The
2019-20 School Budget
SPENDING
ISSUES CONFRONT THE NEW SCHOOL BOARD AND NEW ADMINISTRATOR
“We must
consult our means rather than our wishes,” said George Washington in discussing
the budgetary process more than 200 years ago.
But over
the past decade the Mercer School District has given little regard to the
“means’ of taxpayers and instead the budgetary process focused solely on the
“wishes” of an inane administration and a compliant school board. As a result, the education of the children suffered,
and thousands of taxpayer dollars were wasted.
That can
change with the new school board president, four of five new board members and
a new administrator. By now they should have
completed the 2019-20 school year budgeting process which should focus on wise
and honest spending in order to provide a sadly needed better education for the
children.
In the
past the wasting of taxpayer dollars has included paying the former
administrator far in excess of what his contract allowed, paying the salaries
for two business managers, and unexplained credit card purchases.
Much of
the wasted funds – usually over $200,000 per year in Community Services Fund 80
spending -- has gone toward building a patronage system and buying the loyalty
and silence of select school staff members.
By providing free meals and other perks to beneficiaries of the
patronage system, they could be relied upon to blindly support the
administration and school board when ordered to do so.
Poor
management of school tax dollars also resulted in a costly $125,000 settlement with
the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction for the misuse of Fund 80. (An additional $37,000 was spent in legal
fees.) And about $100,000 was paid to a
law firm for questionable services much of which were never authorized by the
school board.
Despite
this very high level of spending Mercer ranks in
the very last place of the state’s school districts by the DPI with its annual
School Report Card scores. It has also been well below the state and
national averages with its ACT composite scores.
While
Mercer ranks among the highest of the state’s 422 school districts in the cost
for educating each child, it ranks near the very bottom of the list in academic
results. It cost $20,146 a
year to educate each Mercer student, compared with a state average of $12,942
and national average of $10,667. The average annual all-inclusive cost for
educating a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is $22,082.
These are
just some of the taxpayer dollars misspent which the new school board and
administrator should focus on in preparing the 2019-20
budget. When the budget is presented, we
will know if they addressed these issues.
THE
MERCER SCHOOL FACTS MISSION
Its
purpose is to report news and information – facts – about Mercer School Board
and Administration issues and overall school academic performance. It is
intended to keep Mercer citizens aware of the management and inner workings of
the school. It is not a school newspaper; therefore, it will not report
school sports events or individual student or teacher
activities/accomplishments. MSF pledges that all news reports will be
thoroughly researched and supported by school, state and Wisconsin Department of
Public Instruction documentation.
