Finally! School Board Talks Turkey (and Budget)

This past Wednesday night, the school board, possibly bowing to public [cough, cough] pressure, held a "work/study" meeting to discuss the status of the 2010-11 budget.

School District Budget Projections

• General Budget: $72,000,000 [ 4.8% increase over 2009-10- $68.65M]
• Enrollment Growth: 133 students [based on UW-APL estimate]
• State aid: 11% increase
• Property value growth: 1% [last year was 0.92%]
• Levy Increase: 8.6% = $48.05M [last year= $44.25M]
• Mill Rate Increase: 7.6% = $12.10/ $1,000 [last year was $11.24]
(That's an additional $0.86 per $1,000, or $215 on a $250K home)
• Below state revenue limits by at least $600,000

The budget is based on 9 Parameters:
1. Adherence to the "Mission Statement"
yada yada

2. Dedication to the district "Priorities"
more yada yada

3. Compliance with statutory, regulatory, and policy requirements
yada yada continues

4. Maintain existing district class size guidelines, including SAGE criteria for Bird and Westside; no "+/- 2" used for Creekside.
(Note: 9th grade will be moving from a 7 to 8 period day. This will require a 15% increase in staffing due to contract requirements.
We know. The day isn't any longer, but there are 15% (8÷7) more classes to teach. WTF!

5. Open the new high school and upper middle school safely, effectively, and efficiently
Secondary staffing plan Grades 6-12. Calls for hiring 22.2 new staff:
•Teachers: 11.1 FTE
•Support Staff: 9.3 FTE
•Admin. Support: 0.8 FTE
•Ass’t Principal: 1.0 FTE
Culver seemed to indicate that this was less than originally planned, but we were told $1.1M in new costs to open the new high school, and the district uses a figure of about $50K per FTE for budgeting. Funny thing: 22.2 X $50,000 equals $1.1M

6. Fulfill SPEA contract
Sheee-ah! like there was a choice!

7. Do NOT ask voters to exceed revenue limits.
This is big. That being said...sheee-ah!

8. Balanced budget; use fund balance to pay any tax charge-backs
Notified to date of about $110,000 in property tax charge-backs.
This from the folks that were screaming to never touch fund balance 6 months ago.

9. As small an increase in the local levy & mill rate as possible

The Budget Projections are based on 7 key assumptions
1. Budget was developed using the RW Baird forecast model

2. Use UWAPL data to predict enrollment of 133 more students

3. No changes in state law, DPI regulations, or district policies

4. No cuts in state equalized aid in the 2nd year of this biennium

5. 4K Grant is received (budget assumes $575,000 received)

6. Property Values Grow 1 %

7. The 2010-11 budget includes all the borrowing needed for the new HS, 8/9 school and the pool.
The borrowings were done at much lower interest rates than were used during the referendum saving $39.9 M in interest costs compared to what was originally projected


The district propaganda, meeting notes, and questions from the board to the district can be found here:
District Powerpoint overview of the budget

Meeting Notes

Follow-up questions from the school board

2010-11 Tax Levy Picture If We Don't Stop the Madness

Rough Projections for 2011-12 (assuming NO recurring budget cuts)


Please...take these projections with a grain of salt. The assumptions used are that the state economy and equalized aid picture doesn't change very much (which seems valid). It assumes a 3% increase in property value...which we think is pretty Pollyanna. Lastly, it assumes the district continues their spend-happy ways and increases its expenditures by 6%.


That being said...at least we can offer them. The school district holds this information very close to the vest.

• Budgeted Expenditures (up 6%) : $ 72.6M
  
• Projected state aid (44% of expenditures): $ 32.0M
  
• That leaves $40.6M of expenditures paid through general fund tax levy
  
• Then we have to add another $9.5M for debt service levy
  
• That makes for a total tax levy projection of: $ 50.1M
  
• Which translates to an increase of 13.2% over what was levied this year.
  
• That 13.2% is the "bounceback" being discussed.
  ...and it could be even higher due to costs associated with opening the new high school.
  
• Assume the equalized value (of all property) rises 3% to $ 4,020,000,000 (which is a pretty optimistic projection)
  
• Mill rate is calculated as TAX LEVY divided by the EQUALIZED VALUE
  
• That translates to a mill rate of $12.47

...and it could be mnuch higher than that...if the equalized property value stays flat, the mill rate climbs to $12.86 per $1,000.

Bursting the Bubble?

A wise man once said that it's a good exercise to look backwards once in awhile and see where you've been. Kinda makes you take stock of how you got to where you are. We were so interested in the numbers that were presented at Thursday's Diversity meeting that we couldn't resist takin' 'em back and playing with 'em a bit.

The Sun Prairie Area School District relies heavily on projections made by the the University of Wisconsin's Applied Population Lab (UW-APL). Projections are great, but they are exactly that....projections. At some point, coming up with these numbers has to involve what some scientists refer to as the "WAG Technique"...you know...as in Wild Ass Guess. Of course, any projection is based on assumptions, and as long as those assumptions ring true, the projections can be fairly valid.

So let's take a trip down memory lane....

The District's Strategic Plan of 2004 (fueled by UW-APL 2003 data)

The APL projections for 2008-09 made 5 years earlier were eerily accurate. In 2003, the APL projected 2972 [K-5] elementary students (actual was 2924); 1401 [6-7-8] Middle School students (actual = 1372); and 1807 [9-12] High School students (actual = 1807). Remember, though, that 71 high school students are situated in the Alternate Learning Center. That means only 1635 are actually in the high school.

Unfortunately, that's about where accuracy gets off the bus. The 5-year projection for High School enrollment (Gr 9-12) beyond 2008-09 was for 2288 students. To reach that level of enrollment, we'd have to experience sustained growth of 5% enrollment increases over each of the next 5 years.

The total district enrollment projection for 2012 (3 years from now) was 7604 students. And that was before adding in the 4K, which wasn't part of the plan back then. Our 2009 K-12 enrollment was 6103. That would mean an increase of 500 students per year to reach that projection.

It would seem that the economy and the bursting of the housing bubble may have been nature's way of putting its foot on the growth brake. Yet another reason to view projections with caution. Projections do NOT (CANNOT) consider the effects of things like 100-year flooding, major economic collapses, or unprecedented state budget shortfalls.

Where does our growth come from?

General consensus is that most of our enrollment growth comes from births. That's why Phil Frei focuses heavily on kindergarten enrollment numbers. It makes a lot of sense, particularly when you consider the high school. Kids don't get born at age 14-18. So the only way we increase high school grade level enrollment is through a net INFLUX into the district. To reach the kind of growth they projected in 2004, we'd have to add 25-30 kids at EACH grade level for each of the next five years. That would mean a LOT of families moving into the district with high school age students, and NONE moving OUT of the district.

Another way to look at projections is to view them in terms of class size. This year, district wide, we AVERAGED about 470 kids per grade level, with a low of 430 (grade 11...hmmmm) and a high of 512 grade 2). Remember we built the new 10-12 high school with a capacity of 2000 students. Divide 2000 by 3 grade levels and you get 667 students per grade. That represents a whopping 42% increase over the average grade enrollment today. THAT is why most of the community felt that ONE high school was plenty.

October 2006 APL projections

During the first referendum attempt for the high school, APL was called upon again. These 2-year projections for 2008-09 were 1718 (high school) 1412 (middle school) and 3059 (elementary). Again, you see the focus for long-term enrollment growth is on the elementary school aged kids.

Their projections for 8 years from now (2016-17) were 2722 in grades 9-12 (680 per grade); 1927 for grades 6-8 (642 per grade); and 3499 for grades K-5 (583 per grade). Seems inverted, doesn't it? Those projections would suggest that growth is declining from that point on. This suggests that the growth "bubble" is really at this year's 4th graders, with class size (growth) tailing off steadily from that point.

Referendum Flyer November 2007

This infomercial scared the beejeezus out of people with projections of 2700 High School (9-12, we hope) students within 8 years of now (2017). Do the math folks, that translates to a graduating class size of 700 students. Hell we haven't even hot 500 yet, and the closest we get by juts advancing forward our current students is 512 based on this year's 2nd graders. For reference, this year's grade 12 is 467 (just about average) while next year's falls to 430.

Projecting it forward

We'll catch grief for this, but a simplistic (yes, perhaps overly so) projection can be made by using a simple technique of "projecting forward" current grade levels to see how things play out. Is it exact. No way. What it does not consider is births (or call them future kindergartners), although we've read that birth rates have declined significantly in recent years. This "projecting it forward". It just looks at current students. It assumes (quite simply) that a net zero students either enter or leave the district. That being said, you can do the math on how much net 'growth" would be required to reach enrollment of any particular level.

A few Words on Grade Progression Ratios

The APL calculates what it terms "grade projection ratios" which essentially represent projected changes in grade level enrollment from year to year. One last little mystery to solve. Astute observers will note a sudden increase in enroillment at Grade 9 (1.18, or 18% over 8th grade). This actually represents students coming into the public school from private or parochial schools, such as Sacred Hearts, which only gextends through 8th grade. You might also note a DECREASE at grades 10 and 11. Does this decrease relate to dropouts? We're not sure, but like many other things, the district doesn't offer any commentary on these little questions.

Take a look at the two graphs below. They are scaled identically. The first is OUR simplistic projection by simply advancing grade level enrollments forward. The second is the projection from the APL associated with the November 2007 referendum information. Both plots are ONLY fro the "new" high school, i.e., grades 10-12. Note the much steeper growth projected by the APL. That was before the economy and housing market hit the skids. Remember...the school was built to hold 2000. The bubble seems to appear at grade 2 enrollment. After that, has the bubble been burst? Will we face declining enrollment?

N