Photo by mensatic via morgueFile.com
The Paris YES Committee is sponsoring a community-wide information and action event on school-funding reform Tuesday, Dec. 1 at 6:30 p.m. at Paris School, 1901 176th Ave. (Highway D).
Tom Beebe, executive director of the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools, will present his program “Solving Wisconsin’s School-Funding Problem†to participants. The presentation is open to the public and is being promoted to school districts throughout Kenosha County. Citizens, parents, school administrators, school board members, school parent association members, teachers, staff, and students are all encouraged to attend.
In an email message, Beth LaBell, a YES Committee leader, had the following to say about the need for school funding changes in Wisconsin:
Wisconsin’s flawed school-funding formula provides less funding for schools in areas with higher property values and lower populations. We ask the questions: Why should where a school is located determine how it is funded? Shouldn’t education be funded based on its cost, rather than where students happen to live? Is it right for our state to increasingly place the majority of school-funding responsibility on local taxpayers’ shoulders? Additional flaws in the school-funding formula have limited revenue increases for almost twenty years. School districts are crumbling from the cumulative effects of increasing costs and declining enrollment. Our state has a responsibility to fund education equally and adequately and to remedy their trend of shifting the costs of education to local taxpayers.”
A press release from the YES Committee about the event is available here.
Hey Beth, you need to backup your statements with some numbers. You sound like you copied everything from excellentschools.org. I will answer your questions.
Why should where a school is located determine how it is funded?
Funding is a local issue because the local school board controls the finances of the district. Residents hold the school board members accountable for their spending habits. It would be great to spend other peoples’ money without any accountability. Is that what you propose?
Shouldn’t education be funded based on its cost, rather than where students happen to live?
Cost is a function of location. Costs are more expensive in cities and are lower is rural areas. The decision of how to compensate teachers is determined locally. Why are Paris’ costs so high? Because local school board members chose to reward them very well making them the highest paid in the district. Paris 2009 cost per member is $16,326.
Is it right for our state to increasingly place the majority of school-funding responsibility on local taxpayers’ shoulders?
Yes it is. The spending problem was created locally and it should be solved locally. Just because certain people don’t want to be responsible for there own action it is no reason to put it on someone else. Why do you think so many people at the Annual Meeting told the school board to fix the salary schedule and PEB? Fix it here. It is a question of responsibility. The local school boards are responsibility for cost decisions.
School districts are crumbling from the cumulative effects of increasing costs and declining enrollment.
It’s funny you mention ‘cumulative.’ The Paris salary schedule compounds raises so that the salaries explode. After completing a Master degree and getting an additional 30 educational credits, the top salary is $81,936 in ten years. This is very cumulative and is the major reason Paris teachers are the highest paid in the county. You would think being somewhat rural, their salaries would be lower than in the city, but they are not. I mention declining State Aid in my next comment.
Our state has a responsibility to fund education equally and adequately and to remedy their trend of shifting costs of education to local taxpayers.
NOT so. Are you willing to give up local financial decisions and have the state determine and enforce the cost per student across the state? I don’t think so. The state says the Maximum Revenue per Student should be $10,669. Paris pays $16,326. Where is the state to get this extra money to fund this extravagant spending? The extra money will come from a 1% sales tax increase that people from out-of-state will pay. The spending problem was created locally and you want the problem to be solved by someone else.
If I was anti-school or anti-teacher I would not has presented a Ten-Year Funding solution, independent of state help, to solve Paris’ financial situation. My analysis of Paris’ numbers follows in the next comment.
Paris PEB Salary Benefits vs. State Aid
Now I will direct your attention to file Paris PEB Salary Benefits vs. State Aid at http://www.mediafire.com/?lmmqwfyz1t3.
What is a baseline? Let’s say last year $600 was spent for electricity. Let’s say this year $625 was spent. If I use last year as a baseline I am looking for the difference between last year and this year or $25 more was spent. I did the same thing in this chart. I wanted to see how PEB changed from 2002. So I did what I just described and I charted it. I did the same for teacher salary, benefits, and State Aid.
Now the 2002 value for each of these was subtracted from every year’s data. Why you ask? Because Mr.Moore, the teachers’ union negotiator, said Paris’ financial problem was due to declining State Aid. House manure I said. So I set out to determine this. Why? Because the school board, the Yes Committee, excellentschools.org, Kenosha News, and others said the same thing, but no one presented any numbers. I took all this data and charted and plotted it and ‘presto’ the above-mentioned chart.
What did I find on the Expense side?
I calculated the amount above or below the baseline and totaled them from 2003 to 2009. The total amount above the baseline spent for PEB over 7 years was $1.347 million. The total amount spent for salaries was $1.255 million and the total amount for benefits was $838,819.
The total amount above the baseline spent for teacher expenses was $3.44 million. This is the INCREASE IN SPENDING above 2002-03. This is NOT a year-to-year difference, but the amount spent over this time.
What did I find on the revenue side?
To pay for these expenses revenue came from State Aid, Property Taxes, and the Fund Balance (reserve fund). These are the major revenue sources. The total property tax used over this period was $2.284 million and $1 million from the Fund Balance was spent. State Aid varied over these 7 years, sometime above and below the baseline. It decreased $202,840, mostly in the last two years.
The revenue above the baseline from the Fund Balance, Property Taxes, and State Aid was $3.09 million. This is the INCREASE IN SPENDING above 2002-03. State aid was a –6.2% of the total revenue.
CONCLUSION: Paris’ financial problem is not related to declining State Aid. Of the 3.44 million spent for teachers 93.8% came from Property taxes and the Fund Balance.
From 2002-03 under the watch of two current board members State Aid DECREASED $202,840 while expenses (salary, benefits, and PEB) INCREASED $3,441,591. $3.44 million vs. $202,840, EXPENSE INCREASES DESTROYED PARIS’ FINANCES, PERIOD.