Revenue Controls Hit Home in Waterloo
When it comes to technology, the Waterloo School District has fallen
behind, says District Administrator Charles Whitsell. And school district
revenue controls are preventing it from catching up any time soon.
“That’s just not good for the students,” Whitsell said.
 “I think if you’re going to have an elected
school board, it needs to have some authority when it comes to the
budget.” Charles Whitsell, Waterloo superintendent |
“Most (elementary school) classrooms don’t have a computer
capable of doing the things a teacher needs to do in a classroom. They
(the elementary schools) got the leftovers, and that’s not right.”
It’s not just declining enrollment districts that are suffering
as the result of revenue controls, it’s just about everybody, Whitsell
said.
The Waterloo district, which is about 20 miles east of Madison, has just
under 900 students and is experiencing modest growth.
“I thank God we don’t have a declining enrollment,” Whitsell
said. “I don’t know how districts are dealing with that.”
Revenue controls have cut into some essential programs in the Waterloo
district and forced school officials to make budget decisions that hurt
students. For example:
- The school supplies and materials budgets essentially have not increased
since 1993. All allowable increases under revenue controls have been
consumed by staff salaries and benefits, which themselves have been
very modest, Whitsell said.
- The district wants to develop a program for “at-risk” students
at the high school but hasn’t been able to find the money to fill
the position. Without such a program, it is feared that some students
who could be helped will end up dropping out of school.
- The district wants to hire a middle school principal but can’t
afford it. Currently, there is one administrator for grades 7 through
12, which Whitsell said is not a good situation.
- In order to install a needed phone system and data network, the district
was forced to resort to “creative financing” that affects
other programs and may cause long-term problems.
The phone system was financed through a lease-purchase arrangement that
will cost the district about $20,000 per year over the next five years.
The data network was financed, in part, by using $150,000 from the district’s
fund balance and $75,000 in each of the next two years from the technology
fund, Whitsell said.
That’s where the technology problems come into play. After applying
the technology money to the data network, there is insufficient money
left to purchase computers for staff and students, Whitsell said.
If it weren’t for revenue controls, Whitsell said, the school board
would be free to make decisions about how to balance the need for educational
resources against the community’s willingness and ability to pay
for it. With revenue controls, the school board is simply forced to take
money from one program and put it into another as needs arise.
“I think if you’re going to have an elected school board, it
needs to have some authority when it comes to the budget,” Whitsell
said.
“I think our school board, and myself as an administrator, are as
concerned about tax implications as anybody, but there are some realities
of providing appropriate levels of programs in your schools.
“There is a misconception that board members are not fiscally responsible.
They are. They don’t want taxes to go up, but fiscal responsibility
has been taken away from them.”
Whitsell said he and some school board members meet regularly with their
state representatives and share with them implications of revenue controls.
He also is working through the Wisconsin Association of School District
Administrators to help promote changes to the revenue control law. One
such change would allow school boards to exceed revenue limits by a certain
percentage for one year if two-thirds of the school board votes to do
so.
“That would have enabled our district to maybe have generated another
$60,000 to $70,000, and boy would that have been helpful with our technology
project,” he said.
If revenue controls were not in place at all, Whitsell said he believes
his district would be two years ahead of where it is with technology and
it would have an at-risk program at the high school.
“Those two changes would have a dramatic impact on the students
who attend the Waterloo School District,” he said.
Posted March 31, 1999