I was posed 2 questions last night and I don't have an answer to either.
How can we ask the teachers, administrators or any other district employee to take a pay freeze or furlough days when we have decided we have the funds to operate a school at 30% of capacity? (asked by a CG resident)
How can we ask Cottage Grove to justify a refendum to keep 2 elementary schools with enrollments under 200 open and yet have 2 elementary schools with enrollments around 400? (asked by a Monona resident)
My response was that I don't know how we work thru these issues, but that we will work thru them.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The budget problem facing our school district can't be resolved long term by pitting Cottage Grove and Monona residents against each other. That is exactly what the Maywood/Winnequah matter would have achieved without a delay.
ReplyDeleteThe delay in considering this consolidation would not have prevented the budget cuts adopted last night. What wasn't cut this year would have been cut next year.
If neighborhood schools are important in Cottage Grove, they should also be important for Monona.
It is the role of administrators/staff to recommend and the school board's job to decide. The school board made a decision based on public input from both communities.
I feel horrible that any person loses a job because of the economic crisis. However, the lists of reductions debated last night failed to include any wage and benefit concessions by district employees.
The job losses last night are not the result of the Maywood decision. That is misleading, since it implies no other choices for savings exists.
The job losses can easily be restored if all employees of the school district do nothing more or nothing less than most everyone else has already done since 2008...shared sacrifice.
The parents and children of Cottage Grove will need the support of Monona both in terms of a possible operating referendum and long-term space issues. The same goes for Monona parents and children, they will need Cottage Grove to support a possible operating referendum and initiatives on saving neighborhood schools in that community.
Significant and difficult budget reductions are unavoidable. It will hurt. Our kids will sacrifice, the taxpayers will also eventually sacrifice, but the big unknown is whether district employees will sacrifice from top to bottom.
Mike - Monona would still have a neighborhood school. They are across the street from each other. Why should district employees sacrifice the dollar amount saved by this consolidation?
ReplyDeleteMike - Monona would still have a neighborhood school. They are across the street from each other. Why should district employees sacrifice the dollar amount saved by this consolidation?
ReplyDeleteThis is a reasonable question. We must recognize this is a multi-year problem. The cuts not made this year will definitely come back each year until the deficit is closed.
To a certain degree individual reduction proposals are interchangeable in this long term process. It is possible that the Maywood/ Winnequah consolidation will happen in the next couple of years.
The compensation concessions have not been a part of discussion to date. I recognize that contracts are being negotiated in closed sessions. However, the district should identify a dollar amount they are attempting to achieve through compensation concessions from all employees.
It should be a part of the public debate on the first year of reductions. Personally, I would prefer to see compensaiton concessions occur first and utilize these funds to save jobs. If a referendum is ever to pass to cover a portion of the $15 million hole, then both communities must see the shared sacrifices that will be made by all: children, employess and taxpayers.
Mike -
ReplyDeleteMe again. Same person. First, I do not know to whom you have spoke in Monona that led you to believe there was massive opposition to closing Maywood. None of my friends or neighbors feel this way once they are informed that we are laying off staff next year. In fact, now that word is coming down about who might be lost people are very upset. As far as the 1,000 signatures go, understand that parents took small children door-to-door and had them ask people sign their petition. A member of my household signed it not realizing what the ramifications were.
You also have no experience with the Monona teachers union. They have never (and never will) offered to help this district in any crisis. So you can say, "well, too bad, then some of their own will lose their jobs" but the real losers are the students. Their leadership is barely functional, and their endorsement committee was so naive as to endorse a school board candidate who just voted to lay off some of their own membership. As much as you wish concessions were part of this equation, they are not. Thus we must proceed with what is, not what we wish would be.
The fact of the matter is that we are laying off teachers to preserve two elementary schools that are across the street from each other. As more people are realizing this, the backlash has already begun throughout the district in both Monona and Cottage Grove. It was a decision that makes no sense under the circumstances and I am qutie disappointed that a fiscal conservative such as yourself has been sold a bill of goods about how Monona folks feel about Maywood vs. preserving staff positions.
I certainly understand your perspective. However, as Superintendent Gerlach has noted the cuts not made this year will most likely have to be made next year. Whether Maywood closed this year won't change the inevitable that the teaching positions in question are probably gone next year.
ReplyDeleteUnless a referendum were held for $15 million, there would be cuts. A referndum for $10 million has little to no chance of passing in either Cottage Grove or Monona. So some have suggested getting the need for referendum down towards a figure closer to $5 million. That will take a couple years of budget reductions and a vastly improving economy to increase the odds of passage.
A significant percentage of voters in this school district don't have children. Many parents that do have children could not right now vote to raise their own taxes because they are barely hanging on to their homes.
If I accept your premise that the teachers' union won't compromise, then children will still suffer and more positions and programs will be cut. Maybe its time the parents of both communities unite to encourage the union leadership to do the right thing.
Mike:
ReplyDeleteIf you want to wait to put up a referendum until the teachers come around on wage concessions, you'll be waiting a long time -- well after your children (and your children's children) graduate from this district.
Here's a better idea -- since the Legislature just lifted the QEO, why not take the next step (which would completely knock off all three legs of the stool) and get rid of the revenue caps. The revenue caps were put in place -- really, when it comes down to it -- because lawmakers didn't trust local school boards to act wisely on levying local taxes. Now you've gone and endorsed an approach by the current MG school board -- keeping two under-utilized schools open -- designed not to keep spending in line, or direct it to more urgent needs, but essentially spend money on unnecessary duplication of services.
By the way, your previous observations about people storming government meetings in protest of ever-escalating property taxes is over-stated. My experience in MG is that people storm government meetings in protest over proposed spending cuts. Why not drop a hint in your boss' ear to drop the revenue limits, so our local governing boards can respond more effectively to the demands in local citizens.
Jason,
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned concern over cutting elementary art, music, and PE over strings. I agree with you, and wish you would talk with your board about it. The loss of art, music and PE minutes will affect 100% of the 3-5 graders in the district. I LOVE the strings program, but cutting 4th grade would affect 70% of the fourth graders only. Most of the reasons stated to keep the strings program, would apply to keeping music minutes in the schedule for all students. The PEP grant means more/different PE services for middle and high schoolers, yet we would cut minutes for the younger kids?
I hope to hear more on this.
Jason and previous poster, I too love the strings program and if I remember correctly, cutting would save $20,000. The proposed related arts cut I believe is listed at 91,000. So swapping one for the other still leaves you needing to come up with $71,000. But since we are comparing percentages, why not put the late bus on the cut list? That would save $10,000. What is the percentage of students that use it? And perhaps we could also look at middle school and high school athletics which are extra curricular and not curricular. What is the percentage of students involved in those programs?
ReplyDeleteIf we do not cut the elementary related arts we will have to make other cuts to balance the budget. The related arts is estimated at $91k and 4th grade strings is at $22k, so there would have to be another $70k approximately to make up the difference.
ReplyDeleteAre the other cuts in 5th grade strings? In 6th grade non-required encore classes? Does the late bus go? None of these are good, so which ones impact overall education the least and still provide a significant savings? Each board member will have to decide that for themselves.