Residents of the Monona Grove School District are hopefully by now beginning to fully understand the dire financial situation confronting our district. However, I think a quick recap is in order to ensure everyone fully comprehends the extent of the problem.
This is not a $1 million dollar budget hole that can be fixed this year with cuts including closing Maywood School. The district’s problems are much larger than that. Superintendent Gerlach has often referred to this as a $15 million dollar operating budget deficit and I know there are many questions of how he comes to that total. Quite simply, using a five year projection the total amounts to $15 million because the district needs to make $1 million in cuts each year in addition to the money cut in preceding years.
The multi-faceted state funding mechanism for public schools is not going to change anytime soon so revenue from that source will flatten off at best and more likely decrease in coming years. That leaves us with the option of either raising property taxes or cutting operational costs. It is apparent to anyone with a calculator that the district will need to go to a referendum to raise more property taxes and do so soon as it is simply unfeasible to make the total amount of needed cuts. The “plan” of the district is, prior to going to that referendum, to have some “blood in the streets” in their own words by undergoing significant cuts to programming and closing Maywood School. After this blood letting, they will then come to the citizens of the district within the next year or so and ask for permission to exceed the property tax levy limits.
Mr. Kahl is the Mayor of Monona.
Full Article:
http://heraldindependentonline.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=1564&SectionID=5&SubSectionID=127&S=1
This is not a $1 million dollar budget hole that can be fixed this year with cuts including closing Maywood School. The district’s problems are much larger than that. Superintendent Gerlach has often referred to this as a $15 million dollar operating budget deficit and I know there are many questions of how he comes to that total. Quite simply, using a five year projection the total amounts to $15 million because the district needs to make $1 million in cuts each year in addition to the money cut in preceding years.
The multi-faceted state funding mechanism for public schools is not going to change anytime soon so revenue from that source will flatten off at best and more likely decrease in coming years. That leaves us with the option of either raising property taxes or cutting operational costs. It is apparent to anyone with a calculator that the district will need to go to a referendum to raise more property taxes and do so soon as it is simply unfeasible to make the total amount of needed cuts. The “plan” of the district is, prior to going to that referendum, to have some “blood in the streets” in their own words by undergoing significant cuts to programming and closing Maywood School. After this blood letting, they will then come to the citizens of the district within the next year or so and ask for permission to exceed the property tax levy limits.
Mr. Kahl is the Mayor of Monona.
Full Article:
http://heraldindependentonline.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=1564&SectionID=5&SubSectionID=127&S=1
1 comment:
If you read the complete article, Mr. Kahl goes on to say "Monona pays 55 percent of the property taxes that fund our school district, the Village of Cottage Grove 27 percent, while the townships account for the balance of 18 percent."
The actual data from the district is:
Monona = 55%
Village of Cottage Grove = 28%
Town of Cottage Grove = 16%
Other = 1%
The Village & Town of Cottage Grove combined contribute 44% of the tax revenue to the district.
Furthermore, in 2009-10, local tax dollars made up 55% of district revenue. 39% of the revenue comes from the state of Wisconsin, which allocates funding based on student enrollment.
According to the district, in 2009-10 there were 1,337 students enrolled in grades K-5. The breakdown is:
Cottage Grove = 70%
Monona = 25%
Open Enrollment = 5%
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