Greed: First DeForest Administrators; Now Milwaukee Teachers

Check this out!
From the people that demanded their Viagra at a cost to the taxpayers of $1M, now comes a refusal to capitulate to what most other teachers' unions have already accepted.  The cost?  The jobs of as many as 354 of their own.  Yes, Virginia...Milwaukee teachers apparently do eat their own.

Education Action Group: Milwaukee school board and teachers union – not the state – to blame for 354 teacher layoffs

Seven months after painting itself into a financial corner, Milwaukee Public Schools did the inevitable yesterday and laid off 354 teachers and 165 staff members.
    The layoffs come after teachers union members made it abundantly clear they had no interest in helping alleviate the district’s financial woes by agreeing to contribute 5.8 percent to their own pension plans, a move that would have allowed 200 teachers to remain employed, according to CNN.
    “We are not willing to negotiate,” MTEA President Mike Langyel recently told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “We have concluded bargaining. We are willing to work with the school board to get proper funding from Madison.”
    Translation: We got ours, so tough luck to the students as well as the younger teachers who will lose their jobs.
    In addition to the huge number of teacher layoffs, MPS said that students will have to make do with old textbooks and larger class sizes. We’ll wager that students will also have fewer academic offerings from which to choose.

Certainly, the school board was foolish to offer a 4-year contract when the smell of wholesale change was wafting through the air.  No one was offering lengthy contracts.  But now is the time to sacrifice for others, to protect your brethren.  We wonder how interested these young teachers, who lost their jobs, will be in maintaining their union status.  Walker may have delivered a crushing blow to unions, but the old guard of MTEA have themselves delivered what may be a finishing blow to the union.  Remember, folks...Walker's law requires unions to re-certify annually...or be gone.

 Yes...things are tough.  NO ONE wanted to accept these cuts disguised as  increased payroll deductions. Our own Sun Prairie teachers didn't like it either.  But they accepted their Governor Walker imposed fate and took the high road.  Our teachers understand that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.  They understand that Walker has his way...for now anyway.

1% of WHAT?

If administrators are getting a 1% raise....and the raise is a "pool" of 1% of administrator salaries for 2010-11...
But...but....that includes the salaries of 3 administrators that have left the building.
Why should their salaries be included in determining "the pool"....if new administrators are ineligible for raises???

Why, to boost their individual raises of course!

Think about it....the 3 administrators who have resigned made a combined $300,000.
1% of that is $3,000.
That means that the "raise pool" of  roughly $25,000 is high by $3,000
What a nice way to increase your raise by 13%

They must be learning from DeForest!

Up For School Board Vote: 2.0% Increase for Administrators

At Monday's (June 13th) School Board meeting, the board will consider increases to administrator pay that result in a net 2% increase in salary. Note that 2% is a figure based on the salary pot for 2010-11.  Assuming that (A) replacement administrators will not get any increases, that means the average per administrator will amount to MORE than 2%.  As usual, some administrators get very healthy increases, while those in Culver's doghouse will net less than the average.

This recommendation includes administrators with the exception of the District Administrator, who will be
determined separately.

RECOMMENDATION

Effective for the 2011-2012 contract year:
1. Increase employee Medical Insurance contribution from 5% to 9% (or 10% without a Health Risk
Assessment).  [SP-EYE note: Because SPASD obtains insurance a a lower rate than state employees, the district is requiring employees to pay 9% of insurance premiums  rather than the 12% required of state/county/municipal employees]
2. Administrators shall pay the employee’s required deposit to the Wisconsin Retirement System.
(Currently 5.8%.)
3. Eliminate mileage stipends and move the $25,425 from “stipend” to regular salary. The amount of
each stipend currently received is the amount that will be transferred to each administrator’s base salary.
Administrators will be able to claim mileage on the same basis as other district employees.  [SP-EYE note:  Although this is technically not "new" money, as it previously was paid as a stipend, it is now added to salary, which affects income on retirement.  Since administrators will now be able to request reimbursement for travel within Dane Co. IN ADDITION to the increased salary, it does represent increased income.]
4. Add $25,082 to the administrative salary pool for 2011-2012 for distribution via the performance pay
system.  [SP-EYE note:  This amounts to about 1% of 2010-11 administrator salary pool.  Note, however, that with several administrators leaving, that means less administrators to "share" in the money pot.  That means more per administrator on average.]
5. Make the changes above and other ‘housekeeping’ corrections as marked in the attached document.

Whaddyathink?  Slam dunk that the school board votes 7-0 to approve these raises?

Can't See DeForest For The Greed

Confidential?  Yeah...we can see why they didn't
 want THIS document to ever see the light of day!

 The pressure is off of district administrators and the school board here in Sun Prairie, because of the shocking cajones of the DeForest Board of Education and DeForest Area School District Administrators.

While we're getting worked up --and justifiably so--- about our own district administration on the cusp of getting 1.6% increases in the midst of tight times, the DeForest Administration Team ---with the support of the Board of Education-- awarded themselves titannic raises under the guise of "Dane County Market Equity" adjustments. The raises are retroactive to January 1, 2011. For appearances sake--you just KNOW they'll spin this in budget documents--- their salaries are being frozen for 2011-12. Geeeee whiz! With those increases, they should be frozen permanently.

How much of raises are they getting, you ask? The AVERAGE salary increase since the 2009-10 school year (for which administrators received a whopping 5% increase) is 16%. For a group of 22 administrators, the lowest increase received was 5.1% and the highest 39.1%. The price tag for salary adjustments comes to an incredible $304,000! And that amount is an expense for EVERY future year, further compounded by future wage increases.

Simply...SHOCKING!

For the top 11 DeForest Administrators, the AVERAGE salary increase in dollars was $15,700 per year. That increase in pay amounts to $1300 per month! Many senior citizens on Social Security (who have not seen an increase in the past 2 years) earn less than $1300 per month TOTAL! These fat cats are getting that as a RAISE!

Questions abound in DeForest as early indications suggest that the board of education (school board) did not vote on these increases in open session.   That would be a clear violation of Open Meetings Laws.  We could find no documentation or agenda that suggested these raises were even considered, let alone a done deal.  We were, however, able to obtain a document that appears to have been leaked from within the school district.  The members of the DeForest Board of Education should be ashamed of themselves, to say the least. They'll be lucky if they don't get tarred and feathered right out of the community. Recall elections are the soup du jour this spring. We may be seeing a few (or all) board of educations members facing recall elections.

Clearly these folks have no clue as to how badly things could heat up for them. Sun Prairie taxpayers put the whammy on the school board here 2 years ago by voting to cut the tax levy by $2,000,000. That amount could pale in comparison to what DeForest community members could do at their annual meeting this summer.

Why is this such a poorly timed move? First of all, folks, the economy isn't exactly hopping along like an Energizer bunny. Second, the time is quickly approaching when state, county, and municipal workers' paychecks will be severely cut by Governor Walker's agenda. These ridiculous raises will be hitting people's pockets when they can least afford it.

One other problem this situation poses is that we could very quickly get into a game of keeping up with the Jones. Our administrators will see DeForest's raises and want similar bounty.

The DeForest Times reports the following:

[District Administrator Dr. Jon] Bales said the decision was based on a desire by the board to have every district employee compensated at a level of at least the average in the market. "Over the years, we've been able to accomplish that with support staff and teachers," he said. "The effort with administrators was exactly the same. It's been put off, frankly, for years, because it is a high-cost group. We wanted to do it last year, we didn't do it. We wanted to do it this year, we didn't do it. We implemented it mid-year because you only pay half of what that base increase would have been. While it looks like a dramatic sort of adjustment for some people, at the end of the day, they're paid an average wage in the county." "I don't discount the timing, I don't discount the pressures on the district, but that was built around a balanced budget before the new state budget."

You're Not Gonna Believe This!

Are you sitting down?
Calm? Cool? Collected?
OK...then we can tell you...
Our administrators are underpaid.

That's right.  You heard it here, on SP-EYE. Unlike the district, that spins things only one way and shares only the information that makes them look good, we offer you the facts.  Sometimes the facts support our contentions...and sometimes they don't.

We looked at DPI Administrative Salary data for 2010-11.  We focused on the 20 school districts closest in size to Sun Prairie.  And we found that if you gasp for breath every time you read about administrator pay in Sun Prairie, you should be thankful we're not like other districts our size.

Of course, there are at least a few bleeding heart school board members that will leap upon this opportunity to pay our administrators more.  In fact, the board is in negotiations now to give administrators as much as a 2% increase in salary.

Do we need to follow a new leader?

Pause, Take  a Deep Breath...and Stop the Insanity!
What are we?  Lemmings?  Just because Acme School district wants to pay its administrators ridiculous wages, do we need to follow suit?  Who REALLY makes $100K plus in this society?  The average US physician earns about $140K.  The average dentist earns $102K.  The average engineer earns about $75K. (Source: http://www.worldsalaries.org/usa.shtml).  Sure, school district administrators have some responsibility.  But more than an engineer? dentist? doctor?  After all....these folks aren't TEACHING our kids.  So let's not use that rationale.

A review of the 2010 Census shows that only 8% of US households earn more than $125,000.  8%!  Do school administrators REALLY belong in the top 8% of all wage earners?  There's something wrong with this picture!  Hopefully our school board will give some consideration to this before casting their votes when the Administrator contracts come up in the very near future. New data shows that the median household income in 2009 was $50,221 which is down from $52,029 in 2008.  This drop of 3.6 percent comes at a time when many U.S. households are struggling to make payments on mortgages.   Really? The median household income is $50,000 and we pay school administrators DOUBLE or TRIPLE that?
 

Download a file of WI school 
district administrator compensation

Is Common Sense Really Dead?
The tide may finally be turning.  In these tight times, people are starting to wake up and pay attention.  The governor of New York is currently proposing legislation which would establish a tier system )based on enrollment) under which school district administrator (superintendent) salaries would be capped.  Currently, one-third of district administrators in New York earn over $175,000.  The 6th (top) tier, under which Sun Prairie would fall, would limit compensation to $175,000.  And that's New York, people!  As in the New York whose cost of living far exceeds ours.  Interestingly enough, the district administrator from New Berlin, WI is currently in negotiations to be district administrator in New York.  He was compensated over $200K last year.  How will this affect him? Read the article below.

District's pick for superintendent has sixth-highest education salary in Wisconsin

Is our Administration over-staffed?
Nobody wants to discuss the 800 lb gorilla in the room, but eventually those discussions must occur before the gorilla overtakes us.  Two aspects of administrative costs stuck out like a sore thumb when we looked at the 20 similar-sized districts.

First, Sun Prairie happens to have the most amount of administrators dedicated to Special Education. Kids with special need are an important part of our district, but let's face the facts, these administrators aren't typically working one-on-one with these kids.  That responsibility falls on Local 60 staffers largely earning less than $15/hour.   But lets toss in another fact that may make you pause to think.  We also looked at the DPI data for the numbers and percentage of enrollment comprised by special needs kids.  While Sun Prairie may have the highest number of Special Ed. administrators, we have the second LOWEST percentage of special need s kids in districts our size.   We'll take "Things That Make You Go, 'Hmmmm' for $500, Alex".

Top Heavy? (and not in a good way)
Second.  If we look at the ratio of principals to assistant principals in the district, we also stick out like a sore thumb in comparison to similar-sized districts.  Remember when the board voted on a heated split-vote to spend the money to hire an additional assistant principal at the high school?  Maybe if the board had looked at these hard facts, they would have given more though to that move.  After all, aren't we supposed to be a district that bases its decisions on data?   Are we looking at the wrong (or censored) data?  Or just not looking at the data at all?

Wrapping it All Up
So...are our administrators under paid?  Or is it better a question of : are our administrators simply not as excessively paid as other in similar sized school districts?  As we have to tighten our budgetary belts, it is this where we need to focus our attention...not on the teachers in the classrooms.

Administrators Look For A Hand Out?

Maybe Dr. Culver's use of the statement, "We're not strapped for cash" in his "Equity" situation report was but a taste of things to come.

What many community members may have overlooked on last week's school board agenda was the item for Closed Session discussion:

Category: Closed Session
Subject:  Accept a motion to go into closed session for the purpose of taking action on closed School Board minutes of March 14 & 16, 2011; discussion and action on a grievance settlement; discuss Local 60 and Sun Prairie Education Association (SPEA) negotiations parameters; discuss and develop parameters regarding administrators' compensation/benefits; and discussion of District Administrator's contract [Wis. Stats. 19.85(1)(c) & (e)]

What's up the Administrators' collective sleeve?
Surely they wouldn't be looking for a raise...right?

Unfortunately, this is that part of the game where they tell the board what they're looking for, but the public doesn't get to see their "demands" until a counter-proposal is passed by the school board. And even then, you either have to be present at that meeting to get the proposals, or you have to request them. Nothing is easy in this district.