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Holmen school principals will retain control of how they allocate their budgets, at least for the time being.
That action, or rather lack of action, came from a recommendation by the school district’s Finance Committee to the full board Monday.
After weighing the pros and cons of switching to a system whereby district administration would allocate funding to individual programs — rather than the current practice where those decisions are made by the building principals themselves — the Finance Committee agreed with what district administration has been saying all along: the status quo works best.
The discussion has come about recently when some board members began searching for ways to fix the flat-lining of funds for an ever-growing number of co-curricular activities at the middle and high schools.
Finance Committee member Tim Medinger presented the board with the results of the Finance Committee’s pros-and-cons study. It found that over the 10-year period from 1998-99 to 2008-09, the district’s spending on co-curriculars as a percentage of total budgeted expenditures decreased from 1.85 percent to 1.46 percent.
What the figures point to is that although district funding for co-curriculars has increased — from $365,221 in 1998-1999 to $547,725 in 2008-09 — it hasn’t kept pace with the total expenditures or with student growth.
“It does disappoint me,” Board President Cheryl Hancock said of the decrease.
On a building basis, the percentage of the total allocation to the middle school has actually increased slightly, but its spending per pupil decreased from $23.15 in 1998-1999 to $19.79 in 2008-09.
At the high school, the total co-curricular spending as a percentage of its allocation decreased and so did the per pupil spending, 17.83 percent to
16.54 percent of the allocation and $56.28 to $50.14 per student over the same 10-year period.
The Finance Committee and other committees were left to ponder a set of six board-issued questions regarding increasing revenue and possibly steering more funds to co-curriculars in advance of upcoming budget preparation deadlines.
While board members hashed out ways to get more funds to co-curriculars, after finding that having administration do it directly wasn’t a viable option, board members weighed the possibility of mandating that a certain percentage of the budget be given over to activities.
Gary Dunlap has been one of the loudest in calling for more activity funding. He asked whether the board could, for example, steer at least 2 percent of the total budget to co-curriculars.
“I know Jay (Clark) cringes whenever I say this,” Dunlap said.
Clark in the past has made, perhaps, the strongest argument for the site-based model of allocation, saying you can’t hold principals responsible for their buildings if you don’t allow them to spend their allocations at their own discretion.
Dunlap pointed out Monday that the board has only 5 percent of the total budget to directly allocate, the remaining 95 being spoken for by funded and unfunded state and federal mandates.
Although no concrete solutions for increasing funding for co-curriculars came out of the meeting, board member Elizabeth Kamprud suggested that if the district were to find ways to increase revenues —such as acting on recent talk of allowing advertising in the schools — those additional funds would eventually “trickle down” to co-curriculars.
It was mentioned earlier in the meeting that if new revenue streams were located, those funds could not be ear-marked for co-curricular programs. Allowing advertising was one of the six questions the committees were directed to ponder.
Food service job
Approving a new assistant supervisor food service position provided a rare moment of dissent among the board.
After the board motioned to approve the position, Kamprud sought to clarify that the position wouldn’t burden residents with additional taxes because food service is self-funding.
Board member Anita Jagodzinski thought more clarification was in order, pointing out that students and their parents — many of whom are indeed taxpayers — fund the program by purchasing meals.
Associate Administrator Clark confirmed that the largest revenue source in Food Service is through student meals.
The additional cost of the position with salary and benefits is $17, 528, or an additional $.0236 per meal served.
The position was created partially through attrition with the recent retirement Nutrition Services secretary Diane Scholze, and the funds are available in the food service budget, which has been operating in surplus for the past few years.
Clark and food service supervisor Michael Gasper have argued that with the addition of Sand Lake and Prairie View elementary schools, along with
the YMCA and
Senior Dining program, Gasper has been spread too thin and doesn’t make it to each of the districts meal sites with enough regularity.
Jagodzinski, who cast the lone dissenting vote, found hiring another supervisor in the district a hard pill to swallow. She said she hoped down the road that Food Service wouldn’t come back asking for a secretary to the position.
“I’m not really comfortable adding another administrator,” she said. “It doesn’t sit really well with me at this point.”
In other action, the board:
n Recognized six district instructors who recently received National Board Certification. They are: Teresa Ericksmoen, Jodi Hoscheit, Robin George, Jeri Stauffer, Dawn Tauscher and Lynne Wilson. District Administrator Dale Carlson noted that of a total 86 teachers in Wisconsin who got their board certification last year, six were from Holmen. That brings the total of Holmen teachers with National Board Certification to 12.
n Renewed the contract for the co-op girls swim team that the district has with Aquinas and Onalaska. Holmen would remain the lead school in the program and contract for the coach.
n Approved a federally mandated parent transportation agreement that will cost the district $1.76 per trip for days on which the special needs student is present in school. The maximum cost to the district will be $496.32.
n “Reluctantly” accepted the resignations/retirements of Instructional Services Director Sandy Richert (June 30), Sand Lake Principal Neal Janssen (June 30) and Human Resources Supervisor Nicole Thibodeau (Feb. 12). Richert and Janssen are retiring, and Thibodeau has accepted a position outside the district.
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