Waukesha School District's Preliminary Budget Responds to Tough Times

Times are tough for school districts around the state, caught between a weakened economy and a recently-approved Wisconsin biennial state budget that imposes “difficult financial restrictions” on state school districts, according to the Waukesha School District.

As a result, the school district is presenting a balanced budget that will mean less taxes for taxpayers but also less money spent by the district on instruction and some services, based on budget documents prepared by the school district.

There will be a public hearing on the school district’s preliminary budget at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 10, in the board room of the Lindholm Building. The budget will be voted on by the school board at its September meeting.

With this budget, the school district’s total tax levy will decrease by 2.9 percent for 2011-2012, from $86.3 million in 2010 to $83.8 million for 2011.

Based on an estimated two percent decrease in equalized property values, the resulting tax rate would decrease from $9.34 to $9.26 per $1,000 of equalized assessed value. For a house with a fair market value of $200,000, that would result in $1,852 in taxes for the school district on the tax bill.

The school district budget includes $44.9 million projected state aid, based on an estimate provided by the state. This is a reduction of $5.1 million from last year and includes a special aid adjustment of $10.2 million to soften the loss of state funding. The revenue cap – the fixed amount of revenue a school district is allowed, which therefore limits spending – was also decreased, by about $558 per student, with a total reduction of $6.5 million, or 4.9 percent, from last year.

“These are real reductions we have, year after year,” Finance Committee Chairman Joe Como said.

The end result was that the district needed to find $11 million in reductions, some of which was offset by savings from changes in contracts for employee salary and benefits and the retirement of 127 teachers and 25 district personnel, leading to salary and benefit savings for the district as they hired new staff or haven’t yet replace those staff who retired.

Despite these reductions in funding, the district’s goal is to sustain all existing programs, according to the budget documents; however, “deliver models may change or staffing levels may be altered” when necessary to keep programs intact.

State and federal changes

The recently-approved state budget includes three main changes that had an impact on the district’s budget, according to communication from the school district.

• A 5.5 percent reduction in the allowable per-pupil cost;
• Removal of the “hold harmless” provision, which had guaranteed that total school district base revenues in the current fiscal year be maintained at the prior year’s level; and
• Removal of exemptions for nurse compensation, school safety and above-average transportation costs;

Another item that had an impact on the school’s budget is that the district can no longer rely on federal stimulus money as it did last year.

Last year, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) provided a one-time infusion of $3.7 million for use in Title 1 and IDEA Special Education federal grant programs which helped close the budget gap last year by preventing layoffs and budget cuts, according to the district documents.

Partly because of the loss of AARA funding, expenditures for special education programs are expected to decrease by 13 percent from last year to $27 million. Another contributing factor is the large number of retirees and a reduction in the cost of benefits being provided by the district.

“So not any drastic changes to the program, [just] cost impact,” said Lauri Clifton, school district CFO and director of business services.

Proposed reductions with few increases

One change noted in the school district budget documents was the restructuring of the Curriculum and Instruction and Student Services departments to “create efficiencies and better delivery of services.”

Como said that all school district functions have been impacted.

“This has impacted virtually all functions,” Como said.

Under the preliminary budget, the regular curriculum budget category, which includes art, reading and language arts, foreign languages, mathematics, music, science and social studies, experienced a reduction of 9.4 percent, from $39.5 million to $35.8 million.

For the undifferentiated curriculum category, which includes teachers who teach multiple subjects in to the same class – for example, elementary classroom teachers –an 8.3 percent reduction, from $27.8 to $25.5 million, is budgeted. The bulk of that reduction was in teacher salaries and benefits.

The special education curriculum category, which includes the early childhood program, support for children with emotional or behavioral disabilities, speech and language and visually impaired services, received a 5.6 percent reduction, from $21.2 million to $20.1 million. The reduction was in salaries and benefits with smaller increases in personal services and general supplies.

The category of “other special needs,” which includes services for gifted and talented students, homebound instruction, at-risk services, the school age parent program and the GED Option program, decreased overall by 17.5 percent from $703,843 to $580,575. The bulk of the reduction was in the gifted and talented program, receiving a 22.8 percent decrease, from $504,846 to $389,718 for 2011-2012.

The vocational curriculum budget category, which includes business/marketing, family and consumer sciences, technology and engineering and the building trades departments, was reduced overall by 2.4 percent, with some money budgeted for increased equipment purchases, going from $6,380 in 2010-2011 to $150,000 for this next year.

Physical curriculum, including physical education and health, received a 14.5 percent reduction, from $4.3 to $3.7 million, the bulk of which was in salaries and benefits spread among those departments.

The only curriculum area to experience an increase was co-curricular activities, increasing 1 percent from $1,723,732 to $1,741,360, however much of that increase was in salaries, going from $1.2 million to $1.5 million.

A 12.8 percent decrease is budgeted for pupil services, from $6.9 million to $6 million, spread across the social work department, school health program, psychological services and other pupil services. Of those, the school heath program, which includes nurses at the schools, received almost a 26 percent decrease, from $970,953 to $719,215.

The budget category “Instructional staff services,” which includes curriculum development, instructional staff training, library media and other instructional staff supervision and coordination, overall decreased of 8.7 percent, from $4.9 to $4.5 million. Library services were reduced by 4.3 percent, from $1.84 million to $1.76 million.

The budget category general administration, which includes the school board, district and other administration, received a relatively minor reduction,  .7 percent, from $1,828,171 to $1,815,646.

School building administration, which includes principals and assistant principals and other assistants in general supervision of school operations, received a 4.2 percent reduction, from $8.3 to $8 million.

Business administration, which includes fiscal activities, operations, maintenance, facilities remodeling and pupil transportation, received a 3.6 percent reduction from $21.0 million to $20.2 million.

Central services, which includes information technology services, public information, staff services activities and information systems, decreased overall by 2.6 percent. An increase in salaries and benefits was offset by a decrease in purchased services and capital items.

Summary of budget changes

Some district changes included in the budget were:

• Change in status of what used to be the IT Director position to the new Chief information Technology Officer;
• Establishment of a leadership position at Harvey Philip Alternative School and other alternative programs;
• Adding another principal to the STEM school, resulting in two principals for the two campuses;
• Implementation of a new manufacturing program at North High School;
• Expansion of bilingual programs at Banting, Heyer, White Rock, Horning, Butler and Central schools;
• Expansion of the new Wellness Program to all covered employees; and
• Purchase of textbooks to align with Common Core Standards.