I’ve been engaging in an email conversation with Appleton Area School District Chief Financial Officer Greg Hartjes regarding the proposed referendum. He was kind enough to answer a number of questions. I briefly considered trying to organize them by subject matter but ultimately decided to just copy and paste them in order.
I did want to draw attention to the fact that the cost of the referendum for taxpayers has increased from $25 per $100,000 worth of property as originally estimated last year and presented to the Board of Education in September, to $30-$40 per $100,000 worth of property, this is due to adding on ideas that have been generated in the last 4 months and which were not a part of the original calculations. This $30-$40 would be on top of the $100 per $100,000 worth of property that taxpayers are currently paying on the 2014 referendum and which will not go away if this current referendum is passed.
Question: Enrollment has decreased quite a bit over the last couple years due to the pandemic. I understand the assumption is that it will start increasing if/when the pandemic ends, but if hypothetically it were not to increase would AASD still continue to have space and staffing issues?
Answer: Overall enrollment is not one of our concerns, but rather how our enrollments are changing at particular schools. We are seeing declining enrollments in some of our elementary schools in the central part of our district, and growth north of Highway 41. In addition, the needs of our students continue to increase, which requires additional staffing to meet the increasing needs. Over the past several years we have added Youth Advocates, Deans, Social Workers, Psychologists, Academic Interventionists, Refugee Liaisons, etc…and all of these staff members need spaces to work with students.
Along with the changing needs of our students, best practices around educational pedagogy call for classrooms that allow for innovation and collaboration. Our schools were built for an outdated educational model, and although it is not possible to renovate over 1,000 classrooms, we hope to create spaces in each of our schools that allow for innovation and collaboration. The majority of our schools are over 60 years old, so we simply want to modernize our schools to create spaces that better meet the needs of today’s students.
Question: In regards to city services and infrastructure, when new subdivisions are built and added to the city, the developers and/or homeowners are generally expected to pay the full cost of the initial installation of roads and sidewalks. Once they’ve paid the initial cost of essentially adding themselves to the city, then the maintenance of their infrastructure is paid for with tax dollars as in the rest of the city. Given that the people on the north side of town moved there knowing it was a new section of the city and that there were no schools there, would it be possible to have them foot either all the bill or a larger portion of the bill for a new school in their section of town?
Answer: This is an interesting idea, but I have not ever heard of a district having the authority to tax certain properties, so I am guessing that we do not have the authority.
Question: Regarding new building costs, given that the District’s problem is not too few buildings but, rather, the uneven distribution of buildings across the city could you reduce the cost of a new building by selling an old building in an area experiencing decreasing enrollment. That way you could eliminate the ongoing maintenance for one building and move the staff over to the new building rather than having to hire new staff for a new building.
Answer: We do intend to look at consolidating schools where appropriate, which would allow us to move staff to the new building. In addition, we currently lease several spaces for charter schools, and may want to move these charters into open spaces if practicable.
Question: I was also wondering how much you could reduce the amount of money you’re asking for if you opted to just focus on improvements that benefit academics and eliminated all of the proposed athletic improvements.
Answer: The proposed improvements to the high school physical education/athletic spaces are projected to cost $15 million. However, we view these spaces as more than athletic, as they are used for our physical education classes and community groups. In addition, they are the spaces in our schools that are used more than any other…by far. They are used from 6:00 AM to 9:00 PM on school days, most weekends, and throughout the summer. So, when compared to other spaces in our schools the return on investment in terms of usage if extremely high.
Question: You mentioned the need to update buildings that were built for “outdated” educational models, but AASD’s academic performance seems to have been decreasing for a number of years even prior to the pandemic which would suggest that these new techniques are not well serving students. Why not just go back to whatever the techniques were back when the district had higher scores instead of spending a lot of referendum money to facilitate new techniques that don’t seem to be improving scores?
Answer: Many of our classrooms were built for an educational model that included having 24 to 28 students sitting in desks in rows with a teacher in the front of the room. Other than courses that have a majority of lecture, this model was outdated long before the pandemic. We need spaces that allow for student collaboration and teacher innovation.
Question: You said that you do intend to look at consolidating schools where appropriate or moving charter schools that are currently in leased space into open school space. What is the timeframe for that and will doing it result in lower taxes?
Answer: Within the next five years. There are many factors that impact your property taxes, with the distribution of State equalization aid and the revenue limit calculation having the greatest impact. As a district, the consolidation will certainly make us more efficient.
Question: You talked about how the old lecture model of school was outdated and how AASD needs new spaces that allow for student collaboration and teacher innovation. If the taxpayers approve funding for that, how quickly can they expect to see student academic performance improve as a result? Academic performance has been declining for a number of years even prior to Covid. When can taxpayers expect to see ACT scores return to 2016/17 levels or the graduation rates get up to 90%?
Answer: We would certainly hope to see improvements in both areas within a few years, in addition to 3rd-grade reading scores.
Question: It has been mentioned multiple times that the district is seeking “equity” with this referendum by getting funding for projects in addition to a new school building. But what if you didn’t seek equity and instead only pursued a more limited referendum for a new school building and the operational costs associated with that? What would the impact on taxpayers be in that situation?
Answer: We would like to have every student in the district be positively impacted by the referendum, not just students that live in certain areas of our district. We will be sending out a community survey in spring that will explain the costs of each part of the potential referendum, so individuals can give feedback on which projects they support.
Question: Has the leadership team given any consideration to the equity needs of the taxpaying community? The last couple of years have been very rough on people and it looks like inflation is rapidly increasing and going to hit people very hard. Now AASD is asking them to not only forgo a potential tax cut but actually add on top of what they’re currently paying. Has the leadership team at all brainstormed ways to decrease the burden on taxpayers?
Answer: We are very cognizant of the tax burden, and have been very fiscally responsible during my 5 years in this position. In addition, we know that the tax burden in the State of Wisconsin is at a 50 year low when taken as a percentage of income. Over the past 50 years the average income in Wisconsin has increased faster than state and local taxes. You can find this information on the Wisconsin Public Policy Forum.
Question: I understand the district is only allowed 2 referendum questions per election. Have you considered putting the new school building question and the annual operating question on the November ballot and then following that up with 2 more questions related to the other projects on the April 2023 ballot? That seems like it would give voters a better voice when trying to decide the value of the various projects AASD is proposing.
Answer: We have given some thought to including 2 questions on a November 2022 ballot, and then following up with additional questions later. However, a district can only go to referendum one time in a calendar year, so if we place two questions on the November ballot we would have to wait until spring of 2024 for additional questions.
Question: Back in September, you had said that the referendums, if passed, would add approximately $25 per $100,000 worth of property, but at the last meeting the number you gave was $30-$40. Which is it, and what accounts for that increase?
Answer: The reason for the increase from $25 to between $30 and $40 is the desire to add staffing at the K – 2 level to reduce the average class size from 25 down to 20, and to add a STEM teacher at each elementary and middle school. These are ideas that have been generated over the past 4 months.
Question: Would it be possible to put an end date on the operational referendum so that is doesn’t continue in perpetuity, given that AASD is going to be consolidating schools in 5 years and it’s not certain that your enrollment numbers are ever going to return to what they were in the past?
Answer: If we are to go to referendum there will be two questions, of which one will be a recurring operating question. The recurring costs would be for the additional staffing mentioned above and the utilities, maintenance, and cleaning of the new spaces that are built. Unless we decide in the future to drop the STEM positions and go back to 25 students in grades K – 2 we will always need the referendum revenue.
Question: I don’t understand how AASD could, sometime in the next 5 years, consolidate elementary schools but yet not have its operating costs go down. You’d be eliminating the utility, maintenance, and cleaning costs for an entire building. I’m also assuming that if the referendum passes and you are able to build a new building that that new building would be more energy efficient and that your utility and maintenance costs would be lower than for an old and outdated building. How does switching out an old building with a new building not reduce costs?
Answer: The operating costs of our district are impacted by many factors, with the most significant being inflation. We will certainly see better efficiency in a newer school, and will save costs there, but it is difficult to predict if these savings will offset our annual inflationary increase. I am reluctant to make any promises about savings to taxpayers because I can’t guarantee in a year that our cost saving measures will cover our inflationary increases.
For example, this year we again saw an 8% increase in the cost of employee health insurance, which is a $2 million increase. Our employees take on more health insurance costs each year, but the district will cover $1 million of this increase. We contract with Jack’s Maintenance for the cleaning of our schools, and their costs went up 9% this year, which is a $355,000 increase. Other areas where operations are impacted by inflation are bussing, technology contracts, and maintenance contracts…these three areas together totaled $480,000 in an increase. So, although we are always looking for ways to save on our operating costs, inflation poses great challenges.
Question: I understand that AASD’s position is that the current drop in enrollment does not change its need for additional staff right now. But, is there any level to which enrollment could drop and AASD would not need more staff and more funding for staff? What is AASD’s threshold for not needing additional staff?
Answer: Our classroom staff are allocated based on an enrollment formula, so we did reduce classroom teachers this year by 20 positions, which was a savings of $1.6 million. Because we did not receive an increase in our State budget allocation this year we used the savings to cover the operational increases I described above.
Question: Finally, what kind of private fundraising efforts is AASD undertaking and how much money do you expect to raise from those?
Answer: Fundraising is generally done by the individual school to support their projects, and I would expect this to continue to occur.
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