School Budgets: From Bad to Worse

It has become a painful springtime ritual in Wisconsin, thanks to revenue controls – communities struggling, agonizing and arguing over ways to cut their school district budgets.

As year after year of revenue controls pile up, each round seems worse than the last. With a $3.2 billion state budget deficit and the resulting cutback from the state’s commitment to fund two-thirds of school costs, this year is shaping up to be even worse.

At a time of severe budget crisis, Governor Doyle, in his proposed state budget, did manage to find a way to increase state aid to schools by $100 million, and WEAC President Stan Johnson has commended the governor for that.

“Governor Doyle has demonstrated that quality public education is his top priority,” Johnson said. “He has done the best he could, considering this current budget crisis, which is affecting states throughout the nation.”

However, Johnson said revenue controls will have to be eliminated soon if we are going to maintain quality education in Wisconsin public schools.

The $100 million state aid increase is not enough for school districts to keep up with rising costs. That, coupled with revenue controls at the local level, is forcing many school districts to make drastic cuts in staff and programs that directly affect the quality of education.

Here are just a few examples, based on recent newspaper accounts:

• The Stevens Point School Board sent out preliminary layoff notices to 41 teachers and librarians.
  
  
• Colby has issued preliminary layoff notices to 11 teachers.
  
  
• Menomonie’s plan is to eliminate four teachers, cut the full-time school nurse position to 20%, and implement a long list of other cuts including the high school show choir, boys swim team, cheerleading for wrestling and hockey, and gymnastics.
  
  
• Waupun is considering shutting down Amity Elementary School.
  
  
• Sixteen Neenah teachers received preliminary layoff notices.
  
  
• Elmbrook sent out preliminary layoff notices to 21 teachers.
  
  
• The Madison school district is bracing for massive cuts that could amount to $25 million. Last year, the district eliminated 80 full-time positions to shave $7.25 million. The district will hold a June 3 referendum to exceed revenue caps by $13 million.
  
  
• Milwaukee Public Schools, facing a $41 million shortfall, already has cut summer school programs, which provided services to 17,000 students last year. This year, just 5,000 students will benefit.
  

Districts are cutting sports programs, increasing class sizes, eliminating music and arts classes, cutting student services, raising fees, and repeatedly delaying maintenance projects.

Some districts are talking about closing schools, and even consolidating districts, a move that can cut the heart out of a community and result in hours-long bus rides for children.

“The first thing the state must do is put the finger in the dike and stop the bleeding,” said Thomas Beebe, education outreach specialist for the Milwaukee-based Institute for Wisconsin’s Future, founded in 1994 as a statewide policy research and education center. “Ten years of revenue limits are real cuts.”

Sen. Robert Jauch, the Poplar Democrat who has served on multiple education panels during the last 20 years, sees a “fierce fight” brewing that will “define the conscience” of the state. “We are at the point where revenue controls and declining state commitment will end free public education, and that is frightening to me,” Jauch said.

Beebe sees districts faced with long- and short-term issues.

“The current situation is threatening quality in most school districts as cuts are made and literally, threatening free public education,” he said, adding districts are turning to fees and fund-raisers “which actually favor wealthier districts.”

“The short-term issue is districts need help immediately to avoid situations like Phelps closing and White Lake, with its four-day week ... The bottom line is we need more money. There isn’t enough money in the system to support the districts.”

Doyle is planning to convene in the fall a special task force charged with completely restructuring the state’s system of funding schools. WEAC members will be represented on that task force
“The basic, structural problem is the formula,” Beebe said. “The revenue caps were something artificial that just made everything worse.”

Jauch said until things are finalized, “school administrators will have no choice but to make preliminary decisions based upon worst-case scenarios.” An education crisis is inevitable, he said, citing the combination of revenue controls and the state budget crisis.

Jauch said public education supporters need to be “prepared to wage an all-out grassroots citizen effort” to defend school funding, the SAGE (Student Achievement Guarantee in Education) program and other programs that may take a hit in the Legislature’s version of the state budget. “What the governor will need is a strong voice of the citizens,” he said.

Johnson said the bright spot is Doyle’s budget provision repealing the Qualified Economic Offer (QEO) law. Doyle’s plan would restore a fair system of collective bargaining for teachers. That at least is a first step toward strengthening public education, he said.

State Superintendent Elizabeth Burmaster agreed.

“The repeal of the QEO will strengthen local control and empower local districts to invest in quality teachers,” she said. “We are at a critical point of teacher shortages.”

Under the QEO, state teacher salaries have fallen from 13th to 22nd in the nation.

“We’ve dropped below the national average. So it is not just a matter of morale, it is a matter of economics,” Burmaster said.

Jauch, who is married to a teacher, has opposed the QEO since its initiation because it treats “teachers as second-class citizens.” He agrees it is time for the law to go, but he believes such a move should be coupled at some point with removal of revenue controls. He fears removing one but not the other could result in larger class sizes.

Jauch said he has a different take on the popular arguments that projects such as Lambeau Field renovation or the construction of the Midwest Express Center and the Marquette Interchange are vital for the state’s economic development.

“An educated child in Solon Springs is needed for economic development, too,” Jauch said.

Posted April 4, 2003