RAS, Minnesota and facing reality
I will be going into detail regarding this one during the next few weeks, however here is a summary.
- Board members dislike making students, parents and citizens unhappy. It is the best and worst part about truly caring and sensitive people. Not to mention it being an election year for board members. (ie live up to promises)
- The referendum was adequate assuming MN funding kept pace with inflation, which it will not. (ie 0% increase for 2 yrs) Impact at 3%/yr is ~$3.7 mil/yr of lost funding...
- So here is the choice, keep the promises even though the circumstances have changed drastically, or be fiscally responsible, cut early and delay the plea for another referendum?
- I thank heavens the referendum passed, their are people who actually want to be board members and that the school closures were acted on.
- More later
I truly hope RAS can secure funding for the combined elementary school. It would greatly help those communities to draw more students/families. Also, Northport and Lakeview have probably outlived their useful lives. (ie too old and too small)
Now for my venting... The "MEGA ELEMENTARY" was termed "TERRIBLE" during the facility discussions... Yet they will build one.... RAS alienated a good portion of the SW RAS families by closing 2 solid elementary schools, which is motivating more families to "escape". (equity or separation...)
I still think the RSI, Northport and Lakeview at RALC, and Sandberg as the second middle school made a lot more sense. I truly hope the NE communities appreciate the risk the district is taking to support them, and come forth with whatever land and funding is needed to make this work. If not, it is likely the district is going to face big financial trouble soon. (ie fewer students, less funding, decimated referendum support, etc)
Thoughts welcome as always ...
14 comments:
I don't think the pro referendum campaign ever promised to keep schools open. I do think they said things that were slightly different, to the effect that failure to pass the referendum would force the district to close schools for budgetary reasons, and not for reasons that reflect long term planning for the district.
It will always be, and should always be the case, that the administration makes building decisions based on what it feels is best for all the kids, indeed for all the residents of the districts. They shouldn't be forced by the failure of the state to keep it's promise to adequately fund our schools, to make decisions contrary to what's best for our kids and our community.
Hi Jon,
I need a little more help here. What do you think we should do regarding the pending RAS financial crisis?
I am hearing, act like the funding is still there. Because we owe it to the kids. Sounds good to me, except reality tends to show up sooner or later.
"What do you think we should do regarding the pending RAS financial crisis?"
I generally try to avoid having opinions on substantive education policy issues. That's what school board members get paid the big bucks for. But here are at least some of my thoughts.
To begin with, I don't know that we fully understand where schools are going to be financially. The governor signed the education bill without line item vetoes, I believe, so it's a question of what the unallotments will be, if any, and I expect we will be hearing more on that during June. I hear there will be a significant shift, and that will cost schools real money in finance related costs, but that the funding will be otherwise level.
Beyond that I would just note generally that poverty is expensive, and it costs money to be broke. In an economic downturn, lots of costs are going to be dumped into the lap of the schools. Even if the schools are held harmless from the unallotments, it's pretty certain that the schools will be picking up the tab for some of those lost revenues. Cuts in the health and human service budgets will also end up negatively affecting the education budgets.
Maybe I should emphasize that my comments on unallotments are based on what I hear, but that it's also true that the the governor does not confide in either me or those of my ilk.
At best state funding stays flat in real dollars for the next 2 years.
Or funding stays flat and the state delays payments to the districts.(ie shifts) Requiring districts to pay for operating loans, or lose a little interest income. (ie thankfully RAS is in the 2nd category)
Worst case Governor unallocates some school funding. (ie funding decreases)
Back to the question, do we delay cuts? Knowing that the RAS income stream is fixed, or more likely decreasing for the next 2 years. (ie fewer kids) Unless we think personnel and other operating costs are going to drop. (ie salaries, healthcare benefits, fuel, etc)
I think there will be cuts. It's a question of when and what form they will take. Basically, the current system of financing our schools has a whole in it, for which short term revenue measures like referendums are only a short to middle term fix. The district also has issues on the capital budget side with aging buildings which require a separate solution.
What I do say generally is that schools are in the business of teaching kid and others. The dividend they pay is an educated population. They must be fiscally responsible, but they are not there to turn a profit.
In regards to the first article, I emailed the school board/administration last week, sharing with them my view that any teaching positions that have been held back (until enrollment numbers are firmed up)should not be filled. I think hiring teachers that almost certainly will be laid off next year is wasteful and irresponsible. There is numerous costs associated with new hires that could be avoided this way, as well as a lot of disruption. Also, I think most people would prefer to have a more modest reduction in class size this year, with consistency into next year, rather than a large drop in class size this year, only to have to return to the terrible class sizes experienced this year.
Stan Mack said they want to "keep their promises" but when a seven year referendum is only going to get one year of promised class sizes, those promises aren't going to be kept and need to be revised.
I don't think I would start cutting in the teacher/class size area, but I would start now with something...
My favorite cost reducers of course are eliminate free transportation for "choice programs", remove poor performing teachers and administrators, curriculum and district simplification (ie discontinue IB, reduce number of P4 offerings, etc.) Favorite revenue generators: charge a fee for RSI, lease sitting assets to charters/other asap, etc.
PrioritiesAny other goods rev gens or cost redns I am missing?
The referendums are at best a short term patch for a hole in the budget that keeps growing. And the reality is that the school district can't ever keep it's promises to residents unless the state keep it's promises to the schools. Whether those will be kept is unclear right now, but what is pretty likely is that at the very least the state will fudge on them a bit.
For a variety of not very good political reasons, this state has been unable to create a system of school financing that allows for anything other than short term planning. The upshot is that we pay more and get less.
John, I totally agree with you, though it has been indicated that class sizes will go up again after 2009/10. I would rather see them cut something else, but if they do foresee increasing class size, don't hire people this year with the idea of laying them off at the end of the year.
Some of them didn't want to do the partial art teacher hire, because they anticipate cutting them at the end of this year. I, of course, don't think they should be cutting the art teachers, but not everyone agrees with me.
And Jon, I do see your point, but 281 does need to essentially turn a profit if they want to get their fund balance back to where the board wants it.
I think we have to ask ourselves whether we should save for a rainy day that's already here. The kids in our classrooms need a quality education today, and if they don't get it, that just makes the issues all the more difficult and all the more expensive tomorrow.
The state is breaking their promises to us, and is now helpfully suggesting we break the promises we made based on those promsises, to ourselves and to our children. Instead of haplessly accepting this evasion of responsibility by the people we entrusted with political office, why don't we demand the very least that we have a right to expect, that they keep their word?
I think the RAS Leg Action Committee and many others tried to hold them accountable. Unfortunately it did not work and now we need to face the reality of the next 2 years...
Of course we may disagree, I believe we can offer a quality education without offering the programs that I label as "priority 4". To me these are hobbies that some special interest group lobbied for, and then they stuck...
How's the saying go? "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". They are good and unique programs and services that offer something interesting for a small group of kids. Unfortunately the public has spoken and we can not afford them.
Education-wise, I think the session came out ok, at least as things stand now. The senate DFL leadership was proposing a 7% cut in funding, but funding is flat in the final bill. Now with a funding shift schools will end up with less money, but it could have been a whole lot worse, it could still get a whole lot worse, depending on the governor's unallotments, and for other folks it will get a whole lot worse.
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