MPS budget lays out ambitious hiring plan
Money that arose from $87M referendum is detailed separately for transparency
Milwaukee Public Schools plans to add about 230 positions for the next school year — teachers, counselors, librarians and others — and boost salaries and benefits by $25.5 million for current staff.
It’s an ambitious plan made possible by the $87 million referendum approved by taxpayers in April.
The proposal is laid out in the district’s preliminary 2020-21 budget, which will be taken up by the school board Thursday. The $1.28 billion spending plan includes an additional $57 million from the referendum, a total that will ramp up to $87 million a year beginning in 2023-24.
The budget offers the first public glimpse at how MPS intends to allocate the referendum dollars. The new money will be used to increase and retain staff, reduce class sizes, expand mental
health services and programming — for example in the arts and library services — and address inequities among its students.
As always, the final budget won’t be approved until the fall, when enrollment and funding figures are known.
But the coronavirus pandemic, which has upended school operations across the country and gutted state coffers, has introduced a new level of uncertainty to the budgeting process this year.
And, depending on what happens with state and federal revenues and unexpected costs associated with COVID-19, the district could be forced to tap the new referendum dollars to backfill its budget.
“We’re going to have to look at what happens if the state Legislature and the feds don’t come through to support public schools,” said MPS board President Larry Miller. “At the same time, we made a commitment to provide a rich curriculum and supports for our kids through the referendum.
“And we’re going to continue down that path.”
The MPS administration has rolled out the budget on its website and at meetings as a $1.2 billion spending plan. But that doesn’t include the new referendum dollars.
The district’s chief financial officer, Martha Kreitzman, said the referendum expenditures were listed separately so the public could see clearly where the new money is going.
An infusion of cash
The referendum, MPS’ first attempt to win public support for additional spending in more than two decades, passed with 78% of the vote in the April 7 election.
It represents a significant infusion of cash into the struggling school district, the state’s largest, which serves about 75,000 primarily low-income children of color.
According to the referendum proposal, the new money would be used to hire more than 100 teachers, about a third of those in early childhood classes, and dozens of other staff, including librarians, counselors, therapists, nurses and aides.
It calls for the district to spend almost $30 million to hire and retain certified educators; however, most of that is for increased wages and benefits for existing employees.
The budget plan also illustrates the district’s ongoing challenges, which over time could hinder MPS’ ability to implement and sustain those changes. Among them, $25.5 million to fund an enhanced pay scale adopted last year, $180 million in deferred maintenance and a structural deficit projected to hit $140 million by 2024.
Setting aside the referendum money, MPS revenues are projected to increase $2.8 million, or two-tenths of a percent next year, according to the administration’s budget overview.
To keep schools whole, the budget cuts about 42 positions and almost $5 million out of central services and includes cuts in building maintenance and special education programming. Schools will see a $22.1 million, or 2.4%, increase and 25 new positions.
The budget proposal does not include a number of costly items that will be taken up by board members separately this week. Those include an early retirement plan that would allow employees who meet certain criteria to retire with health insurance at age 55, down from the current 60, at a cost of about $10 million annually.
That was recommended by a district task force that includes union representatives and board members Miller and Erika Siemsen, both retired MPS teachers.
In addition, board members have proposed budget amendments that would raise minimum salaries to $15 an hour, increase the number of full-time teachers aides and parent coordinators in schools, and implement an ethnic studies program. The combined cost of the amendments: about $8.2 million.
If the early retirement changes and budget amendments are adopted, it would mean the board would have to find an additional $18 million in cuts. That’s on top of some $20 million in cuts Kreitzman said were made before the budget was sent to the board.
Are new positions sustainable?
The Wisconsin Policy Forum addressed many of the challenges facing the district in its annual analysis of the MPS budget, which was released last week, including the continued deferred maintenance of facilities, the structural deficit and how much of the referendum dollars are going to maintain the new pay scale.
The pay scale alone is expected to cost about $76.4 million by 2024. That represents about 90% of the $87 million that will come in that year due to the referendum.
“It calls into question whether the new positions they’re starting (to fill) — justifiably per the will of the voters — are going to be sustainable,” said Rob Henken, president of the forum, a nonpartisan local think tank.
And that is only compounded, he said, by the unknowns created by the pandemic.
“You certainly have to feel for MPS’ leaders,” he said. “It looked like there was finally going to be some breathing room for at least a year because of the adoption of the referendum.”
Now, Henken said, “there’s a real chance that the very important things they want to do with referendum monies ... may not be sustainable, depending on how things break on a variety of different issues.”