This is the full-length content from Fox Point-Bayside Superintendent Dr. Jeff Dellutri, as excerpted in the the Winter 2023 Community Newsletter.
As a member of our local education committee, I believe it’s important to be engaged with our legislative system, as it has a significant impact on our daily work in the classroom. I was fortunate to be nominated and selected to serve as a citizen member on a State of Wisconsin Legislative Study Committee on the topic of Shared School District Services. The committee met in Madison five times from July through December 2022, and produced eight pieces of draft legislation for consideration by the Wisconsin State Legislature in 2023.
Legislative Study Committees are a product of the Wisconsin Legislative Council, a nonpartisan legislative service agency. Staff of the Wisconsin Legislative Council conduct study committees under the direction of the Joint Legislative Council. Established in 1947, the Joint Legislative Council directs study committees to study and recommend legislation regarding major policy questions facing the state. Study committee members are selected by the Joint Legislative Council and include both legislators and citizen members who are knowledgeable about a study committee’s topic. The 2022 Shared School District Services Study Committee was composed of four state legislators and six citizen members, and was Chaired by Representative Robert Brooks ( R-Saukville).
Background and Introduction
Wisconsin has 421 school districts. Under state law, each school district has the authority to contract to share services with other school districts or governmental entities, or contract for services with a cooperative educational service agency ( CESA). Neighboring school districts may find sharing administrative services to be beneficial due to financial concerns or staff shortages. Additionally, sharing administrative services may streamline hiring processes, reduce administrative costs, or improve the quality of their services.
In response to recent legislative interest in considering different ways to encourage school districts to share services and exploring other states’ school district structures, the Joint Legislative Council directed the Study Committee on Shared School District Services to do the following:
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(1) Review current barriers to shared administrative or other services between school districts;
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(2) Explore statutory changes or creation of incentives to encourage efficiencies;
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(3) Consider methods and make recommendations for legislation for sharing or consolidating services, such as district-level administration and personnel, purchasing, technology and data processing, transportation, food service, and building maintenance; and
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(4) Study school district structures employed in other states, particularly county-wide school district models.
The 8 pieces of draft legislation approved by the Shared School District Study Committee, included the following three on assisting school districts that share services,
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LRB-0570/P3, relating to reimbursements to school districts and cooperative educational service agencies for the cost of writing federal and state grant applications and making an appropriation.
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LRB-0571/P3, relating to aid to school districts that share services for costs associated with student information systems.
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LRB-0572/P4, relating to aid for transporting pupils between school districts that share services.
and the following five on assisting school districts with consolidation:
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LRB-0560/P3, relating to grants for feasibility studies of school district consolidation or whole grade sharing and making an appropriation.
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LRB-0561/P3, relating to state aid for school district consolidation.
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LRB-0590/P2, relating to calculating a consolidated school district’s revenue limit.
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LRB-0558/P4, relating to reducing the number of members on the school board of a consolidated school district.
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LRB-0559/P4, relating to school and school district accountability report for a consolidated school district.
How Draft Legislation Supports Shared Services
The Nicolet area partner school districts (Fox Point-Bayside, Glendale-River Hills, Maple Dale-Indian Hill, and the Nicolet High School District) have many shared service agreements, from school bus transportation, school food services, to a variety of shared personnel: currently the director of buildings and grounds and school nurse services. Our school districts do not generally see many barriers in our efforts to share services, but the three pieces of draft legislation do provide opportunities that don’t currently exist.
These pieces of draft legislation would:
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Reimburse school districts and CESAs for costs associated with writing federal and state grant applications, regardless of whether a grant application is successful. Under the bill, reimbursement provided to each eligible school district or CESA in each school year for the cost of writing grant applications may not exceed $12,000. This bill would encourage school districts to seek state and federal grants where there is a cost for grant writing but success is uncertain;
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Reimburse for costs associated with purchasing and implementing a new student information system. In order to be eligible for this aid, a school district must enter into a shared services agreement with one or more other school districts and must purchase new student information software in order to accommodate shared services. Aid provided to a school district under this program may be used to pay for purchasing a new student information system, data migration to a new student information system, and training staff on the use of a new student information system. A school district may apply for this aid one time. Aid provided to a school district may not exceed $75,000. This bill would assist with the costs of the partner schools aligning to the same student information systems; and
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Support transportation aid for a school board that has entered into a shared services agreement with one or more school boards to provide transportation to pupils enrolled in a participating school district for the purpose of pupils attending a course offered as a shared service under the agreement at a physical location in the school district. Under the bill, aid for this type of transportation must be paid at the rates provided in current law, according to the distance from the school in which the pupil is enrolled to the school at which the shared services course is offered. This bill would offset costs of transportation for K8 students attending courses at Nicolet High School.
Draft Legislation and School District Consolidation
The Nicolet area partner school districts have studied school district consolidation many times over the years going back to at least 1976. Currently, there is a huge barrier to the consideration of school consolidation, which is that each of the four partner districts have operational referendum funding that would expire upon consolidation, which is approximately 20% of the combined consolidated revenues. Consolidation conversations between the school districts often quickly end on that note, as any efficiencies gained from consolidation cannot overcome the financial hurdle of the lost revenues.
The five pieces of draft legislation would:
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Require the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) to award grants of up to $25,000 to consortia of 2 or more school boards to fund feasibility studies of school district consolidation or whole grade sharing agreements. Grant money must be used for a professional financial analysis, which may include a population study, of the effects of consolidation or whole grade sharing on the school districts. In order to be eligible for a grant for a consolidation feasibility study, each school board in a consortium must demonstrate that it has adopted a resolution to consider consolidation;
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Encourage consolidation by increasing per student consolidation aid. Under current law, when two or more school districts consolidate, or when a union high school district consolidates with its included elementary school districts, the newly consolidated school district is eligible for consolidation aid. A school district that was consolidated on or after July 1, 2019, receives $150 per student in the first five years following consolidation. In the 6th year after consolidation, the newly consolidated school district receives consolidation aid in an amount equal to 50 percent of what it received in the 5th year, and in the 7th year it receives aid equal to 25 percent of what it received in the 5th year. Current law provides a sum sufficient appropriation for this aid. The bill changes the formula for consolidation aid so a consolidated school district receives 9 percent of the statewide average base revenue limit under s. 121.91 (2m) (i) 1. , Stats., per pupil in the first 5 years following consolidation. In the 6th year after consolidation, the consolidated school district receives aid in an amount equal to 50 percent of what it received in the 5th year, and in the 7th year it receives aid equal to 25 percent of what it received in the 5th year. Like current law, under the bill, a consolidated school district may be 2 or more school districts that have consolidated, or a union high school district that has consolidated with its included elementary school districts. This bill would increase the consolidation aid from $150 per student to approximately $900 per student. The 9 percent of the statewide average base revenue limit provides an cost of living adjustment, rather than a flat dollar amount, avoiding the need to update legislation in the future to increase a dollar amount;
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Allow for the continuation of previously approved operational referendums. Under current law, if two or more school districts are consolidated or if a union high school district is consolidated with its included elementary school districts and an excess revenue has been approved under a recurring or nonrecurring referendum for one or more of the affected school districts for school years beginning on or after the effective date of the consolidation, the approval of the referendum for those school years expires on the effective date of the consolidation. The bill repeals this requirement. Prior approved operational referendums do not expire under this bill;
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Provide additional guidance on how to consolidate elected school boards. Under current law, whenever a school district with more than three school board members votes to reduce the number of school board members, it must do so one member at a time. Board membership is then reduced by the district electing one less school board member annually until the school board is reduced to the approved number of members. The bill creates an exception to this requirement specifically for a consolidated school district during the first seven years after consolidation takes effect. Under the bill, if a school district created by consolidation with more than five school board members votes to reduce the number of board members during the first seven years following consolidation, two fewer school board members may be elected annually until the board is reduced to the approved number of members, but at least one member must be elected each year. This bill assists with membership on consolidated school boards so there are not years with an even number of school board seats; and
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Provide guidance regarding how consolidated districts would be assessed as part of the current school district report cards. Current law requires the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) to annually publish accountability reports, or “report cards” for individual schools and school districts. Report cards are issued for all public schools and school districts in Wisconsin. Current law requires DPI to factor certain measures of a school's performance or district's improvement into the report cards. Additionally, the report cards must include an index system that creates five performance categories and assigns each school and school district to one of the categories. Under DPI's current accountability formula for the report cards, DPI needs at least two consecutive school years of performance data to calculate a school district's improvement score and performance category. Under current law, on the effective date of consolidation, the school districts that were consolidated cease to exist. Therefore, a newly consolidated school district does not have enough performance data for DPI to measure the consolidated school district's improvement. Under the current framework, DPI assigns a newly consolidated school district a placeholder of “N/A” on its report card until DPI has enough data to determine the consolidated school district's improvement or assign a performance category for the consolidated school district. The bill specifies that DPI may not determine a consolidated school district's improvement, identify the consolidated school district's level of improvement, or assign the consolidated school district a performance category for the school year in which the consolidation takes effect and the subsequent two school years. Instead, in the report cards published for the school year in which the consolidation takes effect and the subsequent 2 school years, DPI must include: (1) the following statement: “Due to recent consolidation, necessary data is not available for this school district.”; (2) the first school year for which a performance category will be assigned to the consolidated school district; and (3) the performance category assigned to each affected school district for the school year before the consolidation took effect. This bill assists consolidated school districts with community messaging from a State-level agency related to school report cards.
It is safe to say that the draft legislation reduces barriers and costs, and increases revenues in shared services and consolidation situations. Without approval of the draft legislation, the barriers in the existing legislation ends discussions before they get started. I cannot predict what will happen in the future regarding shared services and consolidation in the Nicolet area, but I can attest that the flexibility provided by this draft legislation is necessary to have any meaningful conversation.
The draft legislation recommendations will be presented to the Joint Legislative Council early this year, which will vote to determine if the recommendations will be introduced as bills in both houses. If the Joint Legislative Council approves the recommendations, I plan to testify in front of the State Assembly.
As a community that has continually demonstrated its commitment to and active engagement in its school system, I encourage our citizens to do the same. If you are interested in joining me, please contact me at jdellutri@foxbay.org.
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