{"id":9274,"date":"2024-02-29T21:06:30","date_gmt":"2024-02-29T22:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=9274"},"modified":"2024-02-29T22:59:11","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T22:59:11","slug":"former-mps-superintendent-critical-of-252-million-referendum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=9274","title":{"rendered":"Former MPS superintendent critical of $252 million referendum"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.badgerinstitute.org\/former-mps-superintendent-critical-of-252-million-referendum\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cAt some point, don\u2019t you have to say \u2018No\u2019?\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n

How in good conscience, former Milwaukee Public Schools superintendent Bill Andrekopoulos wonders, can the school district ask taxpayers for $252 million without considering closing a single school?<\/p>\n

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The district\u2019s School Support Referendum website<\/a> can tell you why district leaders say the money is needed and, generally, how and when the money would be used. The site also tells voters who are being asked on April 2 to support the referendum how much of a tax hit they will take, $367 on a home assessed at the $170,000 median price<\/a> of a home in Milwaukee.<\/p>\n

Everything in the pitch to taxpayers down to the penny is predicated on the status quo, as schools across the district are grossly under-enrolled and enrollment continues to sink, he says.<\/p>\n

Add to that the district\u2019s almost total lack of accounting for the $87 million referendum voters approved in 2020, with the final $3 million payout this year. Or the $772 million the district received from three COVID \u201cemergency\u201d bills, $506 million of that from the American Rescue Plan Act, which will allow the district to spend federal dollars through 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like they looked at it and said \u2018Let\u2019s just shoot for the moon\u2019 with this referendum, Andrekopoulos told the Badger Institute. \u201cAt some point, don\u2019t you have to say \u2019No\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n

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Andrekopoulos is almost 14 years and five states removed from having overseen the closing of 26 schools in eight years, something he considers to be the centerpiece of a 38-year career in teaching and administration with MPS that concluded in 2010.<\/p>\n

At 75 and living in Arizona, Andrekopoulos, one of the longest-serving superintendents in recent MPS history, says he stays current with the affairs of MPS through old district colleagues and daily news outlets.<\/p>\n

He acknowledges disappointment that his successors in the superintendent\u2019s office have lacked the energy and political will to continue what he calls \u201cright-sizing\u201d the district.<\/p>\n

Enrollment in schools under MPS\u2019 control has dropped to 58,522 in the 2022-23 school year, from a little more than 100,000 in the school year that ended in 1998.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t only the enrollment decrease at issue. The district doesn\u2019t often discuss the excess capacity of schools, Andrekopoulos says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ballot Language:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cShall the Milwaukee Public Schools, Milwaukee and Washington Counties, Wisconsin be authorized to exceed the revenue limit specified in Section 121.91, Wisconsin Statutes, by $140 million for the 2024-2025 school year; by an additional $51 million for the 2025-2026 school year; by an additional $47 million for the 2026-2027 school year; and by an additional $14 million (for a total of $252 million) for the 2027-2028 school year and thereafter, for the recurring purposes of sustaining educational programming, including offering career and technical education programs, attracting and retaining certified educators, and further improving art, music, physical education and language programs?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Milwaukee Public Schools operated 136 school buildings in 2023, according to figures from City Forward Collective, up from 132 in 2015. Many of those schools are operating at less than 70% capacity, according to a report<\/a> MPS was required in August to submit to the Legislature\u2019s Joint Committee on Finance.<\/p>\n

At least 14 schools are at less than half capacity, according to the building inventory report cited by CBS 58. Madison High School has a capacity of 1,629 and an enrollment last year of 762, according to the report. North Division can hold 819 and enrolled 489 a year ago. Morse Middle School\u2019s capacity is 1,012 but served 491 last year. GreenTree Preparatory Academy has room for 860 students and had an enrollment last year of 355.<\/p>\n

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In a recent interview<\/a> with the local TV station, current Superintendent Keith Posley said the district has not completed a new master facilities plan but suggested that even if the district were to right-size, the savings would be paltry compared to the $252 million in the referendum.<\/p>\n

He also suggested that closing schools is complex because students from all over the city commute to some of the schools with low enrollment on the North Side.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost districts can just say, \u201cHey, we\u2019re gonna right-size because everyone in this area goes to this school.\u2019 That ain\u2019t the case in Milwaukee,\u201d Posley said in the interview. \u201cYou may live here, and you go to school in another area.\u201d<\/p>\n

MPS did not respond to questions submitted by the Badger Institute.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the district says it is going to close and consolidate schools but that\u2019s been going on for 10 years now with no real action,\u201d Andrekopoulos says. And as for Posley\u2019s claims of North Side considerations, all the more reason for the \u201cconsolidation of those schools on the North Side to put more resources in those consolidated schools and to better support the students,\u201d he says. The same with those large high schools with barely any students in them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Resistance to closing or consolidating schools was just as strong in Andrekopoulos\u2019 day. School unions, activist groups, teachers and parents have a stake in preserving the status quo. There is a fear that rather than concentrating resources, closing schools is an excuse for the state and the city to take away resources, Andrekopoulos says.<\/p>\n

City Forward Collective, a public education advocacy group, agrees with Andrekopoulos that MPS should have presented a closing and consolidation plan to taxpayers before coming to them asking for money.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe district itself acknowledged the need to right-size the district,\u201d Colleston Morgan, executive director of City Forward Collective, told the Badger Institute. \u201cAnd it\u2019s entirely reasonable for voters to ask for that analysis before they are asked for money.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its analysis<\/a> of the referendum, City Forward was also sharply critical of the example the district set in handling the 2020 referendum funding and the nearly three quarters of a billion dollars in COVID relief funding.<\/p>\n

After all of that, the district projects that without a new infusion of cash their budgets for the next five years will be short more than $1.2 billion, $200 million of that for next year. The Badger Institute foresaw this fiscal crisis in a detailed report<\/a> as far back as two years after Andrekopoulos retired.<\/p>\n

\u201cRather than utilizing the referendum proceeds, and the more than $700 million in one-time COVID recovery funding MPS received, as a bridge to a right-sized and sustainable budget, the district instead elected to provide subsidies for both staffing under-enrolled schools and for maintaining underutilized school facilities,\u201d the analysis says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe evidence is clear: more money alone will not fix the challenges facing MPS, its schools, and most importantly, the students and families they serve,\u201d the report concludes. \u201cAs the district again comes to voters to request another tax increase, MPS needs to explain how these additional resources will yield significant improvement in student achievement \u2014 because Milwaukee\u2019s students and families both demand and deserve more.\u201d<\/p>\n

MPS is asking taxpayers to allow the district to exceed its existing revenue limit by $252 million a year, phased in by $140 million this fall, $51 million next fall, $47 million and $14 million in the two following school years. The total $252 million above the current baseline would remain every year thereafter.<\/p>\n

The School Support Referendum website says \u201cThere should be only a one-time increase in property taxes if the referendum passes. No additional increases will be associated with the referendum based on the design of the phase-in.\u201d<\/p>\n

What the district does not say is that if approved the MPS share of local property taxes will have doubled in less than a decade if the referendum is approved, a 15% increase for the coming school year alone, according to the City Forward analysis.<\/p>\n

Four former colleagues of Andrekopoulos who still live in the district and have homes more expensive than the median calculated that the referendum passing would mean property tax hits of $675, $778, $881 and $1,633 in the first year, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I don\u2019t understand is MPS saying that the tax impact would be flat after the first year,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t understand it. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s true. But no matter how you shake this, that\u2019s a pretty big hit the first year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Public school spending advocates blame the state\u2019s longstanding revenue limits, a statewide decrease in school enrollment and a failure to keep up with inflation for the sharp increase in referendums.<\/p>\n

From February 2022 through April 2023, state taxpayers voted on 248 school spending referendums, passing 178 of them and rejecting 70, according to a Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction tracker<\/a>. So far this year<\/a>, two have passed and four have failed, including two votes to issue more than $92 million in debt in the Waterford UHS School District.<\/p>\n

If there is a common thread among the bigger city school districts whose voters approved referendums, it\u2019s right-sizing their districts. Voters in Green Bay in November 2022 approved taking on $92.6 million in debt for overall district improvements after closing three schools. The Kenosha School Board in December voted to close six schools and is considering further budget cuts before considering any spending referendum.<\/p>\n

This is the part Andrekopoulos doesn\u2019t get. How can MPS promise more music programs at 90 schools, more wellness activities in 57 schools, more art offerings at 56 schools and 48 new library employees, as it says in its referendum fact sheet,<\/a> if it has no idea how many schools or libraries it will be using?<\/p>\n

\u201cThey should be designing the district on what it\u2019s gonna look like 10 years from now, not what it looked like 10 years ago,\u201d Andrekopoulos says. \u201cYou have to build for the future. But that is going to take a lot of energy and I think the energy has been focused on a lot of other things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark Lisheron is the Managing Editor of the Badger Institute.\u00a0Permission to reprint is granted as long as the author and Badger Institute are properly cited.<\/em><\/p>\n

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