January 6, 2016 at 4:44 p.m.
Administrators press case for passing referendum
Vote set for Feb. 16
Administrators press case for passing referendum
District officials held the latest in a series of public informational meetings about the upcoming referendum Monday evening at the RHS library and pressed the need for local voters to approve the $15 million initiative.
The district wants authorization to exceed the revenue cap limit by $5 million a year for the next three years.
School District of Rhinelander Superintendent Kelli Jacobi said the new referendum would replace the $4 million-per-year measure approved by voters three years ago.
That referendum expires in June.
"I keep getting questions like 'why are we doing this again?' and that's one that is really easy," she said. "The state funding formula doesn't work for Rhinelander. We've worked hard, over the last couple years, to get some momentum to get that changed, but we haven't been successful. Our state aid continues to decline every year, and it will until it hits zero, as it stands now."
Because state aid continues to dwindle, the district has little choice but to ask local taxpayers to pick up the difference, Jacobi said.
"That is the only option that is available to us to bring up the amount of money that we need," she said, adding that the last referendum for $4 million a year was an average of what was needed for the three years it covered.
"We needed $3 million the first year, $4 the second year and we needed $5 for this year," Jacobi said. "So the average that we asked our taxpayers for was that $4 million. That extra million for year one was put in reserve to cover that extra million we knew we would need this year."
Additional funds will be needed for the next three years because state aid continues to decrease, she said.
"It has to be made up somehow or cuts, drawdowns, have to be (made)," she added. "Those are the only options. We've done drawdowns for over a decade to get to where we are right now, which is a pretty lean machine."
At some point, entire programs and class offerings will have to be cut in order to realize the staff cuts that will have to be made to make up the shortfall, she noted.
"If we continue making huge cuts it's going to be cuts to programming and staff which is going to mean large class sizes," she said. "These will be cuts to programming that I wouldn't want for my children."
Director of Business Services Marta Kwiatkowski said a large portion of the $11.5 million in budget cuts that the school board has made over the last 10 years included staff reductions. The teaching staff was slashed by 13 percent, support staff by 47 percent and administration by 38 percent, she said. The number of full-time equivalent (FTE) positions eliminated was over 150, she added.
In response to a question from the audience, Kwiatkowski said there are now 13 FTE positions in district administration.
After Kwiatkowski went through a Powerpoint presentation explaining the referendum, Jacobi answered a few questions regarding some of the information presented. On the subject of students enrolling in other districts if SDR has to make cuts because the referendum fails to pass, she said more students currently enroll out rather than opt to come in. She said a conservative estimate of how many students could enroll out of the district, if dramatic cuts are necessary, could total 200 students.
If that many students leave the district, it would cause an additional loss of $3 million in state aid, she added.
Jacobi said another factor making open enrollment a bigger problem is that parents may now open enroll their children out of the district "pretty much all year" rather than February and early March for the following school year.
"We're working with our programming, especially that virtual programming, to try and bring some of those (open enrolled out students) back," Jacobi said.
Jacobi told the audience school officials recently made a presentation about the referendum to State Senator Tom Tiffany (R-Hazelhurst) and State Representative Rob Swearingen (R-Rhinelander). She said the two legislators didn't commit to helping with a push to get the referendum approved, although Swearingen did include a link to the district's referendum information in his most recent newsletter to constituents.
Rhinelander High School Principal David Ditzler then addressed the audience about eight potential changes that a failed referendum might bring to his school, if severe cuts have to be made.
At the top of the list is that RHS may have to house grades 8-12 or possibly 7-12.
The district may also:
• Reduce or eliminate elective courses or programs in foreign languages, arts, music, technology, engineering, business and family consumer sciences.
• Reduce or eliminate Advance Placement course offerings.
• Reduce or eliminate online or virtual course offerings.
• Reduce or eliminate curricular electives and consolidate core programs to just meet state requirements.
• Reduce number of class periods in school day from 7 to 6.
• Reduce graduation requirements due to reduction in class periods.
• Reduce or eliminate all clubs and sports.
"These are all cuts that I would not like to recommend," Ditzler said. "None of these are good for kids."
If more grade levels are added at the high school, administrators would have to "maximize every square inch of this building" which would most likely lead to the reduction of some class offerings, he added.
Jacobi said the only way the legislature could lessen the financial bite on local taxpayers is to fix the funding formula, or at the very least equalize the revenue limit for district's statewide from what was established in 1992. She said this one fix would be relatively easy to do, but there doesn't seem to be the will in Madison to do it.
More information on the referendum can be found at the district's website at http://www.rhinelander.k12.wi.us/district/referendum.cfm.
Jamie Taylor may be reached at [email protected].
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