...and Visions of Sugar Plums (???) Danced in their Heads

What are our school board members and top administrators hoping to find under their holiday trees this year?

Perhaps Teachers Will Soon Feel the Furlough Pain?

Wisconsin Teachers May Face Furloughs Soon
New Senate Leader Proposes Cuts For Next Budget Cycle
Updated: November 19, 2010

Incoming State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said a teacher from his district gave him the idea, pointing out that students are in school for 180 days by law, but teachers work for 185 days by many district contracts (In Sun Prairie it's 190 day contracts). That means there could be five days possible for furlough that wouldn't affect teaching time.

"It is something that I think may have to be done in an effort to balance this budget," Fitzgerald said.


While we support teachers and education, we believe they also need to "feel the pain".  While teachers are guaranteed a 3% salary increase each year by virtue of "the grid", state employees have been operating under a 3-5% pay CUT for the past 2 years.  Newsflash, teachers....the word on the street is that state employees will be getting no raises for another 2 years, but they will get 16-26 extra days off (the unpaid furlough kind).  If state employees get stuck with 16 to 26, surely you need at least 5.  You still get your 3% raises.  State employees go Oh for Four...as in 0% for FOUR years.

Second Verse...Same as the First

We received this from a resident who either attended or caught the video re-run of the recent budget hearing held on June 21st. Enjoy.

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All indications are that the district spent this year doing the same thing they did last year—motivating the “wrong” people to show up to the October meeting. Between now and October it appears that they will overpay for a pool manager. Though it is difficult for most people to evaluate the wisdom of most expenditures made by the district, each of us has a pretty good idea of what a pool manager should make. If someone really cares, they could do a job search and find out what pool managers are making these days.

What they would find is that Milwaukee YMCA is hiring a manager for aquatic facilities at 2 locations, with a budget of more than a half million dollars and responsibility to about 10,000 members. They are hiring this individual in the $38k-44k range. Further searches show that that is about average nationwide for the position (a position less complicated than the one we need to fill).

On June 14th, the school board unanimously approved spending $51,250

to fill a pool manager position that pays 20% less everywhere else in the world. Since this is a number that is pretty easy to evaluate, it serves as a proxy for how smart they are being with our money. If they are being that careless with that money, they are probably overpaying other places too. Actions like this will make the October meeting a tough one for board members.

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SP-EYE's take. We agree with what this resident presents. However, one teensey weensy little fact makes up for the apparent discrepancy in the hiring salary. You see...our Pool Manager (sorry...we're not falling for the touchy feely, use-big-words-to-justify-an-exorbitant-salary trick) will be an employee of a school district (ours). School districts are the Exxon-Mobils of the education game. Recession proof. Big Pay. Oh... and the CEOs cost us a fortune.