Middle School Sports Change is a Tax Increase

A LT editorial that explains why the change to include non-public school students in middle school sports teams will result in a tax increase for EC taxpayers.

The ECASD does this kind of juggling a lot for many different reasons. For example, from what I can tell the huge amounts of money that the ECASD receives for students at the McKinley Charter School could not possibly all be used to pay for the minimal educational services that are provided in the building. In this case, the ECASD is money ahead. Along the same lines, I imagine that the 4 year old kindergarten program that was initiated a few years ago costs the district far less to provide services to children located in daycares than the amount of money that the district receives from the state.

I am not saying that it is right or wrong, only that it is a reality that districts must juggle funds to provide some programming that costs far more than funds available.

Maria

Updated: 3/15/2008 3:07:01 AM

Middle school sports proposal really a tax hike
The issue: A proposal to allow non-public school students to play on sports teams at Eau Claire's public middle schools.

Our view: The purpose is to skirt state-imposed levy limits, which doesn't get at the heart of the problems that cause ongoing government deficits.

At first blush, an Eau Claire school district proposal to invite non-public school middle-schoolers to participate in seventh- and eighth-grade athletics seems like a nice gesture to offer team sports opportunities to young people who otherwise might not have them.

But no doubt the key reason for the proposal, which the board hasn't approved, is that it allows the school district to move $705,000 from the general fund, which is subject to levy limits, to something called the "community service fund," which operates outside of those state-imposed constraints.

School board member Mike Bollinger leveled with the taxpayers at last week's board meeting. "I want to be very, very clear to our public - this is a ($705,000) tax increase ... in a non-referendum format. If there is input to be had out there, we want to hear it."

It's hard to fault the board for looking at every possibility to balance its budget, including creative use of the budget rules. The board faces a $2.8 million shortfall heading into next school year, and more deficits await down the road unless voters approve a referendum to exceed the levy limits.

Meanwhile, Gov. Jim Doyle last week unveiled a plan to repair a $527 million hole in the state budget caused by lower-than-expected revenues brought on by a downturn in the economy.

Not much of that $527 million will come through budget cuts. Nearly half of it will be raised by shifting money from the state's road-building fund to pay for other expenses, and then selling bonds to cover more of the road improvements - bonds we have to repay with interest.

According to Tuesday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, another part of Doyle's budget plan is to impose a 0.7 percent tax on hospital revenues to go into a state-federal Medicaid health care program. That reportedly will result in the federal government giving the state an additional $420 million toward the program through mid-2009, freeing up $125 million in state money to help balance the state budget.

And at the federal level, we fight wars that cost billions of dollars a month and push the entire cost off on future generations under the guise of "emergency appropriations." Counting the war, the federal government this fiscal year will spend some $2 billion a day more than it takes in.

Unfortunately, most regular people have no such options at their disposal. Borrowing your way out of a hole is not a wise idea; neither is shifting money from your retirement or mortgage accounts to pay your utility bill. Sooner or later it catches up with you.

What everyone is putting off is dealing with the increasing percentage of public budgets needed to pay fringe benefits that were negotiated during a much different time and will continue to grow increasingly unaffordable, especially during economic troughs such as the one we now are experiencing.

What else can it be? Public employee salaries certainly haven't been going up at unrealistic percentages. The only other culprit is energy, which is hitting everyone and everything hard right now.

Nobody likes talking about the effects of early retirement and other fringe benefits on public budgets, but as the baby boomers in government start retiring, their impact will only become more evident. It's a problem we can't borrow or cost-shift our way out of.

- Don Huebscher, editor