November 9, 2005

Florence wins

WEAC President Stan Johnson celebrated the outcome of Florence County's referendum to override the state's education caps and to keep the school district open. Johnson also said he is concerned about the fate of school districts throughout the state that face crises similar to Florence's.

"I applaud the voters of Florence County for preserving their local schools, the heart of their community," Johnson said. "But Florence's situation is not unique, and I worry that many more communities will experience the same upheaval, and even close their schools' doors, if we do not change this state's school finance laws."

Between 1993 and 2003, the average school district in Wisconsin gained 8.7% in enrollment while Florence lost 14% of its student body, leading to decreasing state aid under the state's education caps.

Fifty other Wisconsin districts lost enrollment for five consecutive years between 2000 and 2005. Since education caps were implemented in 1993, Florence's district costs for utilities increased by 115% and costs for transportation increased by 76%.

Meanwhile, Florence's school revenues increased by just 30% and spending on teacher compensation increased only 16%. Since 1993, funding for the district increased annually by about 2.6%, but spending on utilities and transportation fluctuated by as much as 40% in some years, forcing wide disparities within the budget.

In addition to Florence's troubles, the Milwaukee School Board voted on November 4 to close four Milwaukee high schools, and the administrator in the Oakfield School District publicly stated on November 7 that his district could be the "next Florence" if a referendum there fails for the third time.

Throughout the state, districts are closing school buildings in order to stay afloat. "In the face of all these facts, the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance and others have tried to create diversions and take political advantage of Florence's situation by blaming teachers' early retirement benefits for the closure threats," Johnson said.

In a recent report on school closings in Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance focused on early retirement healthcare costs and used faulty numbers to attack post-retirement healthcare benefits.

The truth is that districts were not required to identify specific costs associated with early retirement prior to 2003. And in 2003-04, many school districts listed expenditures unrelated to early retirement in the budget line item that is supposed to be used only for early retirement. Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance incorporated this data into its analysis.

As the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance should know, gains that teachers have made in early retirement packages have come at the expense of other compensation, and compensation for teachers has declined as a share of district expenditures since the implementation of education caps.

In Florence County, where the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance claims that the early retirement benefit led the district to the brink of closing, total teacher compensation has decreased by 6% as a share of district spending in the last 10 years.

"Wisconsin's great teachers and staff are not to blame for the fiscal crises in our state's school districts," Johnson said. "The state's deeply flawed school finance system is."

WEAC has been at the forefront in highlighting the effects that education caps have had on our schools. Every year since the caps were imposed, WEAC and the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators have conducted a survey of district administrators to gauge the effects of education caps.

These reports have documented the tough choices that districts face to try and maintain a high quality of education for their students while drastically cutting their budgets.

The most recent survey showed that 68% of the state's school districts increased class sizes in the 2003-2004 school year. Also, 60% offered fewer courses; 55% reduced programs for gifted and talented students; 53% reduced courses in art, music, and theater; 51% reduced extracurricular programs; and 49% reduced programs for at-risk students.

"Great schools benefit everyone, and the school finance crisis is important to all the people who live in Wisconsin. The most immediate threat is to several dozen schools, but the flaws in the state's system for funding education are taking a toll on all of our schools and communities," Johnson said.