Something We've Been Wondering...

If school board & committee meeting agendas are published in the STAR...

...and the STAR's deadline for ads is Tuesday at noon...

...doesn't that mean that the agendas are ready by late Monday?

So WHY don't the agendas get published on the *amazing* BoardDocs website until late Thursday (and even as late as --ahem!-Friday morning) prior to the Monday meetings?

Ponder that one over your morning coffee.
Can you say "Community Engagement"?
There...we knew you could.

Oh we KNOW the answer...we're just wondering if you do.

Here's what BoardDocs says about availability of agendas:

" A limited number of paper copies of agendas will be available at the District Office.Agendas may be available for public view up to 5 days before the meeting. "

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

The 21 administrators for which we have 2009-10 raise information received a whopping cumulative increase of $88,128! That's an average of $ 4,197 EACH per year!

Raise your hand if you received anything CLOSE to that as a raise this year. How about a loud raspberry if you LOST salary this year. We thought so.

21 Administrators

$88,128 in annual salary increases.

Raises as much as $6,050 per year!

And collectively going all "boo-hoo" on us at the thought (GASP!) of having their wages cut by ONE day via a 1-day furlough.

And what is it they want the school board to cut? Hmm?
Ferris Bueller? Anyone?
It's up to the school board to stop the madness at the meeting tonite.
We're sunk.

"3.8%" Package Increase Means Average 4.9% Salary Increase

You'll recall that the administration group graciously declined their "full merited compensation increase" and instead asked that the deal be capped at 3.8%.

[insert forlorn-sounding violin sequence]

So finally we know how that all translated into salary increases. Because you SHOULD know by now that a "package" increase amount usually translates to a much higher salary increase. But the district/board would prefer you not understand that.
So...here you have it...the actual raises received. Nice, huh?

Athletic Director Jim McClowry and Director of Food Service Renee Slotten-Beauchamp hit the jackpot with respective raises of 7.5% and 7.2%.

You'll see that Dr. Culver is at the bottom as he requested that he receive no raise. Funny...he still shows an increase!

The average raise received was 4.9%. At the bottom (excluding Culver)was Chad Wiedmeyer, Principal of Bird Elementary, who received only a 2.4% raise.

Hmmm. Historically, all salary dollars allocated for raises are placed in a "pot", and the amount of raise one receives is based on the result of their annual performance review. And Culver makes these determinations. Could this be an indication that Wiedmeyer has accumulated too many trips to Culver's woodshed?

7 administrators received raises of at least 5.0%.
It definitely cannot suck to be a member of the SPASD Administration.

22% Increase to the $100K Club Membership!

Well, the economy isn't all sour.
The school district has added 22% more members to the district administration $100K Club!
Currently 11 of 27.5 (40%) administrative positions are paid more than $100,000 per year.

If Obama really wants to fix the economy we just need to create more school districts and school district administration jobs.

Title__________________Administrator_____2009-10 salary
District Administrator...Culver..........$ 140,786
Asst DA, Business Mgr....Frei............$ 121,900
Director, Spec Ed........Dawes...........$ 113,964
Principal, PMMS..........Luessman........$ 112,496
Principal, PVMS..........Hery............$ 112,172
Director, Instruction....Murphy..........$ 112,088
Director, HR.............Mikula..........$ 111,844
Principal, SPHS..........Heipl...........$ 110,000
Principal, CS............Smojver.........$ 106,892
Principal, UMS...........Ruggles.........$ 100,711
Principal, HO............Klaas...........$ 100,118

Who'dathunk that middle school principals would be paid more than a high school principal?
or that an Upper middle school principal would be paid LESS than an elementary school principal?

Microexpressions Are So Revealing

You may have missed this on the local news this week, but as part of
WKOW-TV's "Call for action" segment, [Note: there is a 12 second Wisconsin lottery video preceding the segment] the district came under fire for a decision to no longer provide busing for middle school students living in the Golden Meadows subdivision.

Interviewer:" Phil....You've got to think something may be wrong with the system if parents are paying $100 per month for their kid to take a taxi to school when maybe the school bus should be taking them. "

Phil Frei: "Well, it could be, but it's been determined by the people of Sun Prairie that 2 miles is our limit."

Freeze the camera. Yup...right there when Phil turns slightly away from the camera, pauses to close his eye for an un-naturally long blink, and has a severely pursed lip. What does that expression tell you? And Frei's response to the interviewer....?

Come on, Phil! That doesn't even remotely pass the straight face test! The community did not make that decision...the school board did...based on the recommendation of administration (i.e., you).

The school board discussed this issue at it's July 27, 2009 meeting and voted 6-1 (Diedrich opposed) to eliminate the busing for middle school students from Golden Meadows. See the information at this link.

Why are you throwing the community under the bus?

Re-Stating The Obvious

You gotta love the Administration "Impact" commentary added to proposed one-time budget savings proposals for 2009-10.

Proposed One-Time Savings, to Start in 2009-2010

I. Reduction in hours for all Local-60 staff, equivalent to one day. (Savings: $22,655)
301.4 staff; average salary per day : $75 ($9.375/hr)

J. Administrative furlough day, June 18, 2009 (Savings: $ 12,639)
27.5 staff, average salary per day : $460 ($57.50/hr)

K. Administrative support furlough day, June 18, 2009. (Savings: $ 7,848)
28.5125 staff, average salary per day : $275 ($34/hr)


" These reductions impact morale and may impact the future ability of the district to recruit and retain quality _________ [CHOOSE ONE: administrators, administrative support staff, Local 60 staff ]. "

Oh get over yourselves! You're losing ONE freakin' day's pay!

A number of local folks are UNEMPLOYED, as in an EVERY day furlough--without fringe benefits!

A number of other local folks have taken pay cuts of 10-20%,

State workers and many county workers are being furloughed SIXTEEN DAYS over the next 2 years!

Oh...wait! These cuts will impact morale!?? Well...shoot...we can't do that then, can we?
Good Lord...you tell US that 80-85% of the budget is personnel costs and then when you need to make cuts you tell us that we shouldn't do that because it might affect morale.

Newsflash! Arguably, a majority of community members are growing weary of your collective whining. You think you can improve your morale somewhere else? Fine. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. Enough of the mollycoddling!

Administration Works to Resolve Property Tax "Bounce-back"...NOT!

Remember that ultimately annoying, but maniacally gleeful cry of "NOT!" shouted out by characters Wayne Campbell or Garth Algar (of SNL's "Wayne's World" fame) immediately following any insincere comment? That's what immediately comes to mind as we read through the district's proposals for "budget reductions".

Oh yes...the proposed "budget cuts" have been released, and will be up for discussion at next Monday's (11-23-09) school board meeting.

You'll recall that ultimate goal was to respond to the school board directive to "find" at least $1.1M in budget cuts for this year (2009-10) in order to limit the amount of fund balance required to balance the budget to about $800K.

"Logic would dictate...", as Spock so frequently began his monologues, that any such "cuts" would have been geared towards those permanent in nature. Permanent cuts are necessary to avoid the "bounce-back" to property taxes next year. Of course, since when does the district administration proceed according to some logical path?

The annual operating budget for 2009-10 is $68,800,000.
The amount of permanent cuts proposed: $21,000.

That's right. We didn't forget any zeros. These proposed "permanent" measures trim this year's spending by 0.023% and future spending by no more than 0.03%. And actually, that percentage will drop lower due to the District's propensity for increasing it's budget at a rate of 5-6% annually.

Guess the school board needed to be more clear in their directive.
Or does administration really see what transpired at October 12's annual meeting as an isolated "glitch", and the community will gladly dig deep into their pockets next year, and all future years, to shell out phenomenal property tax increases?

Of course, if we all received compensation approaching $150,000 per year, we might feel that way, too. NOT!!!!

2010-11 Tax Levy Picture If We Don't Stop the Madness

Rough Projections for 2011-12 (assuming NO recurring budget cuts)


Please...take these projections with a grain of salt. The assumptions used are that the state economy and equalized aid picture doesn't change very much (which seems valid). It assumes a 3% increase in property value...which we think is pretty Pollyanna. Lastly, it assumes the district continues their spend-happy ways and increases its expenditures by 6%.


That being said...at least we can offer them. The school district holds this information very close to the vest.

• Budgeted Expenditures (up 6%) : $ 72.6M
  
• Projected state aid (44% of expenditures): $ 32.0M
  
• That leaves $40.6M of expenditures paid through general fund tax levy
  
• Then we have to add another $9.5M for debt service levy
  
• That makes for a total tax levy projection of: $ 50.1M
  
• Which translates to an increase of 13.2% over what was levied this year.
  
• That 13.2% is the "bounceback" being discussed.
  ...and it could be even higher due to costs associated with opening the new high school.
  
• Assume the equalized value (of all property) rises 3% to $ 4,020,000,000 (which is a pretty optimistic projection)
  
• Mill rate is calculated as TAX LEVY divided by the EQUALIZED VALUE
  
• That translates to a mill rate of $12.47

...and it could be mnuch higher than that...if the equalized property value stays flat, the mill rate climbs to $12.86 per $1,000.

Budget Insider - Is Bounce-Back a Real Threat?

Bounce-Back. Rebound. Whiplash.
We all heard the warnings from certain school board members and district administration:

"If you take money out of fund balance to reduce the levy, it's a 1-year solution. Next year you'll be facing bounce-back."

True? In principle, sure.

In practice? That depends.
But, first, what exactly is this bounceback they're talking about?

In a nutshell, what it means is that next year we'll get hit with the property tax increase we avoided by using fund balance this year PLUS the additional hit of property tax increase due to NEXT year's spending.

In an oversimplified world, it's like using your savings account to make a mortgage payment when you're running short in a given month. The next month comes along, and you still have to make that mortgage payment, but now your savings account has taken a sizable hit. So unless you've done something to improve cash flow, you'll be in a pinch again. With the school district, it's more like your next month's mortgage payment actually increases 6%.

But that all presumes that we do nothing to curb the spending.

Tax Levy = (Operating costs - State Aid) + Debt Levy

Of those variables, what exactly can we change?
State Aid is only increased with increased enrollment.
(That was the logic behind using the 4K as a "cash cow" for the district.)
The Debt Levy is something we're stuck with; the only remedy is to refinance some of the debt.
The bottom line is that we need to trim our operating costs.


What are the (current) district operating costs?

District administration budgeted to spend $68,500,000.
Over the last several years, the budget (spending) has increased by about 6% per year.
Salaries and fringe benefits account for 80-85% of operating costs.

How do we avoid/minimize "bounce-back"?

• We simply need to spend less.


• We cannot continue adding 6% to the budget operating costs every year.


• We need to be more efficient with the resources available.


• When personnel costs represent 80- 85% of the budget, the only logical place to target is the 800 lb gorilla in the room---personnel.

Statewide, inflated salaries in school districts are an on-going issue. Our school board needs to ignore what other districts are not doing, and blaze their own trail for re-adjusting compensation package benchmarks.


The board also will need to make some changes to the salary structure for teaching staff. Folks...a simple reality is that when we have kindergarten teachers retiring with salaries just shy of $80,000, something is wrong. There are medical professionals who save lives every day that don't earn that much. No one will disagree that teachers' jobs are important. And an effective teacher can even ultimately "save" the life of a student. But the relative cost in terms of dollars and cents has become too high. Especially when contracts are for 190 days vs. 260 days for the average worker. Everyone thinks that they deserve a higher salary. We get that. But the education system is rapidly spinning out of control.

What we cannot do
We cannot keep dipping into fund balance. That's a fact, Jack.
The board /district is correct when they warn that doing so represents a temporary (1-year) solution. We WILL continue to need to need short-term borrowing, and any further hits to fund balance WILL affect the interest rate we can obtain. More importantly, fund balance is not a bottomless source of funds.

YOU Do the Math: One Day Without Pay

Haven't you heard? "Grease" used to be the word. Now, "furlough" is the word!
Google "furlough Wisconsin" and you get over 597,000 hits.

In the 80's we had pet rocks.
In the 90's we got technical and got Tamagotchis.
Early in the "aughts", we just got weird, and had Furbies.
Now? In the middle of a severe economic crisis? We're getting furloughs under the holiday tree!

State employees got 'em (8 days each in fiscal 2010 and fiscal 2011).
County and municipal employees got 'em.
Private sector workers fared even worse.
The lucky ones took pay cuts; the not so lucky took unemployment.

How does business function in a deep recession? When revenues [for any organization] drop, and salaries and fringe benefits account for over 80% of one's operating budget, what, realistically, can one cut to reduce operating costs?

Sometimes the gorilla in the room is personnel costs.

As the Sun Prairie school district mounts its own struggle in the wake of the community voting to slash the tax levy by $2M, the answer, unfortunately, has to lie in real people. The reality is that the district is trying to cut $1,200,000 from the budget adopted on October 26. Sure, there will be proposals suggested to raise the hackles of the community, perhaps to encourage them to re-think this terrible hand they dealt school district administration and the school board. You might hear cries to cut art, or languages, music, or even (gulp!) sports programs.

What you have to do, dear community residents, is not fall for the bait and switch. You may need to find the time to attend school board meetings and state YOUR case. After all, is it really too silly to believe that school board members who were elected by the people, to serve the people, might actually LISTEN to the people?

How Much does ONE Day Cost?
Because you likely will be hearing the word, "furlough", let's look at what it costs for just one day. We apologize in advance for over-simplifying things. You see...all we have is that which is already public record to guide us--the annual report from the annual meeting. Sure, we could lay a lot of detailed open records requests on the district to get the info we need to get numbers that are more refined, but those folks have enough to do right now...and these numbers are close enough for government work.

A Day Without Teachers
So what if administration proposes furloughing teachers. What does that "save" us?
If you add the "Subtotal Instruction", to lines "210 000 Pupil Services", and "220 000 Instructional Staff Services" from the annual meeting booklet, you find that the annual cost of instruction (teaching) is $40,850,000.
Instruction cost (salaries + benefits) per year: $40,850,000
Contract length: 190 days (including 3 convention days, 3 work days, 2 professional development days, and 2 new teacher work days)
Instruction cost per contract day: ~ $215,000
Instruction cost (salary only) per contract day: ~ $150,000

So we trim about $150,000 (12.5% of the target budget cut) by furloughing teachers just one day???!
Hold the phone, Joan! We need to think this through. If we furlough teachers...who actually teaches the kids? Oh...yeah...we'd have to pay substitute teachers. And that cost is about $125 per day per substitute. Let's use 550 as the number of teachers. That sum alone means it would cost about $70,000 to replace the teaching staff, putting a large dent in the cost savings.

A Day Without Administration
Again from the annual meeting data, Administration, Admin Support, Business Admin, and Central Services combined costs the district $14,900,000 per year. Again, let's assume that on average, 30% of total cost is accounted for by fringe benefits.

Admin/Support Services) cost (salaries + benefits) per year: $14,90,000
Admin/Support Contract length: 210 (principals) or 260 days
Admin/Support cost per contract day: ~ $61,000
Admin/Support cost (salary only) per contract day: ~ $42,500

We're just sayin'.....

Has Culver Left the Board Table?

The few people n the audience at the 10-26-09 school board meeting instantly recognized that something didn't feel right. Something was amiss. It took a few moments to realize what was out of place. It was the sight of Dr. Culver sitting off to the side table instead of his typical [yet inappropriate] place at the board President's left hand.

Could it be that the school board has finally decided that it's inappropriate for Culver--their employee-- to be seated at the board table? Is this a permanent change? Or was it merely that they didn't want to catch whatever virus Culver was infected with? [Culver's voice was noticeably affected by some respiratory infection, and he reached for the tissues several times as well. We only hope he used hand sanitizer before shaking hands with those that were given awards at the meeting.]

Guess we'll find out this coming Monday, when we see which seat Culver takes at the school board meeting.

The school board, for many years now, has opted for a "Team of Eight" approach, as we have written about previously .

We also offer this other website, which discusses the "Team of Eight concept"

" Who's in charge of our school boards & their. meetings when it's a 'Team of Eight' ... The "Team of Eight" is seven elected board members plus their employee ... "
www.peytonwolcott.com/TeamEight.html

Potential Budget Cuts

It's time for a change in how this district does business.
We need to run this budget as if it were our own household and our own wallet. When times are tight, it's time to give up the SeaBass in favor of a nice McDonald's Filet-o-fish.

How about 1 district office newspaper instead of one for upstairs and one for downstairs? Better yet...how about NO subscription. You want a paper to read? Bring one in from home like the rest of us.

A few of us pooled ideas and came up the following 22 suggestions for where to start carving up the 2009-10 budget.

1. Use the $40,000 unspecified capital project budget
   
2. Use the $100,000 District Office Remodel ( move finance downstairs and another department upstairs)...or as much as is unspent. Terry Shimek was right to question it - how much sense does this spending truly make?
   
3. Use the remaining $83, 000 Microsoft settlement (2nd half).
   
4. Ensure that ALL costs associated with the new High School and UMS are taken
   from referendum dollars. (We've noticed several attempts to use general fund money).
   
5. Transfer some of fund balance from other "funds" (e.g.; food service has $500K of fund balance) to the General Fund (be sure it's not impossible to do so, rather than "never been done before") .
   
6. Cut the $425/month stipend for the District Administrator.
   
7. Unpaid furloughs for school district administration staff only
   
8. Negotiate a repeal of administrator and Admin Support increases for 2009-10 (or furlough to make the difference).
   
9. Freeze Admin and Admin support staff salaries for 2010-11.
   
10. Reduce Administrative/Admin Support positions (e.g., Program Managers).
    
11. No vehicle replacements for 2009-11 unless absolutely mission critical.
    
12. Put off until 2011-12 any non-critical, non-safety related building [projects (paving, painting, roofing].
    
13. $5,000 reduction in capital painting budget. Or...could we skip painting for a year?
    
14. Unspecified amount of revenue in field and facilities rental fees. Where does this money go? How much revenue has been generated?
    
15. Reduction in the SOAR remodeling project cost
    
16. 75% funding for 2nd school liaison officer.
    
17. Reduce custodial services in schools.
    
18. Review athletic fees relative to area (Big 8?) and statewide fees as well as actual cost per student. Consider raising those fees which tend to be a liability to the general fund.
    
19. Re-evaluate some elective classes...if any are significantly un-selected, consider not offering for a year or so.
    
20. Allow class sizes to increase at all grade levels. Perhaps set a firm cap at 30 students.
    
21. Reduce # of teacher aides where possible.
    
22. LAST: cut teaching positions

Future: We need to look at re-evaluation certified staff contracts. We need to raise the floor and put some sort of realistic ceiling in place.

That's our take.