It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,... it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair...-- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Here in Sun Prairie, we play out our own little Dickensian tale. On the one hand, we have District Administrator Tim Culver, who must have at some point had rose-colored contact lenses surgically attached to his eyes. And of course, our elected school board comes along as a package deal with Culver. On the other hand, we have the Sun Prairie City Council.
Both are taxing authorities, but their approaches to budgeting, and their ability to empathize with the struggles of community residents could not be more diametrically opposed.
The Sun Prairie City Council had one, very simple directive for the 2009-10 budget: draft a budget with a zero-percent city property tax increase.
The School District, under Kind Culver's reign, used a "put the pedal to the metal" approach when crafting its budget.
It was only an 11th hour packed house at the annual elector's meeting that rained a little grim reality on the school district's spending parade. Armed with the only weapon at their disposal when their elected representatives--the school board-- failed them miserably, community residents attended the meeting in force, and successfully voted by an overwhelming 2-1 margin to reduce the tax levy by $2M.
While statute prevents electors from adjusting the budget, the community did what it could and sent a message to the board and the district that enough was enough. This move forced the school board and the district to go back to the drawing board and reduce the budget by $2M. Oh...they didn't accept defeat easily, mind you. Al Slane and Jim McCourt--who are now running for re-election--- talked boldly about using a loophole in the statute to overturn the voice of the public and refuse to reduce the tax levy. In the end, discretion seemed to be the better part of valor, and neither Slane nor McCourt made such a motion. They reluctantly agreed to reduce the tax levy.
That Was Then, This Is Now
The larger concern last October was not the 2009-10 budget, however, but the 2010-11 budget, which should be established prior to this July 1. We emphasize "should" because our crafty school board and district waffles and weasels and delays putting together any concrete budget information until as late as possible....mid-August this year. They hide behind weak statements such as "we won't know hard and fast numbers until late October". Sure. That's technically true. But the "rest of the story" is that MANY school districts DO set a budget by July 1. Their highly paid administrators are, well...highly paid...BECAUSE they are intuitive enough and connected enough to have a very good business sense of what state aids and enrollment projections will be.
So...after alluding to how much WORSE this next year's budget would be--with the costs of opening the new high school, upper middle school, and pool--why haven't we heard even a PEEP about budget projections? Shouldn't they be working round the clock to put together...and SHARE WITH THE COMMUNITY...some budget projections? The old adage goes that you share good news as soon as possible; but you hold bad news until forced to give it up.
Then, come yesterday, we received another piece of the puzzle. You may recall that the school board "invited" SPEA, the teacher's union, to come back to the table to accept two unpaid furlough days over the next 2 years (You'll also recall that state employees got no polite request...instead they were force-fed SIXTEEN furlough days over the biennium).
SPEA's response came in the form of a lengthy letter from Brad Lutes, SPEA president, that can be succinctly summarized as:
"Negatory on the furlough days, good buddy.
But...tell ya what... you guys tax the community to the max next fall, and the SPEA membership will commit to attending in force to ensure that any tax levy you set gets approved. "--Sun Prairie Teachers Union
Why won't the Sun Prairie School Board work as diligently as the Sun Prairie City Council when it comes to holding the line on taxes. They are BOTH our elected representatives. So why does one work for us and the other against us?
" It's not just this budget; the electors spoke. They did not want a 12.5% increase in taxes. And they won't want it next year. We already know free and reduced lunches are up significantly. There are going to be tax increases this year and next year. New school or not, we're going to have to have an alternative plan for next year. It may mean dropping SAGE next year, it may mean looking at significant increases in the number of students per class, so think about that. "
--school board member Terry Shimek 10-26-09
" My personal feeling is not taking anything out of fund balance. I will accept taking $800,000 out of fund balance. I won't go for anything if we take more than that, if we blow our own policy.
I've got to say, when I look at the high school, we've got two principals and four assistants. Duh. Surely they can be given a day off in rotation. I want you to furlough some administrators and some certified staff. Sit down and figure it out, how much it will get and round up a couple hundred thousand dollars. "
--school board member Caren Diedrich 10-26-09
" I wasn't at the annual meeting, but from what I've heard in all the discussions, it was not about cutting budgets as much as it was about we've got a rainy day fund, let's use that rainy day fund to pay for the rainy day we have today. "
--school board member Jim McCourt 10-26-09
" I'd like to know next month, are we even going to get close [to making $1.2M in cuts]? I think if we nickel and dime it along the way all year, you're kind of fooling yourself. "
--school board member Al Slane 10-26-09
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