Q.E.O. Law is Too Generous.
I read with horror this morning an article referred to me by a concerned citizen. The article was outlining a debate going on down in Madison regarding whether or not to consider taking a referendum to the public for additional operating revenues above and beyond the amounts currently allowed by state law (The Revenue Cap).
What was alarming about this news is that sixty some-odd school districts have exceeded the QEO (Qualified Economic Offer Law) giving raises to teachers and staff above and beyond the 3.8% limit that these various school boards could have imposed under the QEO law, thus working to keep local taxes somewhat lower (and avoiding a referendum later to exceed the revenue cap). Readers should be reminded that well over 60% of the operating budgets of school districts are salaries and benefits for teachers, administrators and other staff.
The fact that so many district school boards are engaging in such financial shenannigans (read, irresponsibility) leads me to believe that there is an organized effort by WEAC to entice board members to engage in a statewide strategy of exceeding the QEO (and thus rendering it meaningless). As was done here in Hudson, these meetings are typically done in relatively secret, closed door, late night, meetings out of the public eye. In fact, here in Hudson the last meeting they had was very likely another illegal meeting by this school board. By engaging in these behind the back of taxpayer schemes, they will be accomplishing one of the teachers union's biggest goals, and one that they could never accomplish at the ballot box, which is to bypass the one mechanism taxpayers have to exert any real control of total spending by local school boards. The combination of both the QEO and Revenue Caps should have been enough to keep matters in check but it required/assumed fiscally responsible school board members. What a joke!
The answer to this situation is clear - the QEO law it too generous in that it allows rogue school boards (like Hudson) to be way too generous with teacher salaries and benefits by negotiating increases above and beyond 3.8% (reasonable by any standard, and the health insurance argument is an absolute cannard because they won't allow it to be shopped out, or to implement HSA's)- it needs to be strengthend dramatically to not just offer boards the option of imposing a 3.8% cap on salaries and wages, but mandate it! As long as the state controls education (compulsory education, no legitimate economic choice - the monopoly), then Local school boards should be limited by law from raising revenues beyond the cap to support both their exceeding of the QEO and all the other spending they engage in... You see folks, this is the rub. These boards secretly blow the roof off the QEO, build that into the budget, and then scream that programs will have to be eliminated unless the taxpayers bend over and vote YES on a referendum to exceed the revenue cap! In effect, getting a backdoor raise for teachers, administrators and others on the gravey train that they would never get if that was the matter citizens were voting on.
To allow them to play both sides of this coin is to open the door to financial shenannigans by sneaky, ill-equiped local school board members who have no sense of the long run problems they are creating. We have experienced it here in Hudson, it's going on in 65 other districts (soon to be many more) and it is the type of problem the QEO was designed to avoid.
The question now is, which state representative will have the guts to quickly propose meaningful reform to strenghten the QEO law OR let's just get on with passing TABOR. One or the other, please, before this state is so far down the toilet in taxes that no one will stick around to clean up the clog.
bildanielson On The BorderLine
What was alarming about this news is that sixty some-odd school districts have exceeded the QEO (Qualified Economic Offer Law) giving raises to teachers and staff above and beyond the 3.8% limit that these various school boards could have imposed under the QEO law, thus working to keep local taxes somewhat lower (and avoiding a referendum later to exceed the revenue cap). Readers should be reminded that well over 60% of the operating budgets of school districts are salaries and benefits for teachers, administrators and other staff.
The fact that so many district school boards are engaging in such financial shenannigans (read, irresponsibility) leads me to believe that there is an organized effort by WEAC to entice board members to engage in a statewide strategy of exceeding the QEO (and thus rendering it meaningless). As was done here in Hudson, these meetings are typically done in relatively secret, closed door, late night, meetings out of the public eye. In fact, here in Hudson the last meeting they had was very likely another illegal meeting by this school board. By engaging in these behind the back of taxpayer schemes, they will be accomplishing one of the teachers union's biggest goals, and one that they could never accomplish at the ballot box, which is to bypass the one mechanism taxpayers have to exert any real control of total spending by local school boards. The combination of both the QEO and Revenue Caps should have been enough to keep matters in check but it required/assumed fiscally responsible school board members. What a joke!
The answer to this situation is clear - the QEO law it too generous in that it allows rogue school boards (like Hudson) to be way too generous with teacher salaries and benefits by negotiating increases above and beyond 3.8% (reasonable by any standard, and the health insurance argument is an absolute cannard because they won't allow it to be shopped out, or to implement HSA's)- it needs to be strengthend dramatically to not just offer boards the option of imposing a 3.8% cap on salaries and wages, but mandate it! As long as the state controls education (compulsory education, no legitimate economic choice - the monopoly), then Local school boards should be limited by law from raising revenues beyond the cap to support both their exceeding of the QEO and all the other spending they engage in... You see folks, this is the rub. These boards secretly blow the roof off the QEO, build that into the budget, and then scream that programs will have to be eliminated unless the taxpayers bend over and vote YES on a referendum to exceed the revenue cap! In effect, getting a backdoor raise for teachers, administrators and others on the gravey train that they would never get if that was the matter citizens were voting on.
To allow them to play both sides of this coin is to open the door to financial shenannigans by sneaky, ill-equiped local school board members who have no sense of the long run problems they are creating. We have experienced it here in Hudson, it's going on in 65 other districts (soon to be many more) and it is the type of problem the QEO was designed to avoid.
The question now is, which state representative will have the guts to quickly propose meaningful reform to strenghten the QEO law OR let's just get on with passing TABOR. One or the other, please, before this state is so far down the toilet in taxes that no one will stick around to clean up the clog.
bildanielson On The BorderLine
posted by Anonymous @ 6:28 PM
<< Home