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Stopping the School Finance Dominoes from Falling

The financial fretting that has enveloped Gibraltar in recent years has not been limited to its district walls. In an area as geographically isolated as Door County, the ramifications of public policy and financial constraint on one school act as the finger pushing the dominoes against each other down the slope of the peninsula.

Door County is getting older, rapidly. The lack of a year-round employment base, the high cost of property, the inconvenience of isolation have all led to a rapid decline in the number of young adults moving to Door County and starting families. The economic factors now outweigh the safety, beauty and ease of Door County living when people choose their home.

A recent Door County workforce profile shows that the median age of Door County residents is nearly 43, eight years above the national average. In the northern part of the county, where Sister Bay ranks as the oldest village in the state, it’s even greater. For our public schools, this translates into a rapid drop in enrollment, which in turn leads to drastic cuts in funds or offerings.

Gibraltar enrollment has been dropping by 10-15 students per year since 1998, and expects to fall by an additional 80 students by the end of the decade.

The state instituted revenue limits in 1993, and since Gibraltar’s enrollment began to decline, the district has made the choice to seek a referendum every two years to maintain the school as near to its 1998 levels as possible.

The drop in students, and the accompanying obstacles this has brought, has pushed Gibraltar into discussions with nearby Sevastopol about consolidating the schools. While Gibraltar seems to be the domino that fell on Sevastopol, Joe McMahon, Sevastopol’s superintendent, says that is not entirely accurate.

Sevastopol has seen a swift decline in enrollment as well, which prompted McMahon to approach Gibraltar and Sturgeon Bay about the possibility of combing resources.

“I brought it up a few years ago with them because of our desire and need to look at all options to provide the best education.”

The two northern schools have been in discussions ever since, and recently Sturgeon Bay has taken a seat at the table as well as the districts broaden the scope of the examination.

Sevastopol has taken on the situation differently than Gibraltar. In 1993, Gibraltar’s classes were split into three sections, Sevastopol’s only two. Gibraltar maintained a three-section school in accordance with the school board’s policies regarding class size. For Sevastopol, already having just two sections meant larger classes but huge savings on staffing costs.

“Our class sizes were the largest in the county at one point,” McMahon said, “but we saved the cost of say, an entry-level teacher at $50,000 with salary and benefits.”

A major area that distinguishes the budgets of the two schools is Special Education. Gibraltar must allocate about $200,000 more each year to make up the cost of under-funded state mandates for the care and education of students with special needs. This is simply because Gibraltar has more of these students, and the state only provides two thirds of the funding for the mandates.

Both schools know that some form of consolidation is inevitable under present conditions. Whether this means sharing teachers and resources or building a new, centralized school is yet to be decided. “There are many positive possibilities in consolidation,” McMahon said, “We just have to figure out how we share staff and students and provide the best education and opportunities.”

The schools have seen little progress in reforming the funding mechanisms for public education, and what has been done doesn’t bode well for the two districts.

State representative Garey Bies recently introduced legislation to eliminate the QEO, or qualified economic offer, which guarantees salary increases of 3.8% for teachers when an agreement cannot be reached with the school district.

School administrators say this would have a tremendously adverse affect on budgets which have to fit into the revenue limit system, and would create an even more untenable situation if TABOR (a proposed amendment that would place more widespread caps on government spending, which Bies also supports), is instituted.

The money for increased teacher’s salaries under the present system would have to come from academics or via further referendums, a prospect administrators do not relish.

“We don’t go out and try to spend a lot of money,” McMahon said. “Schools are not where you see waste, so why restrict us further?”

Bies said his proposals were simply attempts at getting people to work on the problem and find a better solution. “My bill is more about changing arbitration procedures and giving teachers the right to negotiate like any other profession.” He said the revenue limit system is not working. “It’s beyond the tweaking stage. There is a crisis.”

Crisis is an apt description, and many schools, such as those in the Milwaukee Public School system, would argue that this has been the case for years. A crisis demands swift, comprehensive action, but the Governor’s office and state representatives have not responded in kind. The federal response has been to hand down more under-funded program mandates. Door County and its taxpayers will have no choice but to face it, however.

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