|
|||||
 | |||||
|
Marketing and University Communication UW-Green Bay, CL 815 2420 Nicolet Drive Green Bay, WI 54311-7001 (920) 465-2626 E-mail: hildebrs@uwgb.edu Last update: 9/26/07 |
|
|
In
the News Archive - Year:
August 19, 2007 Budget implications dire, educators say Press-Gazette
In an unusual move, the top executives of the three major educational institutions — Chancellor Bruce Shepard of the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, President Jeffrey Rafn of Northeast Wisconsin Technical College and Superintendent Daniel Nerad of the Green Bay School District — asked to meet with the Green Bay Press-Gazette editorial board to present a united front about the direction of the budget discussion.
Each expressed concern about what they see as a long-term deterioration in state support for education.
Nerad said administrators prepared a tentative 2007-08 budget that cuts 24.5 teaching positions and 12.5 paraprofessionals to make up the $10 million difference between desired expenditures and state-mandated revenue caps — and the Assembly's version of the budget would add another $4 million gap.
"If state aid goes down, under revenue caps, property taxes will go up," Nerad said.
The three school chiefs "can't allow the education system to be used as part of the bartering chips" without saying something about what lawmakers are putting at risk, Rafn said.
"In a way it's a policy decision," he said. "I suppose you could decide, 'We don't have to be quite as good as we are, we could be less,' but what value is added by doing that, other than maybe today we save a few pennies?"
Excerpts from the hourlong meeting with Press-Gazette editors and reporters:
Daniel Nerad: Superintendent, Green Bay School District
When the revenue caps went in, we were spending $200 less per kid than the state average — and it's held there. At the same time we've gotten a significantly higher percentage of poor children, children with English language needs, kids with disabilities. Those high-cost services must be met, as a legal and an ethical obligation, but that's part of the problem when you just follow the formula over time and you don't ask the questions about investments in education.
Is the formula working for taxation? I believe it is, and you can chart where the tax rate has been decreasing every year and we're looking at a very minimal levy increase if the (local) budget remains in its current form for next year. But we're trying to balance the needs of kids with the needs of taxpayers, and my worry right now, based on the data we have regarding the needs of kids, is that the balance has swung. I'm not saying that we look positively on adding taxes, but we are not meeting the needs of kids ... Green Bay has been conservative with its budgeting for many years, and we've kind of been penalized for many years for that ...
It's striking to me that at best there are budget discussions at the state level. I do not see the type of social policy discussions the three institutions here have had, involving many of our staff members, about how do we create this right kind of pipeline; how we ensure that when we send students to these two institutions of higher learning, they're not having to go through remediation; what happens if our kids don't meet the standard, what kind of systems should support them? The silence is deafening in terms of that kind of conversation. At best we're dealing with these as fiscal matters; at worst, they're delayed fiscal matters that need to be resolved.
Jeffrey Rafn: President, Northeast Wisconsin Technical College
My cost per student is lower than it was in 2000, when you factor in inflation — so we haven't been growing even at an inflationary rate. The concern the three of us have is: Where is our commitment to education? How can we not make that kind of investment? If the assumption is that we have fat in our budgets, that to me is just a red herring. It's easy to say, "You've got a lot of fat in your budget, there must be someplace you can cut," and the reality is I will do my darnedest to protect the students, no matter what decisions are made by the Legislature, so in some ways I end up in a position where people say, "See? You proved my point — you still exist."
But I can tell you this: When we don't have those budgets, are we preparing for the next economy, and renewable and sustainable energy that's going to be part of that economy? Are we looking at expanding programs in geriatrics to take care of those people who are going to be retiring? Are we going to be looking at some of the entrepreneurial efforts that are going on in the professional arts community?
Those are the things that end up suffering, and we don't end up helping this region transition into what it's going to be over the next 10-15 years ...
I will talk to legislators and they'll say, "Well, you know, this is all just part of the process, don't worry." Here's what NWTC faces: The Senate version provided no increases in state funding, the Assembly version provided significant decreases in state funding. Now, if there's a compromise, it seems to me the compromise between zero and negative is still negative.
Bruce Shepard: Chancellor, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
The university's Growth Agenda has political legs. I thought we had a 50-50 chance of getting in the governor's budget; it's in the governor's budget. He said, "It's because of all those people I heard from in Northeast Wisconsin, and keep 'em calling." It was in the Joint Finance budget, it was in the Senate budget — it is in the Assembly budget. It is — somewhat scaled back, but the dollars are there. People do get that message. The problem with the Assembly budget is they add — it's a three-biennium proposal to grow UWGB to accommodate more students — so they appropriate the $1 million there, but they cut us by $3 million. The line I use is if these folks are running a dairy herd and wanted to grow that herd, they'd give us more calves but you'd only have half the feed budget you had ... It's a fundamental difference in two philosophies, both of which are intellectually defensible. One is you grow the state by cutting the size of government. If you look at the size of government, we're at the middle of the pack — we choose not to collect much in user fees, but state and local expenditures, we're in the middle of the pack.
We're not tax hell, and why we keep saying that and making other people think we are, I don't know; that just shoots ourselves in the foot. I think what we're trying to say is a somewhat different view: We're on a pell-mell rush to join the bottom of the pack and the Mississippis of this country in terms of our average family income and things like that. The way we turn it around, as a number of states have demonstrated, is by investing instead of divesting.
| |
