Operating a school district with a $36.5 million budget

Letter to the editor: 

I served on the Fort Atkinson School Board and, this past weekend, watched the April 6^th school board meeting on YouTube. Sadly, you could sense that a group of good people don’t have an answer for what to do next.  Lots of doom and gloom but few positive ideas on how to move forward.

Many community members suspect waste and inefficiency in the school district budget. Let’s prove that this is or is not the case.  Instead of going back to a top-down budget approach the school board should build a budget from the bottom up. What follows is an outline that, when worked out in detail, will give voters the information they are asking for.

Using rounded numbers — and no fund balance — the FASD (Fort Atkinson School District) budget next year will be $36.5 million instead of the hoped for $41.9 million (the difference being the $5.4 million deficit mentioned during the April 6^th meeting).  

From the bottom up: 

1. As explained on April 6^th, FASD needs approximately 20% of its original budget for expenses other than salaries and benefits.Twenty percent of $41.9 million is $8.4 million.  This will cover FASD busing, supplies, heat, AC, utilities, property insurance, etc. for the 2023–24 school year.

2. The remainder of the budget goes to salaries and benefits. So, $36.5 million, minus $8.4 million, equals $28.1 million for all salaries and benefits.

3. FASD students should benefit from small class sizes. With 2,250 students in the district, divided by 20 students per teacher, equals 113 teachers.  Don’t worry, more teachers are coming … please keep reading.

4. Students should benefit from empowered and well-compensated teachers. One hundred and thirteen teachers multiplied by $100,000 average salary per teacher equals $11.3 million. The $100,000 represents a salary and benefit increase for our teachers. At this point every Fort Atkinson student has gotten to school, is sitting in a fully functioning and climate-controlled classroom, has 19 classmates and has a well-compensated teacher standing in front of them.  A school district, however, is not perfectly efficient … it needs more.  Luckily, we still have $16.8 million in salary and benefits to spend.  Prioritize these funds as follows:

1. Begin by maintaining all sports and extracurriculars so that the school board cannot be accused of using scare tactics.

2.  Next, hire other legally mandated personnel but specify the law requiring the position and the risk involved if the community chooses not to meet the mandate.

3. Finally, hire additional specialist teachers (e.g. physical education, art, music etc.), support staff, administrators, and others. Here is where the school board can think outside the box and, perhaps, create a school district that works differently than the one we currently have. 

Once fully developed, our community can decide if our new $36.5 million budget works for us or not. Time to get started … no more doom and gloom … let’s work together to reinvent, reenergize, and improve Fort Atkinson’s schools.  Happy to assist if asked.

Edwin Bos

Fort Atkinson