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Here's a copy of a letter I recently sent both
papers.
Sharon
Two weeks ago the School Board
unanimously approved a plan to deal with excess capacity in school
buildings. Depending on the outcome you wanted, you are either pleased or
not. I would ask you to look beyond our budget quibbling at the
local level, and for a moment, consider the bigger picture.
While school officials debate
how to save nickels by comparing the cost of educating kids in this building or
that building, millions of budget-breaking dollars gush out of WAPS every
year. It is certainly true that we have been locally responsible
with our budget - WAPS has an ultra-conservative average of only 1%
annual increase in spending over the past five years. Our employees took
salary freezes, and local citizens passed a referendum. Yet, we are always
in a financial crunch. What is going on? Why can't we ever seem to
catch up?
Across Minnesota, school
districts are forced to be responsible for some State and Federal
failures. I'll give you only two examples of many. If we
called the Federal legislators what we call dads who renege on
child-support, we'd call them "deadbeat
Feds." In the 1970's, the Feds passed laws mandating educational
standards for students with disabilities. That was a good thing.
They promised to pay 40% of the Special Education costs. That also was a
good thing. But, they have never kept their promise. That is
not only bad, it is devastating. By law, WAPS pays about $1.3
million every year to cover the Federal Government's share of
expenses. We lose the local ability to spend those millions on different
things. Basically, we are stuck with the Fed's bill, and since no one here
likes running a budget in the red, we cut our own local teachers, programs and
services to pay for the Fed's end. Is that fair?
Another funding
problem comes from our State legislators. Transportation funding
is inequitable. Every school district gets about the same dollars per
student for bussing. What legislators fail to acknowledge is that rural
districts like Winona have a lot of ground to cover to bring their kids to
school compared to big city districts. WAPS busses students from Minneiska
to Dakota, covering over 260 square miles of valleys, bluffs and niches.
Metro districts drive around densely-populated neighborhoods to pick up their
kids, but they get the same dollars per student whether they travel 20
blocks or 20 miles. That means WAPS loses about $600,000 out of our
own pocket every year covering the State's transportation inequity. We
could be spending those hundreds of thousands in a better way.
Again, we want to have a responsible-looking bottom line, so we cut and hack our
way through our own Winona programs, buildings and personnel to cover the
State's end. Is that right?
These are only two examples of
how much more stable our local school districts would be if the State and
Federal Government would step up to their promises and responsibilities. I
am very comfortable in making tough decisions required at a local
level when it is a local issue, but I chafe at balancing the
budget on the backs of children when the financial drain originates
at State and Federal level. Winona kids lose out on over $2
million of opportunties every year! Leaders higher up the food chain
than me must accept their responsibilities, make their own "tough
decisions," and stop expecting local taxpayers to fill the gaps with
referendum dollars and chopped up school districts. Fortunately, U.S.
Senator Paul Wellstone is persistently banging the drums out in Washington for
the Feds to pony up. We'll see if they do.
You can understand by
looking at the bigger picture of Minnesota's education funding that local
efforts to contain costs and be financially responsible, no matter how vigilant,
are inevitably doomed. Unless something major changes. I
believe it can and will. But major changes must occur at the State
and Federal level, so that Minnesota public schools are not set up for
failure.
Local communities should not continue to suck up the budgetary
inadequacies and inequities dumped on us by higher-ups. Enough is
enough. |
