Left, candidates prepare to answer questions during Thursday’s candidate forum, hosted by the League of Women Voters of Stevens Point. (City-Times photo)

Some Candidates Hit Bull’s-eye With Answers, Others Miss The Mark

*Editor’s Note: This is Part I in a series focusing on each question asked during the candidate forum, which pitted 7 candidates against each other for the four open seats on the School Board. Part II will run Saturday, March 15.  

By Brandi Makuski

Seven of eight candidates for Stevens Point Public School Board on Thursday offered their ideas on school funding during a candidate forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters (LOWV) of Stevens Point. Incumbent Bob Larson was not present.

The candidates with the top three vote tallies in the April 1 election will each earn three- year terms, while the fourth highest voter-earner serves out the remainder of John Zellmer’s term, who left the board when he moved out of the district last summer.

About 80 area residents were in attendance to hear the candidates answer questions.

League format allowed one minute for each candidate’s answer to a series of questions, some prepared by the LOWV, others posed by members of the audience.

Candidates had previously completed questionnaires from the LOWV, which the City-Times has been running all week, and were aware of at least some of the questions they’d be asked in advance. The men and women running for the Board picked their brains for details on school funding, board relations and their stance on renewing Superintendent Attila Weninger’s contract this summer.

Part I in our From the Horse’s Mouth series focuses on the first question each candidate answered in the entirety, which focuses on school funding.

Question: What’s your knowledge and understanding of the current school funding situation?

Candidate Chris Scott: “Well, I think one of the things we know is that there’s never enough money to go around. Government is continually moving money around but not necessarily having extra money. And as the economy has gone down, there isn’t any extra money. We receive our money from local property tax levy, state aid, federal aid interests. Some of these have been dropping for a while. We’ve got decreased levy limits, and we receive money at different times of the year and costs of education, like other things, goes up. We have demands put on us in the school district: mandates, special education, things that are going to cost more. Unfortunately, we’re really not being reimbursed for some of these costs. But we’re also adding things to our school day; all kinds of things we need to provide for and it’s not like a one- fits- all scene. We’ve got rural schools, we’ve got inner-city schools- you can’t just make everything fit in one way. I look at our school funding system as a patchwork system; you keep changing pieces of the puzzle every year.”

Candidate Trish Baker: “The funding for schools is much like it is for the county- it’s very similar in that it comes from a variety of places. One of the things Act 10 did is it reduced the levy limits. As a district we can’t just say, ‘Oh, we’ll just raise taxes’ because Act 10 and a variety of other statutes simply prohibit that from happening. I had written up something previously about school vouchers, and I had several people upset with me because of that. I have to say- and let me be clear- I’m not opposed to private education and I’m not opposed to parochial education. In fact, I just wrote out a check to SPACS (Stevens Point Area Catholic School System) a couple of days ago. But I am opposed to the funding mechanism that is being used and implemented by Madison to support the voucher schools. I’m opposed to how ‘secret’ it is, if you will. It’s very complicated, very hard to understand. If you wanted to make a real simply you can imagine a giant tank of water and it has lots of little spigots from each of the school districts around the state, and everybody gets a little spigot of their own. But at the very bottom is a spigot for school vouchers, and it drips constantly from the entire state. That’s how school vouchers are being funded. What I have a problem with is taxpayers are kind of secretly paying for that, and there’s no accountability for it and no transparency.”

Candidate Terri Fink: All the school districts face the same funding issues every year; it’s due to the dwindling state, federal and all that funding. Act 10 and other legislation has made it so the only way to increase that funding is through referendum, and people don’t like to hear that word. These facts make it difficult for all school districts, including ours, to maintain the standard of education. We need to work within our limits and do the best we can to try to maintain the standards that we have. And we need to work on trying to get legislation, too, that changes the way, at the state level, for funding.”

Contrary to some candidates’ answers, levies have increased for nearly all of the district’s municipalities, according to the district’s 2012-13 budget. (Click to enlarge)

Candidate Pat Hetzel: “Well, you’re not just talking grade schools and high schools, you’re also talking about publicly- funded colleges. And public colleges have increased tuition and children here in the Stevens Point School District pay fees, but what you have to look at is everything as whole; from administration down to the tiniest child that needs Dragon to actually speak on a computer and can’t get it because somebody else can’t do their job. We need to look at every single item that is listed, take it step-by-step, and if we’re too top heavy, let’s get rid of some of the top heavy and start bringing the bottom up. Let’s work with what we have and not expect to get more from someone else. We have to work within our means.  And we can’t ask and demand: we can’t rob Peter to pay Paul. We have to work within our limits. Limits are set- we have to constrictively move things around to help the things that need to be done.”

Candidate Alex Kochanowski: “What I understand of public school funding, it comes from state government aid and property taxes with a revenue limit based on enrollment. One thing that I like is that the public school system schools are the heart of the community. And if we can draw from that for a better school system with our funding, we can draw more people to this community and bring up the possibility of greater, better jobs and increase the way we can educate our children by having a larger, greater community and more enrollment into the public school system. I’ve seen it work from visiting down in Waunakee- they’re ten minutes north of Madison and they’re very successful at being a rich community, but there’s no businesses there.  They work in Madison but they want to be in Waunakee because they have such a wonderful public school system.”

Candidate Sam Levin: “Funding for public school systems in Wisconsin, it’s really sad. It’s sad that Madison doesn’t think the school systems are that important. But unfortunately, this is what we’ve got to work with. And we have to work with what we have. And I think what we need to do is stop being top-heavy. Every reduction we’ve made over the past years has come out of classrooms and out of programs. It hasn’t come out of Bliss (Education) Center or management. Why do we need a new HR manager? Why is it other districts can have a business manager/ HR combination? They’re paid one salary instead of two. Why can’t that money go back into classrooms? Why do we need X amount of assistant superintendents for education? I remember when we had two people doing the job, now we’ve got I don’t know how many- four, six? Why can’t that money go back into the classroom? Why don’t we start looking at putting money back into the classroom where it belongs, and stabilize, improve and add new programs that will enhance education? We’ve got to take the money, we’ve got to utilize it in the best possible way.”

Candidate Jeff Presley: “It’s the largest part of your tax bill. It’s the largest part of the state budget. The days of two-thirds funding from Madison are gone. Those are some facts. Do you want to know how that affects funding for schools? You have a legislator sitting right there (points to Assemblywoman Katrina Shankland of Stevens Point, who was sitting in the audience): the most important influence as far as who you elect representing you in Madison for school funding. As a School Board, what do we need to do? We need to be fiscally responsible. You’ve heard some suggestions here; I can tell you this year, in October when we approved the budget, I asked a question, and questioned some of those items that were on that budget. It was the first time that we’ve ever asked those questions. Now, keep in mind we have a $101 million budget and we’re not asking questions. That’s a concern. That’s a true concern. Just our last board meeting- again, more questions about the budget. It needs to be more transparent, that’s one of the things I’ve pushed. We need to ask the questions of what we’re spending the money on. Is it for parties, or is it for our kids? At the end of the day, it is for our children. So every dollar we spend, we have to be good stewards of that dollar.”

School Board Members serve three- year terms and are paid $3,470 annually. The public school district includes 13 schools with over 7500 students and has an annual budget of about $100 million.

Coming Saturday, March 15: From the Horse’s Mouth, Part II: candidates sound off on their views of Common Core State Standards Initiative.