WISCONSIN APPLIES FOR $180 MILLION FROM EDUCATION JOBS FUND
On Thursday, Aug. 19, Gov. Doyle signed Wisconsin’s application to receive its nearly $180 million share of the $10 billion Education Jobs Fund. The dollars will be distributed to local school districts using the state’s general equalization aid formula in order to distribute dollars to as many districts as possible.
According to the Department of Administration, districts may begin utilizing these funds to cover salary and benefit expenditures as of August 10, 2010.
\The state must distribute the dollars to schools during the 2010-11 school year.
The money will be sent to districts as federal aid and will be outside revenue controls.
Local school districts will have until Sept. 1, 2012, to “obligate” the funds.
While the intent of the law is for the funds to be used immediately, the law allows local school districts to carry over some or all of the funds for staffing needs in the 2011-12 school year.
The money must be used in local school districts for “salaries, benefits, and support services” for school-level district employees—teachers, principals, counselors, custodians, nurses, etc. Funds may not be used for district-level employees or contracted employees. Funds may not be used for “general administrative expenses” or for “other support services expenditures.”
School districts can opt to use the dollars to call back staff members who were laid off, hire new staff, or use the funds for current employees and free up local dollars for other uses.
The funds can be used to extend the school day and/or school year, provide summer school, or offer incentives to recruit or retain staff.
As with the stimulus funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), there will be reporting requirements on how many jobs were created or saved.
As with the ARRA stimulus funds, it is important for the public to understand that these dollars are needed by local school districts and will be used as Congress intended —to save teaching jobs. Although individual districts may no longer be in a position to call back teachers who were laid off for the 2010-11 school year, communications to the media and/or public should indicate that: 1) these funds will be used; and 2) they will be used to keep teachers in the classroom.
$1.75M! That would pay for quite a few positions....which would free up that money for ...dry erase markers! or reams of copy paper! or glue sticks!
We're sure the hamster wheels inside the district braintrust are spinning mightily! But we need a school board to counsel them how to BEST use this money to help the community that just gifted them with $100M in new/renovated schools.
This money could fund:
- any new teachers needed based on increased enrollment.
- fund summer school teachers for next summer (we actually make a profit from summer school!)
- Teachers aides (you know...local 60 members, the one place in the budget where Caren Diedrich wants to slash and burn)
- Early retirement incentives so we can replace $80K kindergarten teachers and elementary school librarians for HALF THE COST OR LESS with energized kids coming out of school
The bottom line, of course, is that if used to support EXISTING positions/programs for the 2010-11 school year, that means that the budget can be REDUCED by as much as $1.75M. And THAT is a way to help struggling community members. Yes, it may be a one-year fix....but we may have stumble through a few of these one-year fixes before the Powers That Be figure out that something needs to change permanently.
Posts
