Dear Families, Our School Board and Leadership Team this month met with our local legislators to share our priorities going into the biennial state budget. We enjoy a healthy working relationship with our elected officials. We met with Sen. Alberta Darling, Rep. Dan Knodl and incoming Rep. Janel Brandtjen. We included our letter to the legislators that our School Board will likely approve in January before we send it. Thank you. Sincerely, Dr. Patricia Greco Superintendent of Schools School District of Menomonee Falls MENOMONEE FALLS, WISCONSIN 53051 Administration Offices W156 N8480 Pilgrim Road (262) 255-8440 FAX (262) 255-8481 Dear Legislators, This legislative platform has been prepared by the School Board of the School District of Menomonee Falls. The seven members of our Board appreciate your commitment of service. We also understand the challenges you face in preparing the next biennial budget to represent the needs of the communities across Wisconsin. We ask you to consider the points outlined below for the children of our community and our taxpayers. Our Board understands the importance of sustaining strong educational opportunities for our students. We are responsible for preparing students for the demands of college and competitive job markets. We also represent our local taxpayers. The School District of Menomonee Falls is impacted by high manufacturing land values and declining enrollments because we are landlocked. We are the 3rd largest business and manufacturing center in Wisconsin. We need specific support to meet the needs of our students/parents and our local taxpayers well. The current educational funding formula has been debated for decades. The rate of inflation continues to outpace the capacity of our local budget under the revenue limits. The imbalance designed into the state revenue limit formula necessitates cuts to educational programming as the expectations for student performance continue to increase. We need your help legislatively. We remain committed to working with you as partners. The legislative changes identified below would take a step in correcting the impact of the state funding formula on our schools, and afford our school board greater local control to address the challenges unique to our community and our taxpayers. We commit to efficient, effective operations, but we need the local control to match the resources available to the local student needs and community priorities. 2015-17 Legislative Priorities: 1. The state needs to sustain adequate funding for required state programming. The state has significantly increased the expectations for performance, but the funding needed has not been adequately addressed. The state has increased the technology needed to meet state testing requirements, increased requirements for student interventions, and mandated identification and intervention for special education needs; none of these recent requirements are adequately funded. These have placed additional pressures on the already limited district budget. The tools of Act 10 have been implemented. Our district has reached a practical limit to use these tools, and remain competitive in the SE Wisconsin region. SDMF shifted to a high deductible self-funded health plan. SDMF salaries and benefits rank in the middle of our neighboring districts. We have reached a practical limit in order to retain experienced staff and attract staff in hard to hire areas. School District of Menomonee Falls 2015-2017 Biennial Budget Recommendations Page 1 To address the funding issues that impact our district, we suggest some combination of the following changes: a) Increase the revenue limit each year of the 2015-17 biennial budget to avoid further impact on class size, programming, maintenance, and staffing. b) Focus specific support for declining enrollment districts through greater categorical aid. c) Increase open enrollment reimbursement to align with the base educational cost of $9200 per student. This amount represents the minimum cost districts experience per pupil across the state for all grade levels. d) Increase the reimbursement rate for special education to 30% of the prior year’s costs that are eligible for aid. This rate has dropped steadily from 70% in 1980 to 26% in 2014. Special education costs continue to be further subsidized by the local general fund, which negatively impacts programming available to all students. e) Reduce the hold harmless criteria for state aid from 15% to 10% for declining enrollment districts. This would assist our local taxpayers from bearing a larger burden of the tax impact with limited time to prepare for the shift in obligation. f) We need clear and fair parameters set for funding the new Course Options Legislation. There are no established criteria for cost sharing options with parents or the University Systems. There are no established criteria for student performance. A student can register for a college course at taxpayer expense, drop it after the acceptable window or fail the course, and local taxpayers would be obligated to pay for the college tuition and materials. There is no system in place to avoid students signing up for courses that the high school already offers; this duplicates the costs for local taxpayers. Districts have no way of containing the costs of programming. This will negatively impact the programming dollars remaining for all students. 2. Allow local boards the flexibility to innovate and more efficiently align resources: a) The state requires the school calendar to start on or after September 1st, and the state determines the minimum hours for instructional time. Providing flexibility for local school boards to adjust the calendar will help better prepare students for the national expectations of the Advanced Placement Testing which begins on May 1st. Our parents value our approach to college and career readiness, but this still stands in our way. b) Allow the local school board the flexibility in determining learning experiences which may be equivalent to classroom seat time for meeting the state required standards. Examples could include community based learning experiences that would meet the expectations of the required program standards. We need the flexibility to think beyond seat time. 3. While the Menomonee Falls school board is not unanimous on this topic, there is strong consensus from 6 of our 7 board members on the following recommendations. School District of Menomonee Falls 2015-2017 Biennial Budget Recommendations Page 2 A level playing field needs to be available to all systems receiving public tax dollars. We ask that the measurement systems, state aid, and state mandates be equally applied to all systems educating children with public funding. Innovation and waivers should be equally accessible to all publically funded schools. a) Increase local school board control and authority in setting any waivers or modifications to the state required accountability system and educational standards. Any assessments or standards waived for one publically funded educational option should be available to all local school boards. b) Alternatively, create one state-wide accountability system for all publically funded schools to ensure equal responsibility to the taxpayers. c) Use the funding process for open enrollment to reimburse for students attending a voucher or choice non-resident public school. This would avoid compromising student programming within school districts not losing enrollment to voucher or choice alternatives. 4. The Fund 80 revenue cap negatively impacts school districts operating Community Education and Recreation on behalf of their municipalities. The restrictions set to Fund 80 were designed to reduce abuse. These requirements fail to recognize the differences among school districts responsible for operating the full Community Education and Recreation programs. The revenue limit for Fund 80 needs to rise for the limited number of school districts responsible for this programming to correct that situation. There is no cap established on revenue available to municipalities providing the community programming. The Fund 80 requirements need to be differentiated for the districts providing the full programming for the communities they serve. Again, we appreciate your time and your commitment to understanding the specific concerns impacting our community. We have met with our local legislators. We are sharing our input with all of the members of Joint Finance, the Education Committee, and the members of our local community. School District of Menomonee Falls School Board Members and Leaders Sincerely, Faith VanderHorst, President Mark Nadolski, Board Member Ronald Bertieri, Vice President Paul Tadda, Board Member (My signature represents support for all items other than # 3) Michele Divelbiss, Clerk Patricia Greco, Ph.D., Superintendent Scott Ternes, Treasurer David Noshay, Board Member Jeffrey Gross, Director of Finance and Business Services School District of Menomonee Falls 2015-2017 Biennial Budget Recommendations Page 3
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