Special Budget Meeting

Just finished our special budget meeting. We had lots of discussion on the 4 topics that were delayed until today. The 4 items were a 5% reduction to Building Budgets/ Department Budgets, Eliminate 4 IMC Paraprofessionals at CG, TP, GD and HS, Extend walk area to 2 miles and Reduce Elementary Related Arts instructional minutes.

The 2 mile walk zone impacts more students than first discussed. Due to this the board agreed not to institute the walk zone as proposed. The cut to reduce the elementary arts was also removed from the list of potential cuts on a 7-0 vote.

The board also voted 6-1 to remove the building budgets from the list of potential cuts. The department budgets will still be discussed in the coming months for potential savings.

The IMC paraprofessionals discussion was original going to ask for more information regarding how the staff would be utilized if we cut 1, 2, or 3 of the 4 positions in the original proposal. After more discussion I moved to eliminate only 2 of the IMC Paraprofessionals and this motion passed on a 6-1 vote. This will result in an additional $66K in savings and when added to the previous total of $745k we have cut about $811K. This is $189k short of our stated $1M deficit.

Some board members felt that this $811K amount is okay, because we still have a chance to save in departmental budgets or possibly in administrative costs or in increased open enrollment dollars. I will argue that not making the full $1M in cuts this year makes the task bigger next year, continues to use fund balance and violates board policy of keeping our fund balance above our stated goal of more than 15%, which negatively impacts our short term borrowing. I don't like any of the cuts we have made, but these are the tough decisions we have been elected to make and coming up short is a disservice to our district in my opinion. I am hopeful that we can close the gap thru the other options that we will discuss in the coming months.

On another note and this is just my opinion.......

A lot of tonights discussions centered on getting more specifics of what potential cuts would look like. While I understand the need for information, at some point the need for information becomes dangerously close to micro-management. I particularly thought we as a board (and I include myself in this statement) were doing this with regards to the building budgets and the IMC Paraprofessionals. If we want the building budgets cut by 5%, I don't think it really matters what those cuts are. We have to trust the administration to make the right decisions for their buildings. If we cut 2 paraprofessional we have to trust that Administration will utilize the remaining staff in the best manner possible. I don't feel I have the expertise to tell them where to make those cuts or which buildings to place staff in. They are the educational professionals and we have to respect their ability to make sound judgements. I will try to stay more cognizant of this in the future.

Lastly, next week is our regularly scheduled meeting and we will be discussing the topic of race relations. I know that with the press coverage we have received in the past 2 weeks this is a hot topic. I hope that we can have a thoughtful, informative and productive conversation. I don't think any single person has all the answers, but hopefully we can raise awareness, open the lines of communication and begin working on solutions. Our schools need to be a safe haven for the students and if 1 student feels it is not a safe place then we need to work to make it a safer place.

Conversation from Peter's Blog

When you consider the real role of the board, financial and management experience is IMHO significantly more important that knowledge of education. After all the district has lots of education experts.

I disagree, we need board members who know education-because they don't respect or follow the advice of the MG experts in education (Maywood). The administration and staff clearly communicated what they felt was best for the district- and they were ignored. Not education experts, I guess.

This quote was taken from Peter's blog and I thought it needed a proper response of it's own.

I am not sure if this poster thinks my support not to delay the vote was a good thing or bad thing. I due trust the administration to make the best decisions educationally that is why we keep them employed. As long as my questions about the rationale/reasoning the administration uses gets answered I am satisfied.

Each board member brings certain strengths to the board and if we were all from education or finance or science or construction or any other field then that would be bad also. The biggest strength a board member can bring is the ability decipher the information they have and then make the tough decisions. Not being willing to make those tough decisions is were a board can fall apart.

I will always vote from the perspective of the impacts on education 1st and fiscally 2nd. If you disagree with my decisions then vote me off when I am up for election. Political factors don't really matter to me because I didn't do this for politcal aspirations. I think I am in the minority of most elected officials when it comes to the weight politics carries in decision making.

If my decisions/votes fly in the face of political agendas then so be it. In my opinion school board decisions should remain out of the normal political dealings done at the local, state and federal level. I know firsthand that some of my fellow board members have had conversations with either one of or both the Village President of CG and the Mayor of Monona regarding the Maywood/Winnequah consolidation and a potential referendum. I have no knowledge of the details of those conversations, since I was not invited to participate in them (which I prefer).

I think Mr. Mikalsen and Mr. Kahl have done and will continue to do good things for their communities, however I feel that Mr. Mikalsen and Mr. Kahl have overstepped their bounds by getting involved this in-depth with school board issues. I fully acknowledge that decisions the school district makes does impact their communities, but have they ever onced asked the school board how the decisions they make for their community impacts the school district or what the school board recommends? Have they asked the school board or Superintendant to weigh in on their local decisions? I don't think it is the school district's right to weigh in on these topics just like I don't think they should be pushing an agenda in school district matters.

Do I wish that the 3 entities would work together? ABSOLUTELY! Do I think it will happen? Probably not based on past interactions between the 3 entities, but never say never.

Okay, I have rambled enough, but let me leave you with this:

As Jessica and I have discussed:

We can agree to disagree on a vote, but after that vote we will support the decision and move on to the next issue.

With that being said, I do disagree with the Maywood/Winnequah vote, but I fully support the boards vote and now we (THAT MEANS EVERYBODY not just the board) need to move on and work on the remaining budget items and working on the next set of issues facing the district.

Questions Posed to Me

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.

Thank You All for the Public Input

I know that Peter's blog has a list of the budget cuts and that Jessica's blog has a couple of discussions on the upcoming vote, so I won't post about those. Instead as I sit here tonight thinking about all the information and the various conversations that I have had over the last few months I keep thinking about how our decisions tomorrow will impact the kids. How do I as a non-educational based professional determine the impact my votes will have on the kids?

Lastly, I want to thank everyone that has written e-mails, spoken at the listening sessions or spoken with me via phone or face to face regarding our budget decisions that we face tomorrow. It has been invaluable getting this feedback. As I sit here tonight re-reading many of the e-mails and recalling those conversations and listening sessions it sure helps give me perspective on what people are thinking.

Again, thank you all for your input on these difficult decisions.

Open Records Request

I was notified this afternoon that an open records request was made for an e-mail that I sent on 3/1 regarding the addition of an agenda item. The entire original e-mail is below. I stand by my assertion that the pending vote on the Maywood/Winnequah consolidation option has been held to a different process than the other recommendations from the 4k-8 Ad Hoc committee.

As you can see I originally sent the e-mail to Board President, Susan Fox, and Superitendant, Craig Gerlach, as they set the agenda for our meetings. Craig then forwarded the e-mail to the entire board. Additionally, I have an e-mail from a district resident dated 3/9 who informed me they had read my e-mail. The funny thing is that prior to today no one had made an open records request for my e-mail. I am unsure who forwarded my e-mail or the intended purpose behind forwarding it.



toSusan Fox ,
CRAIG GERLACH

dateMon, Mar 1, 2010 at 9:19 PM
subjectConsolidation vote
mailed-bymgschools.net

hide details Mar 1


I will formally ask to put the discussion and possible vote of the Maywood/Winnequah consolidation on the agenda for March 10th.

I am not sure if a vote will happen, but not having the ability of putting this to a vote on the 10th is just another example of different processes for different agenda items. We have held all the listening sessions, we have all of the details and we have the Administrations recommendation. The fact that this potential consolidation is nearly cost neutral this year may mean that it should not even be part of the budget discussion when we make the cuts for this year. Any savings should be looked at, for this year, to help bring up the fund balance. The real savings starts with the budget year after consolidation, whether that happens this year, next year or in 10 years.

I understand that some will think we are fast tracking this, but I don't know how they can make that arguement when we have been discussing this at the Ad Hoc Committee since last year and at the board level for the past 2 months. Do we need to notify the residents of the district? I would say it is in our best interest to send a 1/2 page note home with elementary kids, post it on the district website, notify the City, Town and Village and contact the H-I to let everyone know that this may happen. I am sure the local community access station that broadcasts our meetings would even put a message out. Will some claim they did not know...absolutely. However, we were elected to make these hard choices and the fact that this one has not come before us in the normal process means that we are playing by 2 very different sets of rules depending on the issue. That is not acceptable.

All I ask is that this issue be posted for discussion and possible vote. Regardless of the political magnitude we must follow the process and right now we have 2 different processes being used.

Thank you for considering this.

Jason

Open Enrollment

At the 3/10 Board meeting we received our 1st look at the total requests for Open Enrollment. In total we have 212 requests to transfer In and 41 to transfer Out. The breakdown by school is:

High School - In = 77 and Out = 16
Glacial Drumlin - In = 47 and Out = 8
Cottage Grove - In = 10 and Out = 2
Winnequah - In = 16 and Out = 4
Taylor Prairie - In = 10 and Out = 2
Maywood - In = 17 and Out = 4
Non-Specific (PK-6)- In = 35 and Out = 5

One of the things that I struggle with regarding open enrollment is my philosophical/ethical belief on this issue. I am of the mindset that we educate the students of our district 1st. I also believe that if you accept a student, know matter at which grade they start in our district, that you have now committed to educating them until they graduate.

Furthermore, when reviewing potential students to accept, siblings get a higher priority if space allows and that you have to look at what impact educating those students will have on our buildings at each grade level. If you accept an elementary student how will that impact enrollment at middle school and high school in future years?

Some will say that you accept each and every applicant every year. I completely disagree with this, because I believe that you don't accept an open enrollment student for purely financial reasons. Open enrollment is not a way to balance a budget.

Administration Staffing Levels

At our listening sessions more than one person questioned our staffing levels at the Administration level. I did not know exactly how we compared to our conference or other schools in our area, so I went to the district website and did some research on the topic. It was quite easy to do, but here is what I discovered.

Compared to our conference our ratio of Administrators to students is 1:264.48. Click the link in the title to view our conference results. DeForest has the smallest ratio at 1:204.19 while Monroe has the largest at 1:293.40. MG ranks second highest on the list. Madison is at 1:255.17, so I don't think we are over staffed at the administration level.

Looking further into the different levels as broken down by this site at the conference level. We rank 3rd lowest in the ratio of students to Aides/Support/Other. We are tied for 2nd lowest in the ratio of students to Licensed Staff. Lastly we are 3rd lowest overall in students to staff ratios.

I point this out because I think having these low ratios helps us educate our students. Most research suggests that the lower the ratio of students to staff the better it is for learning. Now in light of our budget crunch the question becomes can we maintain these levels?

Board Member Role

With the budget process in high octane and the pending election, I thought I would post my thoughts on the role of a board member. These are only how I view my role and I am certain others will view a board members role differently. I base my view on my personal experiences with various boards.

A school district is run by the Superintendant. A school board is set up to make sure that the Superintendant does his/her job. A school board is designed to allocate resources and set the priorities of the district. Board members should not engage in any micro-management of the district. The board is designed to hold the Superintendant accountable for their decisions.

A good board will set goals and policies that allow the Superintendant to run the district. Under those goals and policies the Superintendant then makes decisions to achieve the best results. This includes decisions/recommendations on how to educate the students, how to staff the district, how to spend the available money, etc.

Just about every major decision that a board makes come from a recommendation made by the Superintendant. Yes, the board has the final decision on most major issues, however most board members are not professional educators. We have to take the facts presented to us by administration, input from the public, research that we may conduct on our own and any other relevant information we have and make the best decision possible for the education of the students.

If the voters feel we are making the wrong decisions then each April they can vote to make changes on the board. As a board member the voting public is who elected us and that is who we have to answer to.

Is our current board doing a good job? That is for the voters to answer.

Public Communication

Over the course of the past 2 weeks the board and the administration have taken a lot of hits over our communication regarding potential budget cuts. I feel the TV coverage, H-I coverage, the district website and our bi-monthly open meetings provide lots of opportunities for gathering information on what the board is discussing.


I know a lot of Monona residents said they were unaware of the potential reductions until Mayor Kahl's flyer. For this I apologize, however, I also feel that being informed is a personal decision. If you want to know what is happening you have all of the above places to find information. On average, I am estimating, we have less than 10 citizens attend a board meeting. The board tends to discuss issues at more than one meeting before making a decision.

With that being said if 1 person feels we are not providing information well enough then we as a board need to more. Therefore, here is your opportunity to tell me how we can do this better. I am looking for you the district residents to come up with ways to better communicate to you.

Last 2 listening sessions

There is a staff listening session on Thursday 2/18 and a public listening session on 2/20 at Winnequah from 10-12. There is also a tour of Winnequah from 9-10.

Please show up and voice your opinion.