Correction! Admin is "entitled" to a 4.5% increase

As predicted, the school board packages are out...and guess what? Admin compensation for 2009-10 is indeed on the agenda!

Read it and weep

The Situation Report clarifies that the school board (in their eminent wisdom) voted to approve an increase of 4.5% for 2009-10 in May 2008.

Our apologies for the confusion. But....the landscape has not necessarily changed.

Just as the governor "took back" contractually agreed upon salary increases for state workers, and forced unpaid furlough days over the next 2 years, so too can the school board--the EMPLOYER-- decide that similar actions are in order "...in light of the cuts to public education funding and the present downturn in the economic cycle...". Why not furlough some of these high-priced Administrators over the summer months? Or even for a number of days during the year--as was done for state employees.
[ OK...you want 3.8% raise...fine...but we're going to furlough you each for 10 days without pay.]

The bottom line is that a contract is a contract until it is changed....whether forcibly or voluntarily.

Of course...it would take a school board equipped with a set of stones to actually do something that favors the taxpayers instead of the Administration---their EMPLOYEEs.

We DO appreciate the willingness of the %100K club and other Administrators to reduce their "entitlement". We just don't quite think it hits the mark.

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HISTORY/SITUATION/RELATED ACTIONS:
On May 27, 2008 the School Board adopted changes to the Administrative Contractual Benefits and Evaluation Plan that included, among other things, a total compensation package increase (salaries and benefits combined)for the 2009-2010 fiscal year in an amount equivalent to that provided to members of the Sun Prairie Education association during the 2008-2009 school year. This was a 4.5% total package increase. This was in compliance with Wis. Stat. 118.245, Limitation on salary and fringe benefit costs for professional employees. Another change was that administrators would pay for an increasing percentage of their health care premiums.

The administrative team appreciates the support of the School Board and this attempt to keep pace with other licensed employees. However, the administrative team felt that in light of the cuts to public education funding and the present downturn in the economic cycle, it would be best to ask the School Board to reduce the salary and benefits package from what teachers received last year to what teachers received for 2009-2010: a 3.8% total salary and benefit package.

Administrative representatives (Ms. Smojver, Mr. Widiker, Mr. Luessman, and Mr. Frei) met with members of the School Board (Mr. Whalen, Mr. Shimek, and Ms. Diedrich) on July 1, 2009, to confer on this requested reduction.

The Board’s representatives unanimously passed a motion that appears as the recommendation to the school board. (Motion by Whalen, second by Shimek)