“Without additional referendum funding, the district would still add over 100 full-time equivalent staff” – enrollment has been declining….
“We are spending more revenue than we have to spend,” Superintendent Joe Gothard said. “We have a lot of work to do. Regardless of the outcome next Tuesday, we have to have some strategic direction moving forward.”
“We need to be sustainable. There’s no doubt about this,” he added. “It’s frustrating to have two budgets and to have them dependent on a referendum and to have both of them still be a structural deficit.”
The main difference between the two plans: The budget counting on referendum funding includes $7.1 million to pay for staff salary increases. District employees would receive a 2.06% base wage increase if the referendum passes Nov. 5. The increase would be on top of a separate 2.06% pay bump that staff received earlier this fall.
Nicki Vander Meulen was the only board member to vote against the non-referendum budget. Vander Meulen said she could not support a budget without including full cost-of-living increases for staff.
The district would use $46.3 million in one-time funds to avoid reductions to staffing and other programs this year if the referendum fails, according to district finance administrator Bob Soldner. Cuts would be likely next school year, Soldner told the Cap Times in mid-October.
Madison’s latest k-12 Superintendent:
Regardless of the results of the operations referendum, the school district expects to be in a structural deficit this year. Passage of the referendum would bring the district’s structural deficit of $46.3 million down to $22.9 million, though.
Notes and links on the Fall $600,000,000+ 2024 referendum, here.
Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average K – 12 spending.
Like, literally just stop. No government subsidies to companies. No government subsidies to NGO’s, nonprofits, foundations, activists. Let people spend or donate their own money their own way. ¡AFUERA!
Chasing away the tax base in Washington:
The politicians in Olympia who pushed the capital gains tax like to market it by saying “it only applies to the rich”, but they never honestly explain the huge economic tradeoffs that we will all suffer when we do damage to our economy.
The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.
When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?
