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Budget woes could impact teacher raises

New London calls for more state aid

By Scott Bellile

School District of New London officials face budgetary headwinds in providing teachers and staff their annual cost-of-living raise.

The SDNL’s Total Compensation Committee hopes to recommend the school board award an 8% raise this year based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ consumer price index, Business Services Director Joe Marquardt wrote in a memo.

However, New London’s “budget is challenged” because the state froze the $10,000-per-student low-revenue limit in its 2021-23 biennium budget, Marquardt stated.

This ceiling on revenue limits means the 125 lowest-enrollment school districts, including SDNL, receive no more than $10,000 in local and state aid per pupil and thus must limit spending to that amount, despite operating expenses climbing since 2021.

“Wage increases are very important to all staff groups and the committee recognizes this dynamic to remain competitive, provide growth opportunities, keep pace with inflation but not put the long-term sustainability of the district in jeopardy,” Marquardt wrote. “This is very difficult when the revenue limit is the primary driver of revenue generation.”

An 8% across the board would amount to just over $1 million, Marquardt wrote.

In comparison, a smaller raise of 5% would total $628,000.

SDNL staff pay

SDNL’s average teaching salary of $58,145 is 1.5% below the state average of $59,048 for 2021-22.

New teachers in New London earn $42,826, which is 2.3% less than the average hire in the eight-county region of Cooperative Educational Service Agency 6.

Support staff average $2 less per hour than their counterparts at other CESA 6 schools.

SDNL offers each full-time employee approximately $20,000 in benefits, Marquardt said at a school board meeting March 27.
“We have a very comparable benefit package, and I would say we are superior to some other places,” Marquardt said, citing health savings accounts as an example.

The average teacher earns about $80,000 per year when combining salary and benefits, Vice President John Heideman said.

“I know there’s a lot of complaints that come up,” Heideman said of compensation. “I don’t think the average person understands the total compensation that we [the district] actually pay. I don’t know how we communicate that better, but I’d like to find a way to do that.”

Employees sound off

Staff shared concerns about heavy workloads and inadequate compensation in a district-wide survey last fall.

“We understand the budget difficulties with the freeze and limits. [We’re] constantly required to do more with less time, resources and training. This is unsustainable,” one educator wrote.

“The pay per hour for educational assistants is way too low,” another respondent said. “Students that work at Menards or Kwik Trip are making more per hour than us.”

Other complaints included: cost-of-living raises are too low, pathways to higher salaries are limited without master’s degrees, and new hires receive larger raises than veteran employees.

“There definitely was enough comments made about [they are] not being compensated at the same level as these other districts around us,” Director Terry Wegner said March 6 at a board meeting where the survey was discussed.

District Administrator Scott Bleck said teachers’ responsibilities have expanded beyond instruction as students turn to them for mental health support.

“Our staff are being asked to be a mother and a father and a guidance counselor and a confidant and a support mechanism and all other things for the empowerment of this child,” Bleck said, adding teachers take on those roles for the love of children.

Still, teachers report their support roles and grading work are costing them family time, Director Holly Schweitzer said based on her personal conversations.

Resolution

In response to the budgetary challenges, the board on March 27 unanimously approved a draft resolution calling upon legislators to up the state’s low-revenue limit to $11,500.

The resolution, pending final approval in April, states an additional $1,500 per pupil would make small rural districts like SDNL equitable with the nearly 300 districts that receive higher aid.

The resolution will be sent to the state legislators, all Republicans, representing the New London area.

Wegner said he has “zero faith” the GOP-controlled Assembly and Senate will agree with Democratic Gov. Tony Evers on a higher revenue limit.

He urged the board to develop a backup plan to fund district operations, including annual raises.

“If we’re going to live up to ‘success for all,’ we can’t do it if we don’t have the staff,” Wegner said, invoking the district’s motto.

Without a solution from the state, Treasurer Mark Grossman said the likeliest course of action is a referendum to raise New London’s revenue limit authority and, consequently, taxes.

“I’m a little more optimistic than Terry … on what the state’s going to do,” President Chris Martinson said. “But I’m ready to admit that they could prove me wrong on that, so we have to be ready no matter what happens to figure out what to do on our own.”

Discussions on raises will continue at future meetings.

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