The main causes of MMSD's funding problems are under-funding of K-12 education by the state and federal governments and over-reliance on residential property taxes for local services. However, inadequate financial planning by the superintendent and Board of Education is making a bad situation worse for our children and community. We will lose the confidence and support of our community if the Board does not take control of the budget, involve the community in budget priorities and unite the community in efforts to change state and federal taxation and school funding laws.
The Board should not continue to delegate the budget decisions to the administrative management team and limit the Board role to reacting to a yearly list of cuts.
Superintendent Rainwater's recommendations for next year demonstrate how inadequate and damaging are the results of this delegation. For 2004-05, the superintendent recommends cutting nearly $10M from programs. These cuts represent 3% of a budget of nearly $318M.
94% of the proposed cuts directly and negatively affect the schools. 80% of the cuts are cuts of school staff including 87.4 teachers and 27.1 teaching assistants. (total 114.5 of 138.7 cuts). Another 14% of the cuts are deferrals of building maintenance, equipment purchases, purchases of musical instruments and the like. No administrators are cut and there will be a new district athletic administrator added. The final 6% of the recommendations are not cuts but new revenues from increased fees and outside grants.
The superintendent's recommendation includes $15.7M for wages and salaries of 155 administrators, not including increases for next year or the new athletic administrator created in the superintendent's budget. There are no administrative cuts.
The Board of Education should not accept this list of cuts or be satisfied with making minor changes in the cuts. The Board should analyze the other 97% of the budget and make its own cuts. It could start by holding all instructional areas harmless (granting increases caused by inflation) and cutting non-instructional budgets by 5%. This approach would narrow the gap to about $7M and be a good starting point for further discussions and adjustments.
Beginning with the budget for 2004-05, the Board must plan the budget on a 3-5 year basis. The largest costs in a district budget are salaries and wages for unionized staff, especially teachers, and administrators. Contracts for these staff are on two-year cycles.
The superintendent's recommendations for 2004-05 show how Board deference to the superintendent compounds MMSD's budget problems.
In 2003, the superintendent recommended, a two-year contract with Madison Teacher, Inc. that added $7M in additional in costs to the 2003-04 budget. The Board approved the contract and then went to referendum in June to pay those costs. (The $3.3M from the referendum was added to $9M in additional taxing authority gained when the state budget raised the "revenue limits".)
The same two-year contract adds an additional $8M in costs for 2004-05. Now the superintendent recommends cutting almost $8M in teaching positions. Meanwhile the district continues to have 155 administrators on the payroll on contracts that extend two years into the future. Our children and our community deserve better.