Written
responses of superintendents to open-ended questions
Q46. In your opinion, what has been the most significant
effect of the revenue controls on your school district?
- Every year we cut more and more from our budget. In the next 2-3 years
we will be cutting staff.
- Declining enrollment districts really suffer when the decline is significant
for several years and is evenly distributed across the grades. If you
can't reduce staff, you can't address the effects of being pinned in
by revenue limits.
- We have passed a continuing referendum and held our enrollment fairly
well so we're doing OK.
- Schools have had to live a life of the public vs. ask and receive.
- The inability to react to unexpected cost increases. Examples: fuel,
heat (natural gas), health insurance.
- Our district has lost its ability to increase the salary schedule
in a way that allows it to compete for teachers.
- We have delayed maintenance projects and extending academic offerings
to students.
- Special Education costs - shouldn't be in revenue limit computation.
- It has caused a serious shift in our budget as we try to meet the
needs of the students while dealing with mandated costs.
- Loss of staff to larger school district that pays more and offers
retirement packages.
- Inability to provide "breadth" of educational programming
to students.
- Maintenance and technology.
- It has controlled spending
- Currently we are maintaining programs but will not be able to do that
in near future.
- Maintain status quo at least
- Morale is lower - each year we find ways to cut budget. As a result,
class sizes are larger and technology doesn't keep pace.
- Inability to settle collective bargaining agreement and loss of teachers.
- Coupled with the QEO, it has resulted in there being little money
available for pay raises when health insurance costs hit 20% a year.
- The challenge to maintain existing program and quality facilities.
- Lack of $ for instructional materials.
- Attitude, morale - we are not moving forward! It's depressing.
- Controlled overall budget - too much control taken away from the board
of education.
- Revenue controls do not align with QEO law. When 80% of our expenditures
go to salary and benefits, increased expenditure rates exceed revenue
rate increases.
- So far, because we were increasing in enrollment, not much effect.
However, as we decrease enrollment and continually get increases in
special education populations, I see many problems.
- Depleting the fund balance to "get by" one more year.
- Inability to keep up with facility maintenance, purchase of school
equipment (chairs and desks) and acquisition of current textbooks.
- Maintenance decreased.
- Facilities problems and staff morale.
- It may be difficult to attract and maintain quality teachers when
revenue caps and insurance costs limit salary increases.
- Teachers salaries - especially at the beginning rates - education
is not competitive
- We are doing less maintenance and not purchasing new instructional
materials.
- Class size cannot be addressed systematically.
- Adequate teacher compensation.
- Loss of staff, in-service training, and services to our students.
- It has not allowed the district to improve programs and offer more
alternatives for students. Overall, programs have suffered with more
resources allocated to special needs.
- Can't keep up with the increased costs of education.
- It will force us to close, consolidate, or [pass] a referendum to
stay open.
- Makes the superintendent stay up late at night thinking of creative
ways to fund education.
- Inability to innovate [or to have] comprehensive staff development.
- If you have a declining enrollment, you are under a great burden to
find funding to educate all students with quality.
- We work increasingly harder to maintain the existing programs and
services in the district. This is very time consuming. This time could
be used more beneficially on staff development, expanding programs and
teaching students. Constantly trying to do more with less is stressful
for everyone.
- At this point the main things are staff salaries and keeping good
people.
- Very low test scores. Fewer courses offered. Minimal curriculum to
meet state standards.
- Reductions in staff and delaying or reducing expenditures for supplies,
instructional materials and maintenance.
- Revenue caps have limited our ability to continue offering a comprehensive
curriculum provided by the best professionals.
- Little effect since we are a growing district.
- Inability to expand staff and programs.
- Inability to fund capital improvements/maintenance.
- Minimal Impact - increasing enrollment district.
- The ability to manage personnel needs and maintenance of the facilities.
Decisions require a choice between these two major expenditure areas.
- Continued erosion of local control.
- Teacher salaries and fringe benefits, utilities.
- The effects of declining enrollment [are] too severe.
- Loss of local control, morale, reduced programming, increased class
sizes.
- Has kept angry property tax payers at bay!
- It has caused us to prioritize cuts to try to minimize the negative
effects on kids.
- Reduction in staff and/or increases in class sizes.
- Allows taxpayer to say no to schools out of frustration with rising
taxes for other government groups
- The revenue caps and QEO have resulted in limited increases in salaries
for teachers. Result is losing a competitive edge.
- Increased cost efficiency and awareness of the lack of political will
in Madison to adjust school finances.
- Pitted regular and special ed.
- If we had not passed our referendum, we would be in a world of hurt.
- Difficult negotiations with unions, maintaining elective programs,
expanding art, music and Spanish.
- A tighter squeeze on operational cost and allowing maintenance to
slide.
- No initiatives without cutting vital items.
- Deferred maintenance and increased student to staff ratio in middle
and high school.
- Reduced educational opportunities for students. No new programs. Significant
maintenance problems.
- Lack of local control - unable to respond to community need.
- Building expenses, continual erosion of programs.
- Have yet to really negatively affect my district. We are increasing
in enrollment and get funding for SAGE and have a new - relatively maintenance-free
K-12.
- The slow, strangling constriction of the caps coupled with declining
enrollment and increasing property values have the combined potential
to destroy all that is good about ____ and perhaps the district itself.
- Cannot improve, cannot add more quality.
- Revenue controls increased money in our district for staff development,
curriculum, and facilities. It required that the money be reallocated
. . . to those elements from salaries. Our board would increase our
budget each year less than it is now increased under revenue caps.
- Class size increase.
- Inability to increase desired student programming and inability to
keep pace with professional salaries.
- It has admittedly produced negative impact on student opportunities,
yet it has protected us from utter disaster in the negotiation arena
with the help of the QEO. Educators here have consistently received
3.8% package increases and we enjoy a Cadillac model of traditional
health insurance.
- Holds down maintenance and teacher salaries. Keeps down taxes for
citizens on school issues.
- Depleting the Fund Balance and increasing class sizes while not addressing
preventative maintenance.
- Decline in quality of program - conservative voices more influential
on board and community.
- We have cut back on some services -- transportation, aides, etc. and
will be looking at cutting some areas of study. We are also looking
at further cuts in maintenance - which is false savings - it will cost
us more in the long run.
- The concept is good, but it is not fair to single out one group. All
state employees should be under controls.
- Inability to move forward with educational program.
- Fewer opportunities for students/poor teacher morale.
- We have been able to maintain status quo for a number of years, meaning
little or no improvements in facilities and educational programs.
- Cutting programs and staff that we should have maintained.
- Forced cuts and larger class sizes is [the] future.
- Gradual decrease of quality of services.
- We are not able to staff all positions to the level they should be;
all maintenance projects are "emergency only," any emergency
at the building level causes us financial stress.
- Labor relations.
- We can't pass either a building or a revenue cap referendum; our enrollment
is declining and there are too many exceptions to the revenue caps (3.8%
control).
- Teacher salary and workforce.
- Losing experienced staff due to poor salaries, [also] increased class
sizes.
- Reduction of technology improvement and replacement.
- Reduction in staff and ability to hire maintenance.
- Anger and frustration and finger pointing as unavoidable adjustments
are made.
- So far we have managed. But if enrollment declines, the real impact
of revenue caps will be felt.
- It required us to pass a referendum in order to maintain our instructional
programs.
- Gradual Erosion.
- Due to declining enrollments, revenue caps are annually tightening
the fiscal stranglehold on our district.
- Forced us to delay purchase of essential curricular materials.
- Too much staff turnover (low salaries).
- Equality of state aid.
- Keeping up with maintenance projects.
- Cutting into heart of programs, classroom learning and resources for
computers, textbooks and repair.
- Teacher salaries limited because of escalating health insurance costs
- salaries losing the competitive edge. Reduction of G/T program and
larger class sizes.
- Building maintenance. Maintain adequate staff for the district and
programs.
- Has not allowed us to add any programs for kids and we have had to
work hard to maintain what we have.
- Maintenance, supplies and building improvements are being cut or put
off.
- Staff morale.
- There is no money to address identified needs. The money available
is getting spread thinner.
- Pervasive fear in staff about loss of their jobs.
- Not many currently; however, the implication for 3-5 years is troubling.
- Incongruence with QEO forces elimination of programs.
- Support materials.
- Control rate of wage increase - kept down property tax increases for
public school purposes as well as controlled revenue coming from state
sources.
- Depressing professional salaries.
- Dampen creativity.
- Revenue caps are a tax relief program, yet local taxes have increased!
Schools are unable to continue to offer quality programs! Costs rise
significantly faster than our ability to raise revenue, resulting in
being on a course of destruction.
- We have delayed capital improvement to keep staff and programs.
- Building maintenance.
- We can't add any educational opportunities for students. We are constantly
cutting, trying to keep what we have.
- Limited expansion or development of new programs and maintenance issues.
- It forces us to make sure we get the "best bang for the buck."
- Delayed maintenance, inability to reduce class size, need for referendum
override.
- Staff salary deficiency, facilities/maintenance.
- Fear of the future. Poor pay for new teachers.
- Elimination of programs - inability to maintain technology.
- Our class size is increasing in spite of research that supports smaller
classes at early grades.
- The need to make cuts in an already minimal budget - major maintenance
and curricular materials.
- Staff morale is low. We are losing some younger teachers to other
professions due to lower wages.
- Revenue controls are very constricting unless enrollment is increasing.
It is very difficult to reduce staff/programs in a small school when
enrollment is declining.
- We are being forced to cut staff.
- Maintenance.
- Hiring new teachers.
- Budget reductions have included technology, library materials, desks,
maintenance schedules, vehicles (vans), support personnel.
- Reduction in teacher salaries (spending power) - very negative.
- Class size increase and lack of offerings at the H.S.
- A disproportionate share of dollars from the regular education to
cover costs and expectations from special education.
- Inability to replace retiring staff, thereby increasing class sizes.
- Shifting of capital M. into general operating budget ($1,000,000/yr)
- Larger class sizes, loss of program support person (LVEC), we're not
able to offer the services we should, especially at the middle school
and high school.
- Decisions are made according to dollars available, not according to
what is best for children!
- They have squeezed us more and more each year. As long as there is
a disparity between the inflationary increase in spending and the far
greater increase in salaries as a result of the QEO, districts that
are declining in enrollment will continue to suffer.
- The inability to offer programs that enable us to compete with neighboring
districts that have had increasing enrollments.
- Loss of current educational instructional materials, i.e. new textbooks,
computers and software.
- Reduced ability to hire quality staff.
- Inability to keep good teachers and administrators.
- Crippling.
- Lost programs and personnel resulting in students choosing open enrollment.
- Inability to maintain quality curriculum material, adequate pay for
teachers, facility maintenance.
- We are not able to retain quality staff.
- Not being able to keep teachers. Leave to larger districts where they
receive more pay.
- Ability to find subs/teachers who are going into education. Job postings
- there have not been the number of candidates we should have. People
are not going into the field of education - low pay/raises.
- Reduced opportunity to address special needs, particularly to provide
adequately for special education - increased burnout.
- Revenue not able to keep up with expenses - no new programs or improvement.
Loss of support staff such as guidance.
- Made fringe benefits a major bargaining problem. Made bargaining easier,
slowed down expenditures.
- Loss of staff - less quality in programs and classes.
- Meeting needs of students, fiscal problems [due to] decreasing enrollment.
- Our $ has been tied up in salaries, instruction, etc. It has not allowed
us to repair facilities, buy buses, etc.
- Staff morale - staff leaving for higher salaries.
- Decreased instruction budgets, technology, . . . grounds maintenance.
- Decreasing services to children.
- Control of salaries and the collective bargaining process.
- _______ has historically been a very conservative school district
when it comes to spending. Revenue controls have put a stranglehold
on innovation.
- Not being able to hire staff as needed.
- Restricts any new or additional programs.
- It has done its job in controlling school district levies. Not all
bad. But it has not accounted for QEO, insurance, and energy increases.
There is no method of relief currently beyond a referendum and a referendum
for operational expenses.
- Inabilities to maintain facilities, offer new or expanded courses,
or to keep up with new technology.
- Hurts kids at upper and lower ends of the achievement continuum.
- Lack of capacity to provide a quality education program; we need more
senior high teachers in core subjects.
- Little effect - had exceptional long range planning and board support.
- Great difficulty increasing teacher salary in order to attract and
retain staff.
- Elective courses are being eliminated, AP courses eliminated, at-risk
support eliminated - overall operational budget problems.
- We are losing quality teachers because of low pay.
- Strong need/effort to maintain enrollment.
- Satisfied property tax payers, unsatisfied staff.
- Reduction in maintenance.
- There is always a tradeoff of one expense with another. If additional
services are needed in one program, something must go in another. It
pits student against student and program against program.
- Capability to keep and attract quality staff.
- Prevented growth, improvement, and expansion of services.
- Adding additional staff.
- Inability to change to add support programs; just work to maintain
status quo rather than improve.
- Reduction of specialized staff (see question 28).
- Loss of opportunity for students.
- It has required us to prioritize our spending. We have become more
focused in our approach to programming.
- It has reduced our vision as to what is possible.
- Enrollment has kept our head above water. We have no more things to
cut!
- QEO--even though most districts do not settle teacher contracts at
the QEO, the districts and teachers use the QEO number as a benchmark.
- Loss of staff and programs - negative relationships with staff and
community will destroy the quality of education in the state of WI.
- 10% of our annual revenue now is derived from override referendum
= not good!
- Increase in % of budget spent on salaries/benefits and decrease in
supplies/materials; engagement of community around facility and revenue
cap/operating expenses referendum.
- Reduction of the number of staff to educate our children, the reduction
of field trips, material and supplies for teachers and reduced/delayed
building maintenance.
- We have had to think creatively about budgeting.
- Harder to explain finances to the public.
- Caused delay of some projects and curricular material purchases. Raised
more funding using fund raising to operate programs.
- Despair and low morale. While our ACT scores continue to be high,
the educational opportunities for the non-college bound students dwindle.
- Its relationship to QEO and teacher salaries. We do not receive a
great % of equalized aid.
- District is just keeping the status quo. Lack of revenue for new needed
programs, charter schools, alternative education, day care, etc.
- Maintenance and building improvements.
- Inability to replace equipment (technology), inability to make repairs
to building, inability to pay teachers a professional wage.
- Not enough money to pay competitive salaries with other districts
(neighbors or larger).
- None; increasing enrollment neutralizes!
- We are preoccupied with budget restraints rather than educational
improvements.
- Minimal opportunities to improve ourselves.
- They do not allow for changes in fixed costs like the increases we
have seen in energy or insurance. Other entities pass some of the costs
along to consumer but we are unable to do that, thus causing a change
in service.
- The combination of QEO and revenue limits has had a negative relationship
with our staff.
- The limit on teacher salary increases and decreases in number of support
services.
- Erosion of public confidence in public education/educators.
- Trimming fat from the budgets.
- Inability to make educational changes to reflect societal needs.
- Veteran teachers feel totally disenfranchised and insulted.
- We cannot institute new programs to augment our curriculum - we remain
stagnant for lack of money.
- Teacher and administrator salaries and building maintenance.
- Maintenance; capital improvements; infrastructure; technology replacement,
maintenance.
- Staff and program reductions.
- Deferred maintenance.
- Inability to meet the demands: teacher salary, support staff salary,
technology, maintenance, curricular improvements.
- Increased costs of spec education eating into regular education services.
- Teacher pay increases completely stopped due to health insurance increased
costs.
- Controlled teach salaries.
- None to this point in time. Will be devastating by the year 2003-2004.
- Inability to provide appropriate staffing/programming to meet student/community
needs.
- Increased class size and less money for instructional material and
equipment.
- Competitive salaries, money for "things" part of budget.
- We have "lost time" trying to change the law - it has brought
board and teachers closer.
- Cut wasteful spending. The pressure of a spending cap has forced administration
to evaluate the effect of spending.
- Taxpayers have become much less hostile at meetings.
- Zero-based budgeting has kept us in the black for 10 years.
- We have been very fortunate to continue to have increase in enrollment
over the years.
- Conflict between teachers and the board of education and administration.
Inability to plan long term and gain the confidence of the staff and
public that the plan will be implemented and sustained.
- They have made it difficult to keep up with rapidly increasing enrollment.
- Curtailing raises to staff members.
- Revenue controls have provided the funds for long-needed building
needs.
- Delaying improvements - distance learning, inability to give summer
inservice to teachers.
- Cutbacks on the horizon!
- Loss of fund balance as expenditure increases exceed revenue increases.
- Reduction of staff has forced us to go to combination classes, which
is not the best for students.
- Inability to maintain a competitive salary schedule.
- Lowered salary increase.
- They have removed creativity/innovation regarding school improvement.
- Layoff of one staff member and not replacing one retiree.
- Inability of Board to raise teachers' salaries to keep pace with salary
schedules of area schools.
- Limits our ability to address specific curricular needs.
- Lower taxes.
- Greater awareness of the financial condition by all.
- Keeping buildings open.
- Reduction of programs and services.
- Difficult to keep current.
- It has not hit us hard because our enrollment continues to climb.
- Recruiting and keeping staff.
- Formula is flawed; will bankrupt district both fiscally and functionally.
- Losing quality staff.
- Delayed or abandoned opportunities for learning; poor building maintenance.
- We can 't recover the cost of programs our students need - Special
Ed/At Risk requirements keep coming - Support doesn't.
- Inability to fund maintenance needs, facility updates.
- We have experienced an increase in student enrollment so we have had
little change.
- I refuse to let $ be the only driving issue in quality - replacing
retired teachers and/or aides.
- Teacher hiring.
- Caused us to reduce staff and programs.
- Lower salaries.
- Erosion to meet all aspects of school operations from bussing to academic
programming.
- Can't raise salaries to compete in this region.
- Lack of resources for administrative services/curriculum and professional
development.
- Physical upkeep of schools declined. Needed updating in Instructional
materials and technology delayed.
- Collective bargaining problems/ delayed building maintenance.
- It has controlled our levy for our citizens. We suffer more from declining
enrollment.
- Increased class size, esp. at high school.
- Increased class size.
- A general tightening of the overall budget and increased internal
competition.
