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'.....
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