Pundits are fond of saying that government should run more like a business. Even if one accepts this analogy (and I believe it is flawed), no one tells businesses what they have to spend at the same time they restrict what the business can take in as income. Businesses are free to say, �Well, we�re going to pull out of the Wisconsin widget market because the costs of distribution are too high for us to make a profit.� Public schools cannot say, �Well, we�re only going to educate our honors students because the costs (and bad publicity) of educating at-risk kids are too high to have any pay-off for us.� We cannot even shed costs, such as transportation costs and some special education costs, that we bear for the private schools but that count in our per-pupil costs.

This month, the school board of which I am a member begins the painful task of cutting $350,000 from next year�s budget 80% of the budget consists of salaries and benefits. This set of cuts is not the first set of cuts so most of the cuts that do not affect programming that can be made have been made. This month, at least on the school board front, is going to be ugly. This morning�s paper suggests that it could be even uglier than I ever imagined.

No, this morning�s paper did not refer to the district and it was not about the school board. Instead, it was about the latest proposal to cover the state budget shortfall. Our district knew that we were vulnerable to further reductions in any area in which we receive state dollars. Despite what is called �the two-thirds state funding,� we actually receive very little state money because the two-thirds formula is set so that our district gets none of it. We only get what are called �categorical aids:� some special education money, some computer money, and odds and ends of other specified category money. This money cannot be spent just anywhere in the budget we want although it does free us up to use other money that we might otherwise have spent in the specific category.

Our school district, and school districts throughout this state, have been under revenue caps for quite a few years. The cap is calculated on a per-pupil basis based upon a three year average enrollment. In a district such as mine, the net result is that we have been restricted to increasing our budget by one or two percent. At the same time, the state has required us to offer our teachers a minimum of a 3.8% increase in salary, benefit, or both. A 3.8% increase in the area making up the large majority of the budget while the total budget can only grow 1% or 2% clearly means slashing and burning that only increases over time, unless one can pass a referendum raising taxes and state experience has been that such referendums pass for new construction, but only very rarely for ongoing costs. We don�t need a new building. We need to cover operating costs.

The situation is bad enough. But what I did not realize is the degree to which election politics might cause state budge problems to expand to budgets that the state does not directly control. Some of our fine state politicians have realized that if they cut state money, local entities may go to their own local populations and make a case that they need additional tax monies. Property taxes, the source of funding for local governments including schools, would go up. State senators and assemblypersons might be blamed. So, they have proposed a solution: freeze both state and local spending. The proposal, however, does not touch the requirement that school boards offer a 3.8% increase in teacher benefits and salaries.

A 3.8% increase in costs and a 2% increase in revenues is a hole in the boat that may eventually sink you but that allows you to try bailing for a while. A 3.8% increase in costs and a 0% increase in revenues is like having your rowboat struck by an oil tanker.

Mornings like this one make me wonder why I decided to run for school board again. I�ve got the school finance blues and they�re bound to get worse.

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