MPS braces for bruising budget battle
Milwaukee Public Schools would reconfigure its attendance areas to reemphasize neighborhood schools, eliminate busing services for as many as 1,000 students and push more of its health care costs onto employees under a number of proposals scheduled to be taken up by board members on Tuesday.
The back-to-back committee meetings, just months before Superintendent Darienne Driver is scheduled to step down, mark the public start of
what is expected to be a bruising battle over MPS’ 2018-’19 budget.
Driver said the moves are needed to close what she described as a $30 million budget gap next year and ensure the long-term viability of the district. Earlier this year, her administration projected a $38.7 million deficit for next year and said that is expected to increase to $177 million by 2022-’23.
“These (deficits) are only going to increase in the years to come as enrollment declines,” said Driver, who will leave in July for a new post in Detroit.
“This isn’t just a one-time fix. We really have to start making changes in the way we spend over time,” Driver said.
But school board members and the local teachers union are pushing back against some of the measures.
Members of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association are expected to turn out to protest any changes to their benefits and a 5% cut in schoollevel budgets that had been circulated internally but does not appear on Tuesday’s agendas.
And two board members — Vice President Larry Miller and Tony Båez — plan to file a motion at the 6:30 p.m. Committee on Strategic Planning and Budget that would effectively block both of those proposals.
“Part of our proposal is to use the next year to bring all stakeholders together to discuss the budgetary implications of our facilities master plan, transportation, salary and benefit structures, purchase services priorities and the MPS footprint,” Miller said in a text to the Journal Sentinel.
Their motion would not affect Driver’s busing proposal. It would tap any savings it generates to help pay for cost-of-living raises of 2.13% for all employees and speeding up the timeline for bringing the district’s lowest-paid workers to a minimum wage of $15 an hour.
Under the busing proposal, transportation would be eliminated entirely next year for about 1,000 students, most of those at what are now citywide specialty schools such as Rufus King and Bradley Tech high schools. An additional 1,400 high-schoolers would shift from yellow buses to city buses, for a combined saving of about $2 million.
Additional changes in fiscal year 2019 and beyond would eliminate busing for as many as 8,000 students at an estimated cost saving of $10 million to $12 million, according to the analysis.
MPS spends about $63 million annually on transportation, about half of which is required by state and federal law.
The committee will also hear from a consulting firm that is recommending MPS “repurpose” or sell 20 buildings, renovate the others and build four more schools on the growing southwest side.
The report by MGT of America Consulting says the changes are needed to address enrollment declines projected at about 6,600 students over the next decade, demographic shifts and future programming needs. MGT said the district spent about $6.1 million to maintain empty seats last year and that that would only grow as its enrollment continues to fall.
The school board’s Committee on Accountability, Finance and Personnel will take up two other cost-saving proposals on Tuesday, including one to restructure employee health care benefits. According to the administration’s analysis, that proposal would save up to $17.4 million by:
❚ Eliminating coverage of spouses who have access to insurance elsewhere or charge employees extra to keep them on their plan ($7.9 million).
❚ Raising co-pays for doctors visits to $35, urgent care to $50 and emergency rooms to $175 ($4.3 million).
❚ Increasing employee contributions for their health care to 7% for low-wage workers and as much as 19% for those earning $101,000 or more (up to $3.2 million).
“These (deficits) are only going to increase in the years to come as enrollment declines. This isn’t just a one-time fix. We really have to start making changes in the way we spend over time.”
❚ Eliminating a long-term disability benefit that has cost the district about $2.3 million in premiums since January 2017, but reaped benefits for just four employees totaling $47,534 ($2 million).
The committee also will consider a proposal to explore the creation of near-site health clinics for employees that could save an estimated $700,000 annually.
Board members and the teachers union have said they support a proposal by Driver to cut 15% from the central office budget, which does not appear on the Tuesday agendas, but they want them to be done strategically so they do as little harm as possible to students and staff. MTEA Vice President Amy Mizialko called the proposed benefit and school-based cuts “unnecessary and abusive” and said they would drive educators away from MPS and the teaching profession.
“We are seeing what happens when school districts try to balance their budgets on the backs of students and workers in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Kentucky,” she said in a statement, alluding to recent teacher protests in those states. “MTEA members will fight cuts to our classrooms. Our students deserve no less.”
Like many districts across the state, Milwaukee Public Schools has struggled financially as costs outpace revenue. The district made similar cuts last year to close what was then projected as a $50 million budget gap.
Driver will deliver her proposed 2018-’19 budget to board members in this month. They are expected to vote on it in late May.
The final document is likely to be shaped by Driver’s planned departure as board members re-evaluate some of her priorities, said board member Terry Falk, who chairs the Committee on Strategic Planning and Budget. He points, for example, to the new school uniform policy adopted last year, which he described as a “dismal failure.”
“I can’t see us doing that again,” Falk said.
“What people have to remember is this will now become the board’s budget,” he said. “What we need to do is craft a budget which ... the entire community supports regardless of who the superintendent is.”
Driver, who has served as superintendent since 2014, leaves July 6 to become president and CEO of United Way of Southeastern Michigan.
The school board is scheduled to meet in executive session at 6 p.m. Thursday to consider naming an interim superintendent while it searches for her successor. It held a similar meeting last week but made no decision at that time.