The school board that didn't take advantage of Act 10 improvements now wants $50,000,000 of our money to pay for shit they should have budgeted (preventative maintenance, infrastructure repairs and updates, etc.) over time.

I've got a large sign going in my front yard on this one.  The top of each side will say "VOTE NO ON APRIL 7"

I want a different message on the bottom on each side (like a subscript).

Something like "Tell the School Board to budget responsibly,"  "Stop Encouraging Bloated Education Budgets," or maybe "Say no to a 10% tax increase."

I don't think "Need more room? A used Conex costs $1500" would be a great message.

Let's hear 'em.

An out of pocket expense should come out of the pockets of those who made that expense happen.

Bad planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.

You can substitute "A fuck up" for "Bad planning" if you wish...

LOL

V
OUT

Holy Crap.  I had to Google your number but the $50M (yes, 50 MILLION DOLLARS FOR GOD'S SAKE!) seems to be correct for little old Port Washington, WI.  I'm blown back by that number.  I must have donated at least that much to Schooners in college

They wanted $74,000,000 to build a new high school.  The school only has 850 students, and they wanted to spend $87k per student for a new school.  Maybe if I'm feeling saucy later on I'll post screenshots of the online survey I submitted.

First of three "information" sessions (read: "propaganda" sessions) is tonight 6pm at Dunwiddie in Port Washington.

As well as "lets put community rooms in each school" was in the first round as well.  Ummmmm didn't we just take voting out of the schools because the community isn't safe?!  Grew up in Port my entire life our schools are nothing special that we need to spend this amount of money on.

Funny thing the middle school is huge - plenty of capacity up there so why not move another grade that way if capacity is an issue.

Honest answer is capacity isn't an issue; this is poor budgeting for decades (no PMs scheduled) and I guarantee you the administrative areas will be getting tons of useless "Creature Comfort" upgrades in addition to the proposed "brand new pretty entrance area that is pretty instead of not pretty!"

Sounds like many a school board member in your district needs to be cained & fired. Order at your discretion.

Look into immediate legal action to have them removed from office for gross negligence of duties.

Seriously.

The complaints are that the building(s) are old...

...I got my college education in a hundred year old building.  Some people pay a lot more money to go to schools with even older buildings, buildings so decrepit that they are covered in ivy...

Our local property taxes pay for around $14-15M per year of the school budget of around $30M.  The salaries/wages alone are $14-15M, with another $6-7M in benefits, and another $1-2M in pension payouts.

Without the state and federal subsidies (which one must assume are going to not be getting larger over time...) we are already spending way beyond our means. Just. For. The. Personnel.  No classroom supplies, heating or cooling costs, maintenance costs, etc., etc.

This referendum would be something like a 10-12% tax increase for somewhere between 5-10 years minimum, maybe 20.  It is difficult to read past the bullshit and get the hard numbers.

When the school board gave us all the finger on Act 10, a few members were replaced, but they are voted in and out in a several year cycle, and memory is short. I am hoping a big sign in my front yard can serve as a reminder.  Still looking for better ideas.

So far I have :

VOTE NO APRIL 7
Act 10 improvements
before
school improvements

and other side:

VOTE NO APRIL 7
Tell the school board
to budget
responsibly!

I'm buying the stencils this week.

How many students are we talking?

A local area to me in Polk county passed a 15million dollar redendum for a bunch of stuff.

Our school board has tried for three years to pass a referendum asking for a "mere" $300,00 & it has not passed yet.
I seriously don't understand where these people think this money is going to come from or why they think it is so necessary.

This concept that kids must have the best of the best to get an education is ridiculous.

The allocation of grants seem to now be for the bling type of items like iPads & IT infrastructure along with building developments. In the meantime my next door neighbor is the high school biology teacher & he has seen his budget cut by 72% in the last 5yrs. He says he barely has enough funds to get 1/2 of the supplies he needs to run experiments required in the curriculum. If it was for either him doling out money himself or parents purchasing supplies he would have kids failing just because they couldn't do the experiments.

So while the school can get grants lining the pockets of technology based items the basic necessities for teaching are being ignored.

There is the main issue here that they built a new gym a number of years ago & the under budget is being blamed on "unforeseen" costs associated with maintenance & upkeep of this gym. So again lack of planning.

$3-4M is slated to go to the grade schools, and the balance is going to the high school which has 850 students, or $54,000+ per student.

The "technology" stuff is ridiculous.  The level of education was better for a long time before Dewey and his "critical pedagogy."

Also, the year over year enrollment numbers do not seem to be going up in the district.

After talking to my "calming influence" (father) I've decided on this, though I am open to criticism:

VOTE "NO" APR 7
Tell your school
board to budget
responsibly!

VOTE "NO" APR 7
Act 10 savings
before tax
increases!

Beat the other side to the punch:
Vote for children!





VOTE NO ON APRIL 7
or
Protect our kids!





VOTE NO ON APRIL 7

 

LMAO.

Actually, that's true.

Protect your kids from future high taxes due to crushing debt. Otherwise the high taxes will drive them from the area when they are adults.

Yeah to a new area, where people who ruined their old towns/cities will move a little while later (since they don't like the crushing taxes and debt they caused), and then they will ruin the new town, too.

Repeat ad infinitum and that's pretty much the modern American experience.

We need to start calling those people "taxbaggers" since they drive up taxes, then grab their carpetbag and move on to leech off a new area.  Like what has happened to Colorado, or what is happening to a lot of Milwaukee suburbs.

Which way to Galt's Gulch?

You touch on a very interesting subject.

Many techers & administrative personnel are not from the areas they work in. There is certainly a disconnect between them & the communities that pay their wages.

They are, in most circumstances, little better than professional politicians.

They get their kicks out of successful "lawyering" rather than being of true benefit to those that they are supposed to serve.

Ayup.  It generally costs several times as much to put a kid through public school as it does to give his parents a voucher for private school, and the results (as measured through standardized testing) are at least as good.  Same results *or* better for way less money?

Yes, please!

I'd like to get that graph. These discussions often bring up the per capita spending, and point out MS with it's low taxes and low educational levels.

This is a huge problem most people have misreading the data, IMHO.

It isn't the money that makes the difference, its the parents that make the money by generally making good decisions and acting like adults.  There are obviously going to be exceptions to that, but it is the exact same as the economic correlation in divorce rates: People who make bad money decisions also tend to make bad marriage decisions.

Private schools do better because of increased levels of parental involvement, period.  It is a self-selection process.

This is sort of the same lines as the original post, but something that I don't totally understand.  School districts collect some sort of rate from their district, I'd assume this is what drives property tax (as messed up as that is).  I understand this rate to be locked by the state and the schools can't increase it or can only increase it a small amount.   I assume the theory is that if population increases, the tax base would increase keeping the same percentage of money per student flowing to the school.

If what I describe is true (or I am understanding correctly) this system doesn't account for any other variances, like inflation, supply base (computer programs vs books for example).  It seems then, that a lot of the districts are forced into these huge referendums to make any sort of improvements, because they can't raise the standard tax rate, good or bad.

I lived in a very conservative district awhile back and the school is really struggling.  They have one of the lowest rates in the state.  It really seems that a higher rate could bring them in line with a lot of the neighboring schools with a higher rate.

In any case, I'm still a fan of public schools.  I have the means to send my kids to private and they are very smart children, but I think they will get a better real world education going to the are public school which is very highly ranked in the state.

The problem with all that is the costs are not driven by things like books or energy, or even repairs or preventative maintenance.  They are driven by personnel costs first and foremost.  School boards historically have just kicked the can down the road on bigger ticket items until they have so many piled up they can't possibly fit them into their already bloated budget.  Then... referendum.  And while they're at it they may as well also take care of...

The bottom line is this:

Once people have justified stealing from some people to give shit to other people, there is no end to what they can justify to themsleves.

And you know what?  Maybe they could at least pretend to be serious about education by not putting SPORTS PROGRAM upgrades on their little Santa Clause wish lists.  See?  Plenty of people out there justifying slavery so their kids can play a game.

A fucking game.

You touch on a very important concept.

We just had Parent/Teacher meeting this week at my kids schools. My oldest is in 5th grade. He is a straight A student & is at the top of his class. His teacher & I had a 45 minute conversation touching on many subjects. He complimented my son  for his study habits & dedication to his school work. Pretty much said if he had a class full of my boy his job would be a pleasure & very rewarding. He disclosed a very sad state of the other kids in the class by comparison. He also stated, once talking with me at length, hat my wifes & I's involvement in his education was very evident. He thanked me & said it was very refreshing to have such involved parents.

By contrast some students in his class were truent & not doing well at all. Some have missed over 40 days of school. He said a number of them had missed 20-40+ days. Over 10 is truent by statute.

If the parents fail at being parents, the kids fail as students. The apples, most times, fall not far from the tree.

The chronic truancy rate in Milwaukee Public Schools is around 50%.

And those 50% will end up being adult parasites living off of entitlement money stolen from the working taxpayers.

When I asked my boy about how many kids he thought have missed a lot of days he said, "A lot, like maybe half.".

So maybe it is as bad as the teacher was telling me, he just didn't give me exact numbers.