Other March 12 Board Meeting Observations

There was such a full agenda at last night's board meeting and it really ended up to be an emotionally draining 3 hours. The two big items were the 4K presentation and the CAC recommendations based on the community survey results. I was part of the 4KIC and proud to have been part of the most professional, thorough treatment of any new program research I've seen to date. Kudos to Paula Landers, facilitator extraordinaire!

The CAC recommendations for referendum were a small section of the list. I was amused to see the BOE suddenly take up the drumbeat for creating a strategic plan and Jerry jump right onto that bandwagon. I've been advocating, cajoling, pushing, you name it, I've tried it, for this august body to do this for YEARS. At least they're talking about doing it now.

Other recommendations the CAC made was to implement 4K (outside of referendum), to consider renovation/replacement of the MS no later than the 18-19 school year. Clarification of that point was asked for by the BOE because the HS won't be paid off until 2020. The answer was that the planning should begin at that time.

The new principal contracts were approved, with Joanie Dobbs as the new Levi Leonard principal and Jason Knott from Edgerton at the Middle School. Mr. Cashore's contract was revised to separate out his AD stipend from his AP duties and change his post retirement benefits to align with current administrator contracts, adding costs to be placed into an HRA to "catch him up" in this regard.

Several policies were approved as well, with further discussion about 521.1 Board Staff Communication policy in which Jerry indicated that the intent was to preserve the chain of command and not to discourage staff from contacting individual board members with concerns. That was important to the passage of this policy.

An interesting conversation came about when Jerry was discussing using part of last year's fund surplus for salary and benefit increases. It wasn't until the motion was made that I realized that this was for this school year and would be retroactive to last July 1. It comes from the $165,000 surplus in the 12-13 budget. Going forward, this change could have implications and the BOE encouraged the compensation committee to come back soon with next year's recommendations. Folded on top of this discussion, muddying the waters from my perspective, is the concept of one time stipend awards to staff. The reasoning was that a percent increase of a lower salary is naturally lower and the stipends would help equalize that. Rewarding staff for all their hard work was at the heart of the discussion.

Teaching staff were strongly represented to advocate for a choice of 20 or 24 pay periods. It was a very emotional discussion fraught with discussions of the survey that was done, who it was sent to, how it was presented, the history as to how it came about in the first place, some reference to focus groups that were never held and general unrest. 77% of the staff surveys returned supported 24 pay periods. The cost for maintaining two pay schedules has been variously reported and ranges from $10-50K in addition to the current wages in the district office. The discussion included how closely related student achievement was with school climate, and did the board not believe that increasing achievement was worth this additional cost? The history lesson included aspects of the discussion during handbook meetings that were supposed to communicate the change to staff but apparently did not. The process was put into place just last July and the BOE voted 4-3 to keep 20 pay periods this year and noted that the handbook change process forms were in the handbook and that the next version of that would be addressed in June. God bless her, Mrs. Oswald, awesome MS teacher, filled one out on the spot and handed it to Jerry right in the middle of the meeting! I understand both sides of this question and why the board voted as they did. It's unfortunate that this has taken so much of the board's energy when the question was asked and answered last year. The entire debacle highlights the abysmal state of communications in all areas of our district, not just the board. It is imperative to repair this problem if the ECSD wishes to have a positive staff.

Thanks to the BOE for clarifying that the resignation of the 0.5 FTE Gifted and Talented Resource Teacher Mark Simonson at JCMM (he was only on a one year contract) doesn't signify the demise of the program at the MS. The 0.5 position will be replaced with a 1.0 FTE next year! It was a joyous moment for me to behold.

That hits most of the high points. I did speak about Senior Projects, but will write a separate post on that later. Signing off from Hammann Campaign Headquarters!

CAC Referendum Recommendations in Light of Survey Results

If any of you read this morning's Gazette, you will know that the CAC has recommended that the BOE proceed to referendum on three questions on September 9 or one big question in November. The 3 questions in September option would pose a tax impact of 1.305 million dollars year for four years, as envisioned by the CAC. Instead of separating out Safety and Security from building maintenance, as was done in the survey, they recommended lumping them together into one question, with the total expense for those two items being no more than 2.8 million, whereas the survey indicated that the expense to do this would be 3.1 million (Safety at 300K and Maintenance at 2.8 million). The curriculum would be separate at a total of 900K and the Technology would be separate at 1.52 Million. The one big question would have the same tax impact, but the reasoning and timing was important. If questions are separated out, funds have to be spent only on the items specified in the referendum question and earlier voting would enable earlier purchase of services, particularly in outdoor building improvements. In Wisconsin, after November outdoor work is not an option, sometimes all the way until May. That would leave very little time to expend those funds if done in November. If all questions are lumped into one, November would be better, getting a higher voter turnout and giving flexibility for the fund usage where needed. The downside is that those adamantly opposed to one or another item in the one big question may or may not vote against the whole enchilada. The survey didn't really measure how much additional tax burden the community was willing to take on for a limited time.

So what did the survey say about the likelihood of these particular items succeeding on referendum? Important contextual information to have while reviewing the survey results are as follows:

• The non-parent, non-staff subgroup represents 70-75% of the voters in a district.
• The undecided survey results typically break negative at 80% no and 20% yes.
• Our survey results had an inordinately high "undecided/need more info" result across the board, according to the School Perceptions presentation.

CURRICULUM SUPPORT $900,000

63% of all residents responding to the survey said they would support a referendum of $900,000 over four years to improve curriculum. 52% of the non-parent non-staff group said the same. Clearly, there is community support for this item. One need not even perform the weighted average to see that this is likely to be a win at the ballot, but performing that math indicates that initiative would garner 55.3% yes votes, and even with a 2.9% margin of error would likely pass a referendum.

SAFETY AND SECURITY $300,000

54% of all residents would support this at the ballot with 22% undecided and 44% of the big voting block "non parent non staff" would do so, also with 22% undecided. This is less clear cut. Doing a straight weighted average on these numbers indicates that the likely outcome of a referendum regarding this item alone is only 47% yes. If you include 20% of the undecideds changed to yes in each group, the weighted average is now predicted to be 51.4%, which may encourage the optimists among you, but I just want to remind everyone that the margin of error for the survey is +/- 2.9%, placing this question firmly in the grey area of "it depends on who comes out to vote."

BUILDING MAINTENANCE

49% of all residents would support a referendum for this item with 31% undecided and 39% of the non-parent non-staff group supports it with 32% of that group undecided. As with the curriculum question, it's clear that a straight weighted average would fail to garner support at the polls. That result would be 42% yes. Adding in 20% of the undecided votes for each category would increase the support level to 48.34% yes. Again,  margin of error puts this even further into the questionably successful category.

TECHNOLOGY

57% of all residents supported the technology initiative with a 21% undecided group. 44% of the non-parent non-staff group supported this question with 23% undecided. The straight weighted average indicates public support at the polls would stand at 47.9%, again in limbo. Changing 20% of the undecideds in each group and recalculating the weighted average results in 52.38% support for improving technology and its infrastructure.

What does all this mean? It means that if the BOE decides to take all four of these questions to referendum that Curriculum is likely to be a clear winner and the other three are a crap shoot at this point in the conversation with the community. Two may break positive and one negative. It doesn't seem wise to lump in one that is breaking positive with one that is breaking negative just to get them all on the ballot. I don't know how voters would react to lumping everything into one question, but it seems likely that that strategy, while it has good reasoning, could backfire based on this statistical analysis of the survey results.

How will this affect your property tax bill.

CURRICULUM: 23.2 cents per thousand, increasing the mill rate to $12.53 per thousand in property value, a 1.9% increase in the current mill rate. All of these calculations only include these initiatives and do not take into account the increases that will be seen due to other increases in the revenue limit and debt payment.

SAFETY and MAINTENANCE: 72.2 cents per thousand, giving an individual mill rate increase of 5.9% and a cumulative (including CURRICULUM) rate increase of  95.4 cents per thousand, or a 7.8% increase.

TECHNOLOGY: 43.8 cents per thousand for an individual mill rate increase of 3.6% and a cumulative (including both items above) increase of $1.39 per thousand, or an 11.3% increase.

Come Early to Get a Good Seat at the March 12 School Board Meeting

I know the agenda has yet to be published, but as they summarized the agenda coming forward to the school board meeting on March 12 at the Feb 26 meeting, I knew this meant 1) March 12 is going to be a long meeting and 2) a lot of interested parties will attend that don't normally do so. The district has already anticipated this and changed the normal venue to TRIS LMC (library for us old farts), entrance through the Fair Street (bus) doors. The staff has been planning to bring food and hunker down for the duration. Start time is 6:00. Come early for best viewing!

The two top drawing cards for attendance will be:

1). The Citizen Advisory Committee presentation of its recommendations to the school board based on the recent community survey.

2). The 4K Investigative Committee's presentation and recommendations to the school board based on their research and the survey results.

Either of these two presentations would increase attendance, but both items will likely increase public comment time and fill the library with interested parties. If you have something to say about either of these items, come have your 5 minutes of fame. The lousy weather has shifted the timing on the 4KIC presentation from 2-26 to 3-12, but given that the information from the survey wasn't available until two days prior to the expected presentation date of 2-26, that was probably a hidden bonus. Now there is time to put together a well-designed presentation that reflects all the hard work of the committee. The 4KIC is practicing on March 10 in the TRIS library for those interested in a preview. Paula Lander's leadership of this committee has been the epitome of professionalism and has made all the difference to the final product. Our district is very lucky to have her as curriculum coordinator and I hope they recognize that.

I don't remember all the other agenda items coming forward to the next meeting, but they will probably approve the Girl's Hockey co-op with the Stoughton (currently) 4-op, again with parents shouldering the burden of (really high) costs here. Pay periods, Press Box, Budget updates this year and next, Insurance updates, etc. will probably reappear. Basically all the items on the Budget portion of the last meeting might come up again in the discussion section of the next meeting. I don't know if the paperless board packets will come to this meeting, but Doreen said she would do a cost analysis of the various forms of what "paperless" means. I'll try to remember to post the agenda when available later this week!

One disturbing comment came up when discussing the pros and cons of changing to a policy governance model (only 12 districts out of 426 currently use it in Wisconsin). "Their meetings seem to be shorter," was mentioned as a perk. Some of the current board members seem to rate productivity of board meetings with how quickly they are finished. Too bad for our district. I always thought how well a board advocates for the education of ALL of its students was the most important measure of productivity for a school board. Taking a peek at the open enrollment net deficit alone, I'm thinking a few more hours might be called for. That is all, except if you want this attitude to be challenged:

Response from School Perceptions Folks about the Response Rate

Here's the response I got from Chelsea Davis at School Perceptions when I asked about the reported participation rate for the survey.

Hi Melissa,

Thanks for your patience on this issue as I was out of the office last week.  To answer your question, the District’s postage order was for a total of 3,552 surveys.  As of last Monday, 1,148 people had taken the survey, which is the 32.3% response rate we reported. 

Because the District did not have an official community-wide mailing list, they used the US Post Office’s Every Door Direct Mail program.  This is a typical mailing format we recommend if a district does not have a mailing list.  A number of extra surveys were available at the District Office for anyone who did not receive a survey or requested an additional for another eligible voter in their household.

I hope that helps.

Thanks,

Chelsea Davis

(main) 262.644.4300 ext. 7003

(direct) 262.299.0325

(fax) 262.299.0333

319 East Washington St.

Slinger, WI 53086

She notes that an unspecified number of additional surveys were made available to people who requested one for each voter in the household, and the district had copies available. So this response rate is best case scenario, which I believe is still pretty good. In discussing matters with the CAC chair, she noted that they were targeting 400 surveys as the minimum acceptable response rate, and they got nearly three times that, so looked at in this way, it's a win all around. I don't know where the 4200 number came from that the Gazette used in their article, but it was good to get the data from the source.

Thanks to School Perceptions for their quick turnaround time on this question. Now to formulate more questions now that I have digested all the data! 

Union Forum Went Smoothly

Whew! Four school board activities in a week is a bit much for me. I haven't worked up to the board member endurance level yet, so WOW!

Last Thursday was the 4K Investigative Committee meeting at which we received a preliminary version of the March 12 presentation for input and comment. Monday was the survey presentation by School Perceptions, Wednesday was the school board meeting, where amazing board member Kathi Swanson reminded all present that $300K of the $335K surplus from last year is already spoken for via the phone system, a hundred thousand a year for three years. All the grand schemes presented by the administration for devising a "stipend" system for all employees (carefully avoiding calling it a bonus) was a little premature and could they not spend the surplus more than once? Also, since the CAC will be bringing recommendations to the board on March 12 for referendum, there's that to be considered for some of the surplus, and OH HEY 4KIC will recommend we start that program up to for 200-some thousand initial dollars that very same night. I too am guilty of forgetting about the phone system snafu last year, so all my carefully constructed analysis regarding the referendum stuff is off by a hundred thousand.

Then last night, the EEA invited all six candidates to a Q&A forum at Creekside Place to follow up on a questionnaire they sent to us earlier this month. Last year's election began a new tradition in which the EEA submits questions, hosts a forum for meet, greet 'n follow-up questions and decides who they plan to endorse going forward. Those chosen get a small stipend to spend on election costs. There wasn't as big a turn out as last year, probably because of the blinking cold. Many who were there sounded miserable with upper respiratory ailments and said about half or more of the staff sounded like they did. I asked Julie if they could also host a public forum, but she said taxing entity restrictions prevent them from doing so when they are planning to publicly endorse candidates. That's sad, because I don't think the Review will be able to get somebody to do the "Meet your school board candidates" series this year. Do any of my readers want to host a forum?

There were two follow up questions posed by DJ Redders this year:

1 What have you done first had to get to know how the schools operate?

2 How do you help show that your staff is valued?

A question from Tom Bethke followed those questions after this observation:
The board meetings have gone from a collaborative process to one that seems to focus on penny pinching. What could you do to return to the collaborative process?

These were all outstanding questions and once again, Kathi Swanson hit it out of the ballpark with the last question. "The reason we are stuck in penny pinching mode is because we have no strategic plan, which the board purposely put on hold but now needs to address." Kudos to Ms. Swanson for her laser focus on the most important problem in our district. From her lips to the boards ears!

The rest of our answers to the above questions were fair to middling, but not necessarily earth shaking. I focused on my analytical skills and finance expertise, identified my persistence and willingness to speak my mind and drill down to get answers, but I don't get a sense that the teachers necessarily value financial skills per se, but the overall sense from the teachers was strong appreciation for pointing out to the school board back in November that they need to make sure the district spends their budgets. I hope to get their endorsement!

I'll post the questions asked by the EEA and my answers with the next post.

School Perceptions Presents Raw Data from the Survey Monday February 24.

Happy Surprise For the Skeptics Among Us (Like Me, for Instance).

WARNING: MASSIVE QUANTITIES OF FUN DATA ANALYSIS WILL BE INCORPORATED IN THIS POST. PLEASE STEP AWAY FROM THE BLOG IF THIS DRIVES YOU TO DISTRACTION. 

Monday night I attended the Citizen's Advisory Committee meeting at which the full survey results were shared. I have a visceral need to see all the raw data and it was particularly informative to hear Bill Foster from School Perceptions give the data with the perspective from other community results. I am glad my friend told me about this meeting and that I could attend it. "Bill Foster won't be presenting this at a board meeting," I was told. Hmm. So far, I haven't seen a link to a copy of the presentation on the school website either. I hope to see it soon and I will post the link as soon as I see it.

My data crunching brain has already gone into gear on this survey, causing me to submit what is likely the first of several questions to School Perceptions. This one regards the percent response reported in the survey.  I remembered Mr. Foster reported that the 32.3% response rate (1148 surveys) was one of the highest he'd seen in over a decade of doing business. That alone is reason to celebrate. It appears all the overkill survey reminders did the trick! And then this morning, on my way out to yoga, I read the Janesville Gazette article summarizing the survey results. In that article, it was reported that surveys had been mailed to all 4200 homes in the district. That detail was not shared during Mr. Foster's presentation, but it also percolated in my caffeine deprived brain for a few hours. A few hours and a sufficient amount of caffeine later, it dawned on me that 1148 was not a third of 4200, but rather 27.3%. Wha??? So after I confirmed that the source of the "4200 surveys" was the Gazette, I emailed Mr. Foster to ask him how many surveys were mailed out. He's looking into the data for me and I have to say, I was really impressed with how quickly they responded to my question. Two School Perceptions people emailed me about this already, but the person who knows the answer is on vacation until Monday, so I'll keep you posted on that point.

My concerns about how the board was to use the data from the survey to create a Strategic Plan were somewhat allayed as well. The way the data was crunched seems logical, but I still need to cogitate on it some more to come up with a list of questions for Mr. Foster.  I was glad to see that there was a way to quantify the information in a way that can be used to prioritize expenditure of limited resources. I am not so glad to see the focus on referendum. It really takes chutzpah to go out with your hat in your hand and ask the property owners of the highest taxed school district in the county to increase their district tax burden by nearly 12% when they have failed to fully spend all their allotted revenue in five of the last six years to the tune of over a million dollars. For those who need to see the numbers like I do, here's a brief synopsis. The total additional amount needed to fund these initiatives that the CAC will recommend to the board for referendum is $146.88 per $100,000 in property value for four years. This adds $1.47 to the already exorbitant mill rate of $12.30 (which is based per thousand in property value), or an 11.94% increase.

Another curious aspect of the survey was the question about what to do with JCMMS (Middle School). The greatest response (40%) weren't sure what to do. The remaining 60% slightly favored replacing the middle school to renovating it 34-26%. After all, that renovation thing was already done in the 2001 referendum and that sure wasn't a fix.  The ambivalence was likely due to lack of information regarding the cost. When it should be done had a plurality locked up at 2020 or later (43%). Knowing that the current high mill rate could not bear the burden of another major building referendum, the survey respondents wisely selected "2020 or after." But how does that data translate to how strongly the people would support a more modest, temporary referendum in the interim? Those are some of the questions I have for Mr. Foster. I just don't think this sleepy little town is ready for that kind of tax increase, even though I agree that the areas targeted for referendum support are woefully underfunded. But why is the real question. My observation has been that their budgets were raided or unreasonably restricted over the last decade and we all own some of the fault for that. If the district took that total referendum amount required to support these initiatives and subtracted the million plus they have put into their coffers over the last six years, folks might be a little more open to the idea. In the mean time, lets run some numbers with regard to that idea.

The total sum of money stashed into district coffers in the last six years amounts to $1,095,589. Adding in the expected $165,483 surplus penciled into this year's budget, that leaves a cool $1,261,072 seven year surplus in the fund balance after June 30, 2014. Now lets look at the costs needed to address the highest priority issues facing the district according to the survey. Curriculum updates: $900.000;Safety and security: $300,000; Major Maintenance needs: $2,800,000;Technology upgrade: $1,520,000, for a grand total of $5,520,000.  Now subtract the amount put into the fund balance over the last seven years to come to a total expenditure need of  $4,258,928. Divide by four for the annual referendum needed each year for four years to see the total annual expenditure of $1,064,732, down from the annual expense of $1,380,000 before subtracting the fund surplus. Doing a simple ratio to calculate the new mill rate increase results in reducing that increase from $1.47 per thousand in property value to $1.13 per thousand (23% reduction), but still adding a hefty 9.2% to the mill rate for the next four years. At least it's gone into single digits. Looked at another way, using the fund balance surplus from the last four years would completely finance both the curriculum improvements (which garnered the highest priority on the survey) and address safety issues and still have a little left over, enough to hire a teacher ($61,072)! I warned you that my data crunching brain has begun to explore the possibilities for using the survey results.

And now for the downside of this proposal. Using up all the funds placed into the fund balance in the last seven years would reduce the percent in the fund balance to a paltry 7.7%, about what they had before they implemented a policy to grow the fund balance. This will make borrowing terms less attractive in a time when the ultimate goal of the district would be to keep building that value so they get good loan terms when they have to build a new middle school. I'm the first person to say this is a balancing act, but I'm not very optimistic that our town would vote for a referendum for all four of these items. Maybe the CAC doesn't intend to recommend all four, as Mr. Foster cautioned them to keep the questions to 3. The Gazette article was unclear about which specific items would be recommended to the board, so I included both safety and maintenance items. Maybe the 3 highest priorities and excluding the $2.8 Million dollar maintenance issues, which in reality came in at only 49% yes votes and 31% "Need more info/undecided." That would reduce the annual levy increase to only $680,000, bumping the baseline mill rate by a much more palatable 6%, or 75 cents per thousand in property value. That could be where the average citizen would call a compromise: Keep the money in the fund balance to borrow against at a later date and take a smaller hit for four years to get us through to 2020.

What would this mean to the owner of a $150,000 home? You'd pay an additional $112.08 a year in property taxes on top of the $1,845 you currently pay to support the schools (the bill is a lot higher but due to other taxing entities). That's an additional $2.16 a week to support our schools. How many of us spend that much on coffee alone? I'm willing to cough that much up for our schools.

Granted, I have two kids in the district (as well as one graduate). Based on our property values, our "tuition" for each kid will become $1305, or $145 a month per kid for 9 months of school. That doesn't include all the fees and such, but it's a way to look at it. But 49% of the survey respondents were not parents. Some of these folks get a bit testy about supporting schools when they get no direct benefit, in their minds. That's not true, of course, but many think this way.

Finally, what did the survey say about 4K? As Mr. Foster said, "This is a lightening rod topic." He even complimented the 4K committee for their work (I'm blushing). Every way the data was evaluated showed that a majority of Evansville supporting the district offering 4K, even Non-Parent, Non-Staff residents. Overall, 56% of respondents support offering 4K. That is a real Community value change that has occurred in the last six years or so. Going to referendum on the above items will enable the board to temporarily use fund balance to implement 4K, with the goal of replacing the funds with 4K revenue once it exceeds expenses in year 3. That depends on the district getting serious about stemming the flow of open enrollment students out of our district by getting back to being the cutting edge district it used to be. Otherwise, they'll be back with hat in hand in 4 more years because the downward spiral has continued. I'm pretty sure these are the scenarios that will develop over the next months. I am happily surprised about how useful the survey results may become over time, as long a myopic folks don't use it as a cudgel.