Click on the post to view the agenda for Monday's Board meeting. There will be no committee meetings of the whole this month due to spring break falling on the usual date of March 28th. There will be an open enrollment update and the board is set to approve any open enrollment changes at this time. I'm curious as to the discussion about the day at the capitol and the budget resolution they plan to discuss. If you go to the district website, you will also be able to view the packet of materials the board is given in preparation for the meeting. It usually has excellent information and I encourage all to look it over.
Today, Evansville made the Gazette front page twice! Once for our 25% increase in population since 2000 and once for Stoughton Trailers reopening the Evansville plant. This should mean good news for the city and the school district in terms of revenue increases. In the same time frame, the school district has seen an 18% increase in enrollment. That is the good news. The bad news is that this increase was fully realized in 2006 and has flattened at about 1800 since then, with only minor fluctuations up and down. The double whammy of no appreciable enrollment increase for five years and a back-loaded bond that was written with the expectation of steady enrollment increases (payments increase as time goes on instead of evenly distributed over time) will continue to bite the district in the ass until 2020 or enrollment increases substantially, whichever comes first. Maybe the 2010 census information predicts another bolus of new students into the district. While it will improve the funding outlook, unless they stack them vertically, it also augers that new buildings will be needed to house any substantial increase in enrollment.
What with our fine upstanding example of governorship, soon I expect us all to return to the feudal educational system in which only royalty can afford education and the rest of us scratch out a living by their largess. Butthead. When I think of all the times when I was on the board when we had to reschedule a meeting because of posting inaccuracies or, my favorite, when the venue was locked and we couldn't get to the room for which it was posted, it makes me want to vomit at the apparent consideration of those in power that they are above the open meeting laws and can do whatever they want because they are sick of being frustrated. For God's sake, I was on the school board for 3 years and never stopped being frustrated at the "rob Peter to pay Paul"decisions we constantly had to make. I have friends on the board who have done it twice that long. Being frustrated with budget inadequacies is the status quo for all school districts everywhere. Shifting from whence they get funding is not going to magically solve that problem. Scott Walker is a menace and his agenda of attracting national attention for a shot at the national stage was bought at the expense of wise governance for our state. This has been a bizarre chapter in Wisconsin history with a sad conclusion.
Friday, March 11, 2011
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3 comments:
As far as Stoughton Trailers I think people should probably hold their breathe.
That place has never been a solid place to work, work for a few months , lay off, work for a few months, lay off and repeat.
I will be surprised if it' s any different this time.
I have not heard and was wondering if you had, what walker's 'budget fix' is going to cost the school district? How much are they losing on top of what they already knew they were losing?
These so called 'tools' that walker speaks of to help schools, I was told the only real tool is it gives districts the power to fire teacher's with seniority.
That is not o.k.. I can not think of one single long term Evansville teacher who is not exemplary.
As some educators have stated his so called tool box is empty.
I think his attitude towards education comes from being uneducated him self.
I was just wondering if you know something about the cuts or not.
Chasin.
The Program Based Budgeting Presentations to the School Board are March 21st at 7pm in the District Board and Training Room. A starting budget will be available at that time, but as Superintendent Carvin stressed at the March 14th meeting, things change on a daily basis. The contract that was agreed to with the unions was set to more than cover the "worst case scenario" of a loss of $500 per student, or nearly a million in lost revenue for Evansville compared to last year. That number of lost revenue per student continues to fluctuate and until it is set in "stone" will cause havoc for every school district trying to plan for the coming years.
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