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School Board members warm to Nov. referendum

But they acknowledge it could be a tough sell to voters

Tamira Madsen  —  8/20/2008 5:32 am

The referendum proposal Superintendent Dan Nerad has put forward for the Madison Metropolitan School District is getting strong reviews from School Board members and could get a unanimous endorsement from the seven-member board next week.

But whether that will translate into success on Election Day is another matter.

The district will be asking taxpayers for more money in a harsh economic climate, and the money won't be tied to a building a school. On the other hand, unanimous support from the board is a common recipe for success, and at least one board member is already saying that Nerad has gone to pains to ease the burden on taxpayers.

Nerad's proposal, announced Monday, asks voters to exceed the district's limits on property taxes by $5 million during the 2009-10 school year, $4 million for 2010-11 and $4 million for 2011-12. The board will vote Aug. 25 on whether to proceed with the referendum, which would be on the ballot on Election Day, Nov. 4.

With a recurring referendum like this one, the authority granted by the community continues permanently, and since the implementation of revenue caps in 1993, only 33 percent of recurring referendums have passed statewide. The Madison district's own track record shows similar difficulty.

In 2006, 69 percent of voters approved three questions, but none of them was structured like this. That referendum called for building a new elementary school, Paul J. Olson Elementary School on Madison's far west side, shifting the cost of an addition at Leopold Elementary School from the operating budget to borrowed cash and refinancing existing debt at a more favorable rate.

In 2005, voters rejected two out of three referendum items. They approved $26.2 million for maintenance and technology initiatives but turned down a $7.4 million annual increase in operating revenue and $14.5 million for a second elementary school on the Leopold Elementary School grounds.

School Board President Arlene Silveira and member Beth Moss said people usually are more inclined to favor building a school rather than raising money for an operating referendum.

"A building is something tangible that people can see, think about and picture in their minds," Moss said. "That's a little bit of an easier sell."

But Silveira also said the 2005 referendum campaign suffered because the School Board itself was divided on it, "and it was a pretty split community speaking out on both sides in favor and being opposed.

"We are on the same page now. We're really changing our focus to one of really spending more time on student achievement."

For board member Lucy Mathiak, a key difference between Nerad's proposal and past ones are the measures he has taken to cut costs already.

The need for the referendum, district officials say, stems from an $8.1 million difference between what it would cost to maintain current programs and what the district is allowed to tax for the 2009-10 school year. Officials project additional gaps of $4.4 million for 2010-11 and $4.3 million for 2011-12.

The initial projection for 2009-10 was $9.2 million, but Nerad and Erik Kass, the district's assistant superintendent of business services, trimmed $1.1 million from that. For the referendum, they've also drawn up a recommendation for accounting initiatives that would soften the impact on taxpayers.

One part of the initiative would return $2 million to taxpayers from the Community Services Fund, which is used for after-school programs. The second part of the initiative would spread the costs of facility maintenance projects over a longer period.

In the first year, the referendum would add an additional $27.50 to the tax bill of a home assessed at $250,000, but district officials say the accounting initiatives would decrease taxes for homeowners in the second and third year of the referendum.

Mathiak said she was impressed with the attention to detail and options presented in Nerad's recommendations.

"This is a very important transitional moment and I hope that the community gets the change in conversation that's happened here because it's really a historic moment in how we've looked at referendums in this district," Mathiak said of the accounting initiatives.

Furthermore, Nerad is seeking a "partnership" with the community in order to deal with the $8.1 gap in the 2009-10 budget. Although the referendum seeks $5 million in the first year from taxpayers, that still leaves $3.1 million for the district to handle. Nerad said they would do it by shifting $2 million from the district's general fund to prevent program cuts, save $600,000 by decreasing the number of unallocated staff positions at the elementary level and reducing $400,000 through a variety of budget cuts across the district.

Observers outside the school district's Doyle Administration Building offered different takes on a referendum's chances.

John Matthews, executive director of Madison Teachers Inc., the teachers union, said he is optimistic the community would pass it.

Unlike spring elections, he said, which often draw "bullet," or single-issue, voters to the polls who vote against anything that will raise their taxes, this referendum would be on same ballot as the presidential, congressional and legislative races.

"This is a good time (for a referendum) because you've got a lot of people with good consciences going to the polls and not bullet voters who you get in a spring referendum," Matthews said. "That's the advantage that I see.

"When we have an election in the fall of the year with the numbers of people who are interested in voting for president, you have people who have a conscience toward schools."

Matthews, who's been with MTI for 40 years, said the state's revenue controls on school districts have forced budget cuts that have "ripped the heart out of all local school boards" in their efforts to operate in a way a community's citizens want and expect. The caps force school districts to levy only up to certain limits depending on the number of students they have. Exceeding that amount requires a referendum.

While a handful of pro-referendum groups are gearing up to get the word out about a November referendum in Madison, it isn't clear yet if any opposing groups will surface.

Don Severson, a school district watchdog who attends every board meeting, said the district will have a difficult time passing a referendum, but he didn't rule it out.

Severson said going forward, the district must be transparent with the community, and provide evaluations of current programs and either expand good programs or eliminate those that aren't getting results.

"I wouldn't put much money on the table to say that it would pass," Severson said of a referendum. "I think they have an awful lot of work to do in order to communicate to the public with reliable, valid data that shows what the need is. They've got a huge hill to climb, in my opinion, in terms of gaining trust and respect of the community because that has eroded enormously."

Part of that erosion came from the contentious nature of previous school boards, Severson said, but he added that the group's tone has improved of late, and that the addition of members Marj Passman and Ed Hughes in April is a plus. If members are united about a referendum, that bodes well for passage, he said. "I do think they are making progress, and I've been encouraged that they're focused on improving achievement of students and better fiscal responsibility of things."

What happens if voters don't pass the referendum?

In Monday's announcement, Nerad outlined potential program and service cuts to trim $8 million from the budget in 2009-10. They include increasing class sizes at elementary and high schools, cutting services for at-risk students, decreasing high school support staff, reducing special education staffing and eliminating some maintenance projects.

The last time the board made large program cuts, Moss said she couldn't sleep for several months.

"It was terrible," she said of the budget two years ago. It was before she was a board member, but Moss was working as co-chair of a pro-referendum group called Community and Schools Together. "I just felt personally horrible about that budget, and that was not even $8.2 million."

School budget cuts have taken a personal toll on Moss' family, she said. Her 15-year-old son, Garner, has autism and will begin his freshman year at Memorial High School in September. He has received special education services in the past at Stephens Elementary and Jefferson Middle School. Moss said cross-categorical teachers struggle to deal with a large special education case load, adding that when teachers are pulled in different directions, it makes it hard for children to learn.

The district has built a strong reputation with educating special needs children, but Moss said further cuts will have a detrimental impact going forward.

"There's a big burnout rate amongst the special education teachers," Moss said. "I know a lot who have gone back to school to get their regular education certification because they say the paperwork and the pressure, it's just too much. And we don't want to lose those teachers who have been in our system, and understand how the Madison system works and how successful it's been."

If voters don't approve the referendum, Moss said she can't even begin to imagine the task the board will face.

"I can't imagine in my wildest dreams that Dan and Erik are going to come up with $8.2 million in cuts that aren't going to be devastating," she said. "I mean, literally devastating."

Tamira Madsen  —  8/20/2008 5:32 am