Layoff Notices Cause Anxiety

By Louisa Downey

When it came time to set down roots, Wendy Brilowski chose to return to the Tomorrow River school district she’d left in 1992. Newly married and expecting her first child, Brilowski bought a home and embarked on a massive home remodeling project. Then this spring, she was told that her position as a Spanish teacher at Amherst High School had been cut due to a shortfall in the budget. The revenue caps were responsible, she was told. Until then, she’d barely given them a second thought.

"The day the list came out, I started working on my resume. Teaching is my first love, and I've done it for 15 years, but I don't see stability coming to the school district anytime soon." _______ Wendy Brilowski

Although Brilowski’s one-third time alternative education position is still open, her salary wouldn’t cover the cost of health insurance or daycare for her newborn.

“The day the list came out, I started working on my resume,” she said. “Teaching is my first love, and I’ve done it for 15 years, but I don’t see stability coming to the school district any time soon.”

Several assistant coaching positions have also been eliminated, as well as a physical therapist and a janitor. The district has raised fees for driver’s education, reduced the supply budget by 10% and cut girls softball.

“The girls are really upset, and I’m really upset,” said Tim Pederson, agricultural teacher and softball coach. “It’s the good kids who are being punished.”

A rash of layoffs
Revenue caps are responsible for a rash of teacher layoffs across the state this spring, according to Mike McNett, WEAC’s director of collective bargaining.

“School districts everywhere are seeing increases in energy costs, health insurance costs, operating expenses and teacher salaries. Some districts have had a budget shortfall of $400,000 or more, but the revenue caps prevent them from raising more money,” McNett said.

Under the 1993 revenue control law, school districts must get voter approval to exceed the cap.

Hardest hit are those schools with declining enrollments, like Tomorrow River. The district held a referendum on April 3 that failed. A second, scaled-down referendum, scheduled for June 19, will ask taxpayers for $350,000 – instead of the original $450,000 – and includes a five-year sunset clause.

The April referendum failed, in part, because of the public’s perception of the district’s financial difficulties, said Pederson.
“There’s so much gossip and misinformation circulating,” he said. “People just don’t understand revenue caps.”

If the June referendum fails, the district has proposed another level of cuts, including athletics, extracurricular activities, one bus route, five teachers, one janitor, one maintenance position and two part-time kitchen help positions.

Tomorrow River is far from alone. Other districts facing possible staff cuts include Port Wing, Ontario, Mauston, Milton, New Glarus, Seneca, Grafton, Cedarburg, Wausau, South Shore, Elroy, Sauk-Prairie, Wisconsin Dells, Portage and Adams-Friendship. Many districts are avoiding direct layoffs by eliminating positions vacated by teachers who have retired.

Wausau eyes 33 layoffs
In May, the Wausau school district announced 33 proposed layoffs to help offset a budget shortfall of $2.3 million. The district’s enrollment has declined by 500 students over the past five years.

“Twenty-eight of our layoffs have been absorbed by retirements,” said association president Darwin Gregerson. Nonetheless, the result is class sizes are expected to increase to 33 students in grades three, four and five. Gregerson said the public recently passed a $66 million referendum, which ruled out the possibility of asking for more money this year.

“The public is saying, ‘We just gave you $66 million for new buildings, what do you mean you don’t have money for curriculum?’” he said.

Cedarburg feeling strain
Cedarburg has also reduced staff by attrition. It’s a short-term solution that only places more strain on remaining teachers, said Terry Lowder, a middle school teacher who said the district manipulated schedules and reduced prep time to cover classes.
“It’s hugely stressful,” Lowder said. “Prep time at the middle school has been cut by two hours and 15 minutes next year. It affects teachers’ ability to plan in the classroom.”

Staff cut 25% in South Shore
Similar problems face the South Shore district in the Bayfield area near Lake Superior.

Following the layoff of six of South Shore’s 24 teachers, Frank Koehn will be the only remaining middle school teacher next fall. He’ll teach social science, math and computers to a combined 7th and 8th grade class of about 40 students. South Shore has also combined grades two and three, and five and six.

“When you have 40 kids in a class, you can be a good presenter, but not a good teacher,” said Koehn, who is also South Shore’s chief negotiator. “As educators, we’re told to prepare kids to be lifelong learners. We need to start them off right out of the gate.”
South Shore is using its $700,000 “Fund 10 balance” (reserve money) to help run the district. Koehn estimates that will buy the district a couple more years at best.

“When you start to use your fund balance, the clock begins to tick,” he said. “Our fund is taking hits of $200,000 every year. When the balance gets below $400,000, we’ll be looking at short-term borrowing to pay the bills. In the meantime, we’re running a bare bones school and trying to keep the doors open.”

In recent years, South Shore has cut programs like family and consumer education, and now has one physical education teacher for grades K-12. Koehn, who grew up in nearby Ashland, knows a referendum to raise more money isn’t the answer in an economically distressed district.

“A lot of families around here earn less than $40,000 a year,” he said. “You can’t just bleed poor communities to death.”

With no reprieve in sight, Koehn said the district will have to find new solutions to educating its students such as using Web-based instruction, or reducing some positions to part-time, in addition to more possible layoffs. If enrollment continues to decline, the district may be dissolved and students bused to Ashland.
Frugal districts hit hardest

In Milton, the district, the staff and the students are being hurt now because the district has been frugal in the past, said chief negotiator Greg Divine.

“We’re being punished for doing a good job and keeping expenses down. When the time comes to cut, there’s no fat to trim, only essential staff and programs,” Divine said.

With declining enrollment and the revenue caps, the district faces a budget shortfall of $434,000 in 2001-2002.

Four low-seniority teachers and an aide were told to look for work elsewhere this spring. Milton has also cut 12 positions from the district’s proposed 2001-02 budget and will not fill two positions vacated by a middle school teacher and a library aide.
Divine doesn’t anticipate any improvement as long as the revenue control law remains in place.

“It’s going to get worse, there’s no doubt about that,” he said. “We won’t dig ourselves out until the population increases or we get some relief from the revenue caps.”

Chasing teachers away
For many of Wisconsin’s best teachers, the strain is causing them to leave the profession. Some are retiring early, and others are taking jobs in other fields.

Brilowski fears that if she leaves Tomorrow River, she’d run into the same problems as a teacher elsewhere.

“Even if I’m not cut, what happens next year and the year after that?” she said. “I don’t want to live with that instability. I’m looking at corporate work in international marketing, international sales or public relations – I’ve got marketable skills.”

Posted May 31, 2001