel includes a larger discussion about how funds are being used in other Milwaukee-area communities and whether those uses conform to state law.

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The District must have a budget process that allows the Board of Education and the public to review the budget, and balance the interests of the public, students and staff to accomplish the effective and efficient operation of the School District, and to ensure that its priorities are addressed.
The current timeline for budget approval does not allow the Board or the public to have reasonable and informed access to the information necessary to balance those interests, or to ensure those priorities.
Instead, current and past budget practices allow staff contracts to be accepted, budget cuts to be proposed, and additional programs to be considered, all without the ability to place these items within the budget as a whole, and therefore balance all interests.
Modifying the budget process to allow this balancing, to me, is non-negotiable.
I, for one, will not be supporting any of the referenda on the May 24 ballot, unless the budget process is fixed.
I will be voting in favor of all the referenda on May 24, if and only if the Board takes actions prior to the referenda to ensure all proposed staff contracts and other agreements are incorporated into the previously published budget and not acted separately upon by the Board; and, if and only if, all cuts to programs are proposed and presented in the context of the previously published budget, and not acted separately upon by the Board.
In order to get my vote, the 2005-2006 budget process and timelines need to be modified, even at this late date, to conform. We cannot reneg on any contracts already voted on by the Board, and we cannot review the failure to consider adminstrative renewals by the Board, and we cannot pull back the publicly proposed cuts to await the timely arrival of the budget.
But, we must be delivered an estimated 2005-2006 budget sooner than the proposed May 2nd to give the public time to review it, place the proposed cuts into its budget context, and plan for alternative budget adjustments. At the latest, the budget can be delivered to the Board and public on April 22nd, even under the current timeline, by posting the budget on the website prior to or instead of printing (we might even be able to save printing costs!).
Accepting the referenda for a changed budget process is a quid pro quo contract between the Board and the public. It is a prototypical win-win agreement. All sides to the coming debate over the referenda get everything they want. Those in favor of the referenda get the referenda passed; those who want a significantly better budget process get their interests heard.
Accepting such a challenge might even avoid the coming, and, what I perceive to be, very devisive battle among the many sides to debates.
For those who find such an agreement more of a compromise than a win-win agreement, consider it progress towards opening up the budget process � progress that could have been accomplished years ago.
The real debate has not started, but I�ve already heard some loose lips. I�ve heard it said (paraphrasing), �If you can�t afford the tax increases, take a mortgage out on your home.� And I�ve read comments that said (paraphrasing again), �If the Leopold expansion was in a white area, there would be no problem. The opposition are racists.�
Unless some agreement is accepted, I don�t see a reasoned and tempered debate occurring in the next month and a half.
Instead, we�ll be spitting at each other.

There is some difference of opinion about what state law requires under the QEO statutes, particularly regarding the “required” 3.8% increase. For what it’s worth, this is how the statute is worded:

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Ken Cole:

The perennial argument that the QEO has somehow �capped� teacher salaries just doesn�t square with the numbers because most districts voluntarily settle above the 3.8 percent total package, which includes both salary and benefits. The Wisconsin Association of School Boards database shows that total-package increases averaged about 4.5 percent in 2003-04 and 4.3 percent in 2004-05.

Stan Johnson:

Prior to the law change, arbitrators intervened in stalled negotiations and brought the sides together by analyzing such data as a local school district�s ability to pay, national and regional market forces, and comparable wages and benefits in the geographic area. Arbitration was the single most important factor accounting for the period of labor peace from the late 1970s to early 1990s.

What’s the QEO? via wisopinion

George Will, writing from Phoenix:

The idea, which will face its first referendum in Arizona, is to require that 65 percent of every school district’s education operational budget be spent on classroom instruction. On, that is, teachers and pupils, not bureaucracy.
Nationally, 61.5 percent of education operational budgets reach the classrooms. Why make a fuss about 3.5 percent? Because it amounts to $13 billion. Only four states (Utah, Tennessee, New York, Maine) spend at least 65 percent of their budgets in classrooms. Fifteen states spend less than 60 percent. The worst jurisdiction — Washington, D.C., of course — spends less than 50 percent.

Joanne Jacobs has a few comments.

Air America’s Al Franken interviewed Richard Blumental, Connecticut’s Attorney General, Friday because he is fiing a law suit against the federal government. His complaint on behalf of the state of Connecticut is the federal government is illegally and unconstitutionally requiring states and communities to spend millions of dollars to administer federally mandated test. He claims it is unconstitutional for the federal government to mandate education to the local communities without financially backing the mandates. He is asking that other states join in…………

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Bob Lang, Director of the Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau released an estimate of 2004/2005 State support for local school districts (44 Page PDF)

The District’s functional analysis report from Virchow-Krause (hereafter VK) has been touted as showing how well the District is being run. But, the report’s results are less than they seem. On page three of the report, VK gives the assumptions for the report. Quoting from the report:
——-
As Superintendent Rainwater has noted, there are several key assumptions behind the functional
analysis. These assumptions are:
� Every single thing the District does is good for kids. Long ago the District eliminated all those
things that were peripheral.
� All District staff members – teachers, administrators, custodians and food service workers �
are good at what they do.
� The District has very talented people that work very hard and that work very smart.
� Site-based teachers and administrators currently have full time jobs � and they can’t absorb
more work. Functions cannot move from the central office to people at the site because sitebased
staff members are working as hard and as efficiently as possible.
With these assumptions in mind, the results of the functional analysis are presented in this
report.
——-
Clearly, given the assumptions of the report, VK could not have found anything but that the District is doing everything just perfectly.
Had these assumptions not been in place, VK might have been able to inform the District, Board and public of solutions not currently in front of us.
What is disturbing, however, is that the Board doesn’t truly read or understand the critical material before them, that the District can make those assumptions, probably with Board acquiesence, and then have the temerity to claim they are providing leadership, and doing all that they can do.

I have lived and followed education in 3 states. Alaska, Texas, and Wisconsin. The DPI is a first. After 4 years I have tried to understand this governmental body. There is a Leader, Ms. Burmaster and based totally on the web site anywhere from 441 to 600 employees in this agency. When I have asked what all these employees do for the education of the state no one seems to know. The many teachers I asked stated their only interaction with the DPI is to renew their license. This seems like a logical function of a state but does it take 400- 600 people? When I view the directory on the DPI web site I am amazed all these people work for the education department yet none of the people I know that work at SCHOOLS actually benefit from all these state salaried persons. Can anyone educate me on the department, I mean really what they do, before I am once again asked to vote for a leader of a governmental body I fail to understand?

I have the highest respect for Rick Chandler. He earned it as head of the state’s “budget shop” in the Department of Administration a few years ago.
I must, however, take issue with his defense of business taxes in Wisconsin.
The argumet over whether Wisconsin businesses carry their fair share of the tax burden gets admitedly muddied by the imprecise language of speakers like MMSD Superintendent Art Rainwater (Wisconsin State Journal) when he talked about “taxes” without specifying which taxes.
Confusion on the part of business tax critics is no reason for Rick to mistate the argument as one about whether businesses pay their fair share of property taxes.
That’s not the argument. The true issue is whether businesses pay their fair share of the state taxes necessary to provide an adequate level of state aid for school districts.
They don’t. The record is clear, according to the business community’s own Forward Wisconsin. If you visit the Web site of this shameless corporate cheerleader, you’ll read more than one item that contradicts Chandler. For example:

Wisconsin business taxes are lower than those in 35 other states. That’s the conclusion of a new study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston that measures more than 15 taxes that can affect corporate profits.
Wisconsin ranks fourth lowest in the nation in business taxes as a percent of all state and local taxes. The state’s business-friendly attitude is reflected in positive business tax changes that have been made in every biennial legislative session since the early 1970s.

If the current “business-friendly attitude” continues in the state legisalture, we’ll soon see the decline — not only of school spending — but in student achievement.
Ed Blume

Madison Resident Richard Chandler:

There seems to be an orchestrated effort under way to blame high residential property taxes on businesses. This assertion has been made recently by some legislators, a school administrator and local officials who are opposed to a property tax freeze, spending limits, and other efforts to reduce Wisconsin’s tax burden by restraining spending.
The argument goes something like this: Over the past 30 years, the share of total property taxes paid by homeowners has risen while the share paid by businesses has dropped. The claim is that this shift is the result of tax exemptions for businesses. While it may serve some political purpose to make this claim, it’s not true.
Simply put, the changes in the percentages of property taxes paid by different categories of property over the past three decades are primarily the result of changes in the economy, not tax breaks. During this period, residential property values have increased rapidly in Wisconsin — and with it the amount of property taxes they pay. What’s usually not mentioned is that the share of property taxes paid by commercial property has climbed along with the residential share as we’ve moved to a more service-oriented economy.

Chandler is the former Wisconsin secretary of revenue and state budget director.

I received this message from Brian Grau, a teacher from LaFollette who recently visited his hometown of Racine, who like Madison is going to referendum. Enjoy!
The Journal Times, Racine, WI, 3/24/05
Referendum means it’s time for finger pointing
By Jeff Ruggaber
Hey Racine! It’s that time again. Time to complain about money spent on schools! Who’s to blame? Let the finger pointing begin! Hey, there’s a group of teachers. Let’s blame them. They are just over paid baby sitters! I wish. I figure if I got paid $5.00 for each kid (25 per class), for 6 hours a day, for 180 days. I would make $135,000 a year! Let’s give those with a master’s $7.00 and hour per kid. That’s $189,000. Reality $39,000. Between my wife and I, last year we paid close to $7,000 just to keep our jobs (property taxes, classes to renew licenses, fee for licenses, and out of pocket expenses to supplement our classroom’s). I love paying close to $1000 of my own salary in property taxes. Healthcare. The district offered us the plan. Would you have turned it down? Should we pay more? Remember that teachers did trade salary for benefits.
Let’s point fingers at the school district. All they have done is cut spending year after year. Costs go up, spending goes down. You do the math!
Attention Racine: we have schools that were built during the Abraham Lincoln administration! Can you accurately guess from year to year how much it costs to keep these buildings running, when the ghosts of the 1800s still run through the halls! More cuts need to be made even if this does not pass. This district does not have the money to give you what this city deserves. Kids learning in run down, overcrowded buildings is a very real thing.
Next, let’s point fingers at the taxpayers. Those same people who spend $1 to $2 for a bottle of water. Those people who spend a dollar a day at the soda machine at work! Those people who don’t think twice at paying $4-$5 for one beer at Harbor Fest, Summerfest, Lambeau Field and the rest. Those people who are still driving their SUVs, pick-up trucks, Cadillac’s, and other gas guzzling cars. Those same people who pay $40-$50 a month so they can make sure their 12-year-old has a cell phone, $50 cable bills, $200 utility bills, $40 video games to baby-sit your kids, 20 cent increase for a gallon of gas this past week, the list goes on! Complain about those. Oh yeah, those things don’t go to a referendum, Why is it that when schools need more money, everyone complains? One person wants a user fee. The more kids you have, the more you pay. So I should pay more for the fire department if they put out my fire and I have 10 kids? Same concept! I’ve never used the fire department yet, can I get a refund? One lady offered the keys to her house. You got it! That will save three teachers jobs. Thanks! For those who think you don’t benefit from Unified because you have no more kids there, well then I think we need to make Unified and Non-Unified lines at every place of business. So when you go to the store, doctor, or gas station you can only go to the line where your tax money is spent.
Now the Racine Taxpayers Association gives the referendum a thumbs down. They say not enough cuts have been made. Have you been to our schools? Have you seen the plaster falling on kid’s heads? Have you seen the paint chipped so bad the wood is rotting underneath? Have you felt the below zero wind blow through the cracks in the 100 year old windows? Have you tried to teach in a classroom where the temperature varies from near 90 degrees to 60 degrees all in one day? Oh, that’s right, you think teachers should pay more for their insurance. Well if we do, then I want a raise back on my salary that I gave up for the past 10 years. The bottom line is that we have a serious problem.
So either fight for a better educational system and support it, or get out of our way. The future is now!
Without support, you can’t imagine how bad things are going to get.
Jeff Ruggaber is an art teacher at Red Apple School.

The RFP is available for inspection on-line here (PDF):
PROPOSAL NUMBER: 3060
ISSUE DATE: 02/21/05
DUE DATE: 03/31/05 2:00 PM Local Time
PLEASE NOTE: The deadline for requested modifications to the RFP WAS March 8, 2005. A vendor conference WAS held “on March 14, 2005 at 9:00AM in room 209 at 545 West Dayton Street, Madison, to respond to written questions…”

Mr. Rainwater says, “We are long past the time that we can solve our revenue cap problems by being more efficient or eliminating things that are nice but not necessary (March 2005 Budget Discussion Items Report – basically, budget cut document). Without the budget, this is a scary statement. Sadly, a budget would show this statement to be a scare tactic.
What’s scary to me is that we may indeed need a referendum, but the current board’s weak governance, lack of public discussion and review, alienation of many public groups won’t be able to make the case, because educating the entire child and excellent instruction for all are not driving the board’s priorities. That scares me.

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I started attending meetings several years ago and, initially, was naive enough to take Carol Carstensen at her word when she said “if you don’t like our cuts, you need to tell us where to cut.” Board members then claim that they “have no choice” and that critics “only criticize but don’t offer solutions.” This is one disingenuous ploy, since it invites people to participate but leaves the door open for the board’s typical response: we know more than you do and we don’t like your ideas. This is not listening.
I was looking through some old records the other day, and found the following message that I sent to the board over a year ago:

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In response to Ruth Robarts’ recent letter, stripped of its satire, she is suggesting that paying Madison’s school staff less would eliminate the budget gap. Her proposal is that school staff should receive a package of 2.35 percent for salary and benefits combined. There are three major problems with her proposal:

• This would impose a pay cut on almost all employees, with the deepest cuts affecting the lowest paid staff (educational assistants and food service workers)
• A 2.35 percent package would save the district about $4.6 millionthere would still be a budget gap of at least $4 million.
• State law makes such an approach impossible. The qualified economic offer law essentially requires that districts offer at least a 3.8 percent annual increase for salary and benefits combined.

Be wary of last minute proposals that sound good and promise to solve the problem without painful cuts. As a community we need to face the fact that the budget gap we face is real; it is a direct consequence of the state laws and funding decisions that affect all Wisconsin school districts.

/Carol Carstensen, Madison School Board /

I did a simple search on Google: State budget and school funding. I was not surprised to find Wisconsin sharing in their education funding crisis with many other states. On the first two pages of my search I discovered California, Texas, Washington, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio, Illinois, and New York have news articles about their educational funding “crisis”. Each state has it’s version of revenue caps, TABOR like situations, or tax restraints that cause their current problem. Some just never raise taxes and can’t figure out how to fund a state and local program without taxes. Also interesting to note is Ohio and Illinois legislation funds their local schools at 51% while Washington state legislation is suppose to pay 80%. None of these states actually fund their schools at their promised level just as our federal government fails to fund it’s many mandates at it’s required level. I find this interesting because each time I watch the “MMSD Budget Horse and Pony Show”, as I like to refer to this annually released performance, I am told how awful the state legislation is and that Wisconsin is backwards in its funding of education. While there may be some truth to that, it is comforting to know my state is not the only awful backwards state out there. That comfort however, does not solve the problem. The reason I went on this search is I have twice, maybe more, asked the board to “think outside the box”. I decided since the board wants the public to present them with solutions and not complaints that I would find out how other states and communities are financing schools and present these ideas to them before they develop another “sequel”.
One state that caught my attention was Virgina. To solve their school funding problem they instituted a half a cent sales tax through out the entire state. This idea was suggested by a think tank organized by Gov. Doyle in Wisconsin but it was quickly run out of Madison. The plan is something to think about,as Virgina just signed their budget that added an additional 759 million dollars to the governors original budget towards public education. I will continue this search and loft new ideas at this site. We need a new way, a creative way to fund education because we are all tired of fighting for our schools and very tired of watching “sequels” with no new plots or twist.
The Virginia link: Leesburg2day.com/current.cfm.catid=54&newsid=8927.

James Nevels on Philadelphia School Reform:

How did we–teachers, principals and our chief executive, Paul Vallas–do it? We defined the district’s “customers” exclusively as the 200,000 children we serve. Not interest groups. Not adult constituencies. We held adults accountable for results.
To start, we instituted businesslike systems. First came a standardized curriculum so that all students would learn what we agreed was most crucial for success and could easily transfer among schools.
Elementary school students now spend two hours a day on reading and 90 minutes on math, double what they spent before. We conduct benchmark testing every six weeks in elementary and middle schools and every four weeks in high schools. This helps teachers to either dedicate more time to a subject in which students are struggling or provide advanced instruction in subjects students have mastered.

There was a small turnout Wednesday night for the first public hearing on whether to hold spring school referendums. NBC 15 MMSD Public Hearing

I received the following email update from Tom Beebe (tbeebe@wisconsinsfuture.org) on school funding:
Exciting week for school-funding reform advocates
Florence High School is newest school to join Youth ROC
Baraboo brings WAES school district partnerships to 41
Two more school-funding forums held
WCCF analyzes Governor�s budget
Still not too late to tell the Governor to veto AB58

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Last May, I wrote an opinion piece that was printed in The Capital Times. Since then, little has changed on the School Board and we are re-opening the “Spring Budget Drama” that continues to fail children’s learning and achievement. We are presented with no budget, but instead with budget discussion items and NO strategies.
What I wrote last May I feel is just as true today, sadly – very sadly.

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Spring is definitely coming. On February 17, the Madison School Board performed Act 1 of the four-act play that is our annual school budget process.
Act 1 is the unveiling of the Budget Forecast. In this Act, the administration solemnly announces that the district faces-once again-“The Budget Gap”. The Budget Gap is the difference between what the Board wants to spend and what we can spend without a successful referendum to increase operating funds. It is not a gap caused by a drop in state funding.
To nobody’s surprise, the Budget Gap is big and ugly. Under current state law, revenues from property taxes will increase about 2.35% for next year. However, the administration’s “same service” budget requires a revenue increase of more than 4%. The Gap for next year is $8.6M.

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I�m beginning a list of questions I�d like to see the School Board discuss and use to direct the Superintendent when the District�s budget is developed using this blog as a public forum. The state and federal governments are not holding up their end of school financing, yet our school board members need to develop a budget and to make preliminary operating decisions by June 30, 2005.
I�ve left the comments open for this blog and would like to hear what questions others might like to see the board discuss and provide further direction to the Superintendent during the budget process so that we develop a budget that puts children�s learning, academic excellence and achievement as the highest priority for our children this year and in succeeding years. I think our attention locally needs to be on how can we develop the best budget for these priorities so that we know what our funding challenges are for next year and will have better information for a referendum.

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Superintendent Art Rainwater’s proposed budget cuts to balance his estimated Same Service budget forecast to expected revenues are being released to the public today. Prior to this release, the only information the school board has received relative to the budget is a macro-forecast of revenue/expenditures – assumptions about salary and wage increases, percent increase assumption for all other services, and 4% increase for MSCR expenses, for example.

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