Sun Prairie Playing the Revenue Control Blues
Note: On May 30, 2000, Sun Prairie School District voters approved
a referendum to exceed state revenue controls by $891,000 a year to meet
urgent needs.
By Joanne M. Haas
Sun Prairie School District’s orchestra program
has taught Stacy Duren a lot about music, but that’s just the beginning
of what she’s learned.
Nancy Duren and daughter, Stacy, are concerned that cuts in the
Sun Prairie school budget will have a serious impact on the middle
school orchestra program. |
“From it, I learned time management and maybe
a little more about responsibility, dedication and determination,”
said the 7th grader at Prairie View Middle School. “Some of the music
I can’t get right away. It helps me to learn to keep going and try
to continue, and I’ll get it.”
Now the teen violinist is learning firsthand about
government and politics – and how the complexities of school finance
can directly affect the quality of her education.
The district is facing a significant shortfall
in its 2000-2001 budget. Among several proposals to balance the budget
is one to cut the music department staffing by 1.5 full-time equivalent
positions at the middle school level. The net result is the loss of the
full-time orchestra teacher because the current instructor is low on the
staff seniority list.
“At first I was really upset. I couldn’t
understand why they would want to do that,” Stacy said. “I kind
of figured there would be some way around it.”
The “way around it” is for one of the
more senior staff band instructors to assume the orchestra duties.
While Stacy is quick to stress the band instructors
are pleasant, quality teachers, the increase in their workload would boost
class sizes and reduce the amount of specialized instruction.
“I might find another place to take lessons
if I have to. I need the challenge and I need the instruction to progress
in my music ability,” Stacy said.
Nancy Duren, Stacy’s mother, said orchestra
has been a very positive influence for Stacy, who serves on the student
council, earns As, and plays soccer.
“Sun Prairie has an excellent music department,”
Duren said. “If they start cutting, it will take a long time to rebuild
it. It is not just this year, it will affect it for years and years.”
Sun Prairie, just northeast of Madison, is a growing
district of about 4,800 students. It includes five elementary schools,
two middle schools and one high school.
Members of the local music booster club repeatedly
have echoed Duren’s concerns to the school board and District Administrator
Tim Culver, who says the budget cuts hit everywhere and hurt everyone.
“It is truly agonizing,” Culver said.
“There is only so much (money) available. You try to make it equitable.”
While Culver has only been with Sun Prairie schools
for two years, the annual round of cuts has been going on since the state
imposed revenue controls on schools in 1993. Up until this year, the district
managed to impose cuts that didn’t touch many programs.
“Finally, we hit some nerves,” Culver
said of the proposed cuts that affect department budgets across the board.
The cuts reduce regular program staffing and eliminate extracurricular
positions.
“Fortunately, the people are circling the
wagons and shooting out instead of circling the wagons and shooting in,”
Culver said.
“The challenge for the community is to realize
the whole system is connected. It impacts everybody.”
Band and orchestra are very popular
among Sun Prairie students, parents, and the community. More than
560 students participated in the annual Band-O-Rama at Sun Prairie
High School in April. Students from the high school and two middle
schools performed for parents and citizens, who packed the gymnasium
and gave the students a standing ovation. |
The conflict has its origin in 1993, when the
Legislature passed and Gov. Thompson signed the school district revenue
control law and the Qualified Economic Offer law, which limits teacher
salary increases. The laws coincided with an increase in state funding
of schools and were designed to hold property taxes down.
The effect of the laws has been to pass on the
additional state school funding directly to taxpayers, leaving school
districts with less money to operate programs, provide services and pay
staff.
Excluding the impact of enrollment changes, the
revenue control law limits budget increases to 2% to 3% a year. However,
that doesn’t even cover the modest salary and benefit increases negotiated
under the QEO law. In Sun Prairie’s case, the salary and benefit
increases are about 3.9% for 2000-2001.
In addition, the state and federal governments
“are falling further behind in providing funding for their mandates”
for educating students with special needs – putting that financial
burden on the general fund as well.
“The special education budget has been increasing
by more than 10% each year,” Culver said, while federal and state
aid has been shrinking.
“Last year, all new general revenue from
student enrollment went directly to special education. As more and more
money goes into the special education budget, it must come from other
areas of the budget.”
On top of that, voters last year approved expansions
to the four elementary schools, but said no to the roughly $80,000 needed
for maintenance. That cost also must be covered by the budget.
Culver said the net effect has been squeezing
the “things” budget – meaning money for technology, paper
and other materials and resources.
But that can only work for so long, said Glenn
Schmidt, a special education teacher who is in his 11th year as president
of the 368-member Sun Prairie Education Association.
“While the revenues are capped, unfortunately,
the costs of things such as transportation and fuel oil are not capped
– and they start taking a bigger and bigger bite out of the budget,”
Schmidt said.
So the funds have to come from other areas. This
year, after seven years of crunching, the cuts finally hit programs.
Painful
cuts ahead
“It is very painful. I don’t
want to be known as someone who managed the cuts well,” Culver said.
“There is only so much available. You try to make it equitable.”
The final decision on the budget cuts will be
made this summer.
“This may not seem like much. However, when
you link this with such cuts every year since 1994, you see we have been
in a belt-tightening mode for a long while,” Culver said.
The proposed cuts for next school year include
the layoff of more than 15 extracurricular and coaching positions and
several support staff positions.
“We are reducing departmental budgets across
the board for the third year in a row,” Culver said. “We will
be forced to drop certain classes unless there are 20 students enrolled.
Foreign language, technology education, and band lessons will all see
shifts in (full-time equivalent) positions as staffing formulas must be
tightened.”
Schmidt said the proposed cuts have staff, students
and parents in an uproar.
“We’ve got a guy teaching tech ed in
Sun Prairie since the early ’70s and he is receiving a full layoff
notice,” Schmidt said, adding the staff cut is disastrous for students
looking for skills to enter the job market after high school.
“Fees are going up, too. We’ll have
a summer school fee for the first time,” he said. The summer school
fees will be $5 for remedial elementary and middle school classes, and
$10 per high school remedial class and K-12 enrichment class. The athletic
fee for high school will increase from $25-$30 per sport to $30-$35 per
sport.
“Without a doubt, this will only get worse,”
Schmidt said.
Steven Olson, a former president of the local
band booster group, said the future of the nationally recognized school
music program is threatened if the staff is reduced at the middle school
level.
“This is where the kids are just beginning,”
Olson said. “If they don’t get started right, they will miss
great opportunities. If they quit due to frustration, they will miss all
of the great opportunities afforded through the program – including
making friends and learning life skills including discipline and a work
ethic.”
Olson has three daughters – a senior who
has spent five summers participating in the marching band and twins in
8th grade. “My daughters are not athletes. This is their opportunity
to compete and be part of a team, too.”
Ann Sederquist, a band teacher at Prairie View
Middle School, said the loss of the orchestra teacher will cut the instruction
time by 25%.
“We’ll have to rewrite our curriculum,”
she said, adding the program has grown by about 100 students in the last
10 years.
There are about 180 students in band in each of
the middle schools and about 200 at the high school level. The program
features two bands each in 6th, 7th and 8th grades as well as the high
school band. There are other groups – including orchestra, a jazz
ensemble, marching band and two groups known as the Sound Project, a version
of a pep band.
Echoing Olson’s concerns, Sederquist said
the cuts at the middle school will “hurt the high school program,
too, because we’re the foundation.”
A Sun Prairie graduate herself and a district
teacher for 13 years, Sederquist is opposed to turning to fees to support
the program.
“If more of our program is based upon fee,
then it becomes elitist. Then only those who can afford it will participate.
That’s not what public education is all about.”
Ken Paris, also a band director at Prairie View
and a 21-year veteran of the district, said the staff cut would strike
at the heart of the program.
“The ability to perform and achieve is directly
affected by the loss of lesson time. That’s where we see the downfall,”
Paris said.
Olson said revenue controls are creating an ongoing
problem.
“People do understand that you can fight
for one program this year, and next year you’re back in the same
fight,” he said. “You need to deal with the root problem. Let’s
not do so much damage that we won’t recover.”
The long-term answer, Olson and others said, is
a change in the law. But that is not expected any time soon.
In the meantime, the school board has voted unanimously
to hold a referendum May 30 asking voter permission to exceed revenue
controls by $891,000 a year.
“This isn’t the best way, but I think
it’s right,” Culver said.
Schmidt said referendums “are a very cumbersome
process that really makes for another roadblock in the way of giving children
what they need.”
But, he said, at this point a referendum is Sun
Prairie’s only hope “to salvage programs.”
Resources
on school district revenue controls