By a board vote of 6-1, the West Bend School District Superintendent's Preliminary Budget for 2010-2011 passed. Dave Weigand was the lone No vote. The budget, which grew to $79,348,067 from last year's budget of $73,000,000.00, passed with budget "reductions" of 1,420,792.00 to make the current preliminary budget $77,927,275.00. This budget presupposes a maximum levy tax increase of over 8% (wasn't last year's levy increase 10.3%?)
Due to the late hour, I'll close with comments from board members and the Superintendent:
Joe Carlson: This budget is a sheared sacrifice of a budget.
Randy Marquardt: The teacher's contract took away any discussion from the board's hands. The $600,000.00 of cuts had to be put back into the budget. Because teachers salaries make up 85% of the budget it is the only place we can cut, and the union took that away.
Dave Weigand: Basically we are told if we don't spend money we won't have it later. This mentality is epidemic in school districts across the state.
Todd Miller: [Teacher] negotiations are tough. (From me: I don't doubt they are!)
Pat Herdrich: The leadership team will not make the recommendation to under-levy.
We are a low spending district (that was stated several times as well as comments about state funding favoring the most affluent communities)
Mrs. Herdrich also mentioned wanting to get waivers from the state to allow the district to opt out of unfunded mandates. That confused me because she is always saying she wants to increase programming.
I give accolades to Mclane principal Andy Kasik. He leads his staff in high expectations for the students there. More on that tomorrow.
"Mrs. Herdrich also mentioned wanting to get waivers from the state to allow the district to opt out of unfunded mandates. That confused me because she is always saying she wants to increase programming."
ReplyDeleteHerein lies the problem with most people who comment on blogs. This statement shows just how little you understand about what is going on in the district. An unfunded mandate is not an increase in programming. It is a requirement of the district forced by the government.
When Dr. herdrich says she wants to increase programming she means that she wants to have more class offerings that are wanted by the community or are proven by research to improve the education of students.
Unfunded mandates are requirements that would be like the goverment saying you have to paint your house a certain color and then saying you cannot go out and find a way to make more money to pay for the paint. You have to cut somewhere else in order to pay for the paint.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteI understand perfectly what this means. My point is that Mrs. Herdrich does not want to cut anything; she wants to continue increasing programming in West Bend. I am only pointing out that it seems contradictory to complain about programming that she WANTS to have. The real complaint is that she does not have the money she wants. She will never give the board a budget that does not tax to the max. She stated that last night.
She also admits that the West Bend schools offer more programming than other area schools. Good for her for admitting to that. Most folks don't know that and it wouldn't occur to them that it is true when we hear about the budget crisis.