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CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – What an outrage in the Milwaukee Public Schools.
They have more than 8,500 employees, and the largest non-classroom workforce of any school district in the state. Yet they are eight months late on their paperwork filings with the state.
Smaller school districts with just a handful of administers, still manage to file on-time. They must be rolling their eyes.
In reality, Milwaukee Public Schools would never lose state money. Governor Evers takes care of his constituents.
The outrage is this: the Milwaukee School Board delayed it’s budget vote last week, not knowing if state and federal aid would be delayed because of their paperwork problem. This is a public relations nightmare for MPS. Voters in the school district narrowly approved a $252-million referendum last April by only 1,700 votes.
Voters, who will see a $400 increase in school taxes on a $200,000 home, must be wondering what they’re getting for their money. They’re getting a top-heavy bureaucracy that can’t do its most-basic paperwork. Surely the referendum would have failed if voters knew before election day that state funding was in jeopardy for negligence.
Voters who foolishly said ‘yes’ to voluntarily raise their taxes will also get 300 teacher layoffs between now and the next school year. They also get a school district where one-third of the enrollees don’t graduate. Two thirds of the students in elementary school are not reading or doing math at grade level.
School superintendent Keith Posley resigned this week. Supposedly it’s because of late or missing paperwork. It shouldn’t be. He should step aside out of embarrassment. Despite being awash in state, federal and tax dollars, the school district he oversees is a failure factory.
Chris Conley
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