By Andrew Pease

The Nicolet High School District reduced its budget for employee travel and development by over 58% for the 2005-06 budget year as part of a larger $300,000 budget reduction necessitated by declining enrollment.

Along with the overall reduction in spending, the school board approved a new travel and expense reimbursement policy that aims to close some of the loopholes that have, in the past, led to potentially excessive spending by employees on meals.

“The school board feels that if you are claiming a meal it should be for the amount of the meal, not to the maximum that’s allowed, and it should be for only those items that are authorized,” said Dr. Elliot Moeser, Nicolet District Administrator.

The new reimbursement policy, approved by the school board on April 24, 2006, eleven days after an open records request was sent to the district’s custodian of records, Jeff Dellutri, changed the documentation process for receiving meal reimbursement while traveling on school business.

Prior to the change, employees were allocated $35 each day for meals while traveling in Wisconsin and $52 per day when traveling out of state. As long as the total claimed for reimbursement did not exceed these maximums, receipts were not required.

A provision in the policy did say that where a consistent policy of maximum meal reimbursement claims is noted on an employee’s travel vouchers, the District Administrator will verify whether the expenses are actual and reasonable.

However, when confronted with numerous examples of maximum reimbursement claims, Jeff Dellutri admitted that this provision in the policy had been largely ignored in an effort to streamline the reimbursement process and avoid excessive paper work.

Although there is no evidence of impropriety, without receipts it is impossible to know if the taxpayer money was actually spent on meals and not on other non-reimbursable items such as alcoholic beverages or tobacco, or simply kept by employees as personal disposable income.

The new reimbursement policy now requires that itemized receipts must be presented for all meals.

This change, as well as the overall cut in reimbursable employee travel expenditures, was necessitated by budget constraints due to declining enrollment, said Moeser.

“Last year was our first year in a number of years that we had declining enrollment,” said Moeser. “And under the state funding formula you get money off of the number of students that you have.”

According to the district’s collective bargaining agreement with its teachers, Nicolet High School District must offer a 3.8% increase in salary and benefits each year, but the declining enrollment made it impossible to raise salaries and benefits by 3.8% without cuts in other areas.

“The revenue limit is basically how much our budget can grow based on enrollment,” said Dellutri. “We [Nicolet High School] need to grow by about 17 students a year in order to pay for just salary and benefit increases.”

The 2004-05 budget allocated about $30,000 of district money for employee travel. This amount was cut to $12,500 for the following 2005-06 year. Of the $30,000 in budgeted money for the 2004-05 year, Nicolet actually spent about $21,000 on travel and development. As of May 17, 2006, Nicolet has spent $14,500 thus far during the 2005-06 school year.

Further cuts to the employee travel and staff development would have a negative impact on the quality of teachers at Nicolet, according to Moeser.

“I think that you can go too far with that [budget cuts] and not give your staff the opportunity to grow,” said Moeser. “We as professionals have to grow to stay on top of current issues. Growth is important for teachers in order to pass on to the students the most current educational ideas.”

The bulk of the money allocated for travel and staff development goes towards sending teachers and administrators to various conferences and workshops, in state and out, in order to stay abreast of the current trends in secondary education. One such conference during the 2004-05 year dealt with ways to curb underage drinking and illegal drug use among high school students. Another dealt with improving technology integration in the classroom.

The single largest expenditure during the 2004-05 budget year in terms of employee travel and staff development was a program called AVID. Nicolet spent over $6,000, nearly 30% of its entire travel budget, to send six staff members to Texas for five days in June of 2005.

Avid is a program for students who need to be challenged in their educational endeavors, said Moeser.

B and C students who have the capability to go on to college but might not have the study skills, management skills, or have some challenges at home, are selected by Nicolet teachers to participate in the AVID program. The students sign a contract to participate in the AVID program, which entails taking an AVID class instead of a traditional study hall. College tutors are hired to come in and work with the students on a one on one basis.

“This year was our first year where we had one teacher committed to just the freshman students, and next year we’re going have another teacher have freshman and sophomore students,” said Dellutri. “Basically it [AVID] will follow the students through their senior year, so over the course of four years we’ll have all four years with an AVID program.”

While acknowledging the considerable expense involved with participation in AVID, Dr. Moeser said that the program was well worth the taxpayer money because sending students to college was one of the greatest priorities of the district.

One way to continue important programs like AVID, while still maintaining fiscal responsibility, is to bring more speakers and programs in house instead of sending teachers off to conferences in different states, said Dellutri.

“It’s more effective dollar wise,” said Dellutri. “You send somebody out of the building and it might cost you a couple thousand dollars, but you also have to pay for a substitute to teach the class. It all adds up.”

When asked how Nicolet School District can avoid allegations of impropriety like those levied against Greendale School District, Dr. Moeser was careful to say that while he is not aware of any specific things that Greendale did wrong, he is aware of the controversy surrounding employee travel spending in that community.

“It’s my impression that there is some skepticism out in communities that government units need to be more accountable and more open,” said Moeser. “I think open government is better government.”

Shorewood Revamps Reimbursement Procedure For Teacher Conferences

By: Stephan Thomas.

To amend the misuses of funds in the past, Shorewood has begun to overhaul its business office; specifically with the way teachers are reimbursed for conference registration and travel. Since July 2005, Shorewood has spent almost $60,000 dollars to send their teachers to a total of 50 in-state and-out-of-state teacher conferences.

Of the $12.50 per thousand dollar tax levy in Shorewood, the Shorewood school district makes up 50% of the tax bill according to the super. An increase of private and government grants has eased the burden on the Shorewood taxpayers.

From the total $59,698 dollars, only $18,930, plus the $15,000 for conf. registration, was from local district taxes, 17% was obtained through grants and foundations, with the final 30% being culled from state money. Despite the increase in government and private grants for travel to the district Shorewood School Superintendent Blane McCann  (see full interview here) emphasizes the need to keep travel costs low, saying, “The budget limits the number of trips; the trips are then determined by how much can be afforded and whether they are needed.”

An investigation into Shorewood school district’s spending on employee travel was spurred through a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article on a tax payers group’s examination of Greendale School District’s outrageous spending which included a $10,000 trip for five, expensive dinners at lavish restraints, and expensive hotels booked for overnight stays.

When asked to provide printouts of travel expenses dating back to August 2004 to the present, Shorewood was only able to provide expenses since July 2005. In an effort to understand the costs for travel to these conferences, reporters examined the school district’s credit card receipts and billings to the travel account.

With expenses totaling $59,770 (I got $59,698; will update Thursday) and registration costs at about 1/3 of that amount, the Shorewood school district has created a more manageable way to reimburse their employees for travel. In previous years all reimbursement requests were filled regardless of policy and then filed away, unorganized, in boxes stored in a section of the Shorewood High School’s basement called the “Chicken Coop”.

Through the efforts of Summer Carlisle, the accounts payable bookkeeper, and Woody Wiedenhoeft, the Interim Director of Business Services, a system has been developed to ensure that this budget is not misused. Wiedenhoeft, an outside consultant from Public Business Consulting Group, was hired to help renovate the business office, “All kinds of changes have been made over the last year to rectify some record keeping problems…We’re not real proud of the history lesson we’ve inherited, but we do have pride that we’ve made some changes,” said Wiedenhoeft. (see full interview here)

Since these changes have been put into place there have been numerous documented examples in the school’s receipts of attempts to be more fiscally responsible when teachers are traveling to conferences.

· Inexpensive hotels were booked through the district; the only two expensive hotels were ever booked for conferences were The Wilderness Hotel and Golf Resort and the Kalahari Resort and Convention Center of Wisconsin Dells. The district paid for one night at the Kalahari Resort at a cost of $82.75 and two days at the Wilderness Hotel and Golf Course at a cost of $260.

· The band director asked to reimburse the district for money spent on two beers in Madison.

· Teacher Carol Kuxhause stayed with relatives in Oshkosh instead of a hotel while attending a conference in Appleton.

· Only six out-of-state trips for conferences in Colorado, Kentucky, Michigan, California, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania were charged to the district.

It was a lack of organization that plagued the district in the past. Teachers would

book hotels and register for conferences and then ask for reimbursement; itemized receipts for food and hotel billings were rarely requested.

“Some people turned in their receipts and some people didn't.” said Carlisle, “Some people got approval from the business manager in advance and some people sent in confirming purchase orders saying, 'Oh by the way, we've already ordered this, can you sign off on it?'

The district’s business office now has a more organized system dealing with employee travel. All approvals for conferences must now go through the principal, itemized receipts are requested for reimbursement, and hotels are now booked through the business office.

By standardizing the process teachers for registering and reimbursing teachers who attend these conferences, the district hopes to operate more successfully within the confines of their budget. “Budgets are very tight now. At one time, budgets weren't as tight …There wasn't quite as much concern in this district, as well as a lot of other districts, of having a standardized system,” Wiedenhoeft said, “Plan ahead and that sort of thing, because there truly is not enough money to do what you want to do.”

While most seem to agree that the amount being spent is not outrageous some question the need for these conferences at all. Moisey Freedman believes that teachers can still learn new techniques without attending these conferences “Why spend the money if you can have experience in Milwaukee without leaving the state.”

Most residents of Shorewood seem to agree that the district is being more responsible with its spending. Shorewood resident Elizabeth Botten claimed that she was surprised at the total spent on these trips, ““I don’t think $50,000 is that much when you factor hotels and food… Greendale probably didn’t check the receipts. But as long as the Shorewood teachers are learning something and not just having fun.” (See full interviews with taxpayers here)

Conference attendance lower in West Bend School District

District can’t provide total conference travel costs

By Kyle Zwieg

Teachers and administrators in the West Bend School District go to fewer conferences than other districts, but school administrators say state-mandated accounting policies make it difficult for them to keep track of total conference and travel expenses.

The West Bend School District has strict policies regarding reimbursement approval on travel costs - mileage, hotels, staff cars, and conference registration - but school administrators were unable to provide an official tally on conference costs during the 2004-2005 school year. The district’s travel policy (known as ‘342s’) is directed by the Wisconsin Department of Instruction.

One of Wisconsin’s 20 largest districts, West Bend has a ‘342’ budget of $215,970. Since ‘342s’ include both conference travel and day-to-day intra-district travel expenses, total costs can be difficult to track, District Finance Manager Keith Brightman said. Total costs are broken down by school, not by categories such as out-of-state or travel within the district.

“We have location budgets,” Brightman said. “Within my business office budget, for instance, I have so much money for the ‘342s’ or for conferences or mileage – whatever the expense is. I’m free to spend that however I’d like, but it’s a limited pot of money.”

West Bend follows the same financial guidelines as the Shorewood School District, which was able to break down conference and out-of-state travel costs. Shorewood has spent $18,930 on travel since July 1, 2005.

District Accountant Judith Patton said administrators at the separate schools decide how much money can go towards trips and conferences.

“The principals have department leaders at the high schools who decide this,” Patton said. “They like to make sure it’s fair.”

Area school districts have faced increased scrutiny in recent months after a taxpayers group in Greendale discovered their school district went on 92 out-of-state trips to places like San Deigo and Orlando in less than two years, including a $10,000 trip for five that included expensive lodging and dinner at fancy restaurants. Greendale school board members were accused of “frivolous spending,” including a $342.96 bill at an Orlando steakhouse and lodging at San Diego’s Grand Hyatt costing over $300.00 a night.

West Bend administrators go to fewer conferences than other districts of its size and rarely go out-of-state, Brightman said.

“We wait for them to come more regionally, maybe Minneapolis, rather than travel to them,” Brightman said. “Otherwise, we all have our local state affiliations that we attend.”

West Bend School District’s business and non-instructional operations procedure requires written approval at least 30 days before all trips “unless impractical.” Administrators are expected to travel on common carriers (airline, railroad, bus) and utilize the most efficient means of transportation. Administrators are urged not to rent cars unless it is absolutely necessary. No administrators flew to conferences on school expense during the 2004-2005 academic year.

“We don’t attend very many of the national, higher profile venues,” Brightman said.

Brightman said most conference trips are to Wisconsin Dells and Green Bay because of lower mileage and lodging costs.

“We can get the room rates for maybe $60 to $80 versus going to Milwaukee where it would be $100, maybe $200 for a room,” Brightman said.

Brightman described the district’s ‘342s’ as “self-governing,” adding that teachers are rarely denied reimbursements. Before administrators can attend any conferences, they must first fill out a conference attendance form which justifies their attendance and explains how it will benefit students. Afterwards, they fill out whether they felt the conference was worthwhile.

Among the district’s strictest policies regards meal expenses during travel. Administrators are given caps of $6.40 for breakfast, $7.20 for lunch and $15.00 for dinner. Only $2.00 will be reimbursed if a receipt is not submitted. Brightman described these limits as “pretty low,” adding they have remained flat for “ten-plus years.”

“There is a max and we do enforce those,” Brightman said.

Teachers may drink alcoholic beverages on school trips, but can not be reimbursed for them, even if the meal price does not exceed the allotted amount. Al Carrier, who is no longer in the West Bend School District’s official staff directory, was reimbursed $14.00 for a meal at DeCristo’s Pizzeria on Oct. 12, 2004 that included $3.50 for a Pint Amber Beer. But on a trip to Texas Roadhouse in Green Bay, teacher Kristina Erickson forgot to subtract $18.75 from her reimbursement forms, money that was spent on three 18 oz. margaritas. Erickson’s oversight was corrected by accounts payable and she was not reimbursed. Carrier’s oversight was missed. Brightman said oversights can happen, but are rare.

“That’s a policy,” Brightman said. “There are no alcoholic beverages and if that’s on there it gets taken off.

“I haven’t come across anyone trying to do something that was inappropriate,” he added.

The total reimbursements for gas mileage are “not to exceed the cost of one coach fair.” Administrators keep itemized records – sometimes to the tenth of a mile - and are expected to take “the most direct route.”

Because the ‘342s’ cover all reimbursement costs – including travel and emergency supply purchases – teachers are expected to budget their money appropriately. According to Brightman, overspending in one area means he would have to under spend elsewhere.

Emergency or special supply purchases are sometimes necessary Brightman said, but, teachers are urged to use supplies ordered through the district’s preferred vendors. District policy dictates teachers will not be reimbursed sales tax for any independent supply purchases.

“There might be some classroom supplies people buy for something odd, but anything they need through the normal course of business we’ll get from our vendors,” Brightman said.

Brightman said the district can’t release total conference costs and mileage reimbursements because the totals are “coded with many other items,” including the supply purchases.

West Bend taxpayer Scott Wolff said that a district the size of West Bend should be able to keep better track of its expenses than simply following the state mandates. While he’s not surprised that West Bend administrators go on fewer trips than other districts, he thinks they should be able to account for total conference costs.

“They should have a spreadsheet or Excel set up that they can just plug the numbers into,” Wolff said. “It isn’t that hard and it really wouldn’t take up that much time.

“Even I can do that,” he added.

Wolff’s two daughters, Brianna, 13, and Haylee, 9, both attend public school. While property taxes continue to steadily rise in West Bend, education taxes have remained relatively flat Wolff said. West Bend taxpayers have a reputation of being notoriously conservative; Wolff said local taxpayers might consider the conferences “wasteful spending.”

“Some people around here would rather see more money in their wallets than more being spent on keeping up our schools or raising teachers’ salaries,” Wolff said. “I think it’s important they continue going to [conferences], regardless of cost, so they can effectively teach our kids in the new millennium.”

Teacher Amy Lewin of Beloit said administrators in her school attend several conferences a year. Lewin described the conferences as “a joke.”

“You should go to one of those conferences and see how little gets done,” Lewin said. “They’re just big parties.”

Lewin attributed outrage over Greendale on taxes. With education taxes relatively low in West Bend and Beloit, conference attendance is a relative non-issue.

“It’s nothing to get upset about,” Lewin said. “Unless you’re living in a district like that one [Greendale] when your taxes are basically just getting used to give people free vacations. Our taxes actually went down last year. It’s hard to argue with that.”

By Elizabeth Herman

In light of recent budget cutbacks and a defeated referendum that will necessitate the cutting of 11 teachers, the Mequon-Thiensville School district slashed its spending on staff travel by nearly two-thirds, but does not yet have an official policy on employee travel reimbursement unlike most comparable area school districts.

The district, which hopes to have a policy in place by the beginning of the school year in September, reduced its travel expenses, including staff conferences and training sessions, from nearly $40,000 during the 2004-2005 school year to approximately $11,000 during the 2005-2006 school year to date.

According to a Journal-Sentinel report, the district is currently facing a budget deficit between $800,000 and $1.3 million for the upcoming school year.

About half of the $40,000 spent on staff travel during the 2004-2005 school year came from grants rather than the district’s budget, including federal, state and private money. Business assistant Cindy Leinfelder said that the grants allowed the district to supplement in a time of cutbacks.

Since the referendum’s defeat on Feb. 21, the school board has drawn up a budget proposal that attempts to minimize the district’s financial problems for the upcoming school year. Solutions include cutting staff and programs, and raising fees for student parking and athletics.

In addition to the cutting of 11 teachers, two custodians will also be cut, along with one reading specialist. Assistant superintendent Demond Means said, at a school board meeting on Monday May 8, that the district’s alcohol and drug prevention program may also have its funding reduced.

Other cutbacks proposed for the 2006-2007 school year include:

• Nonspecific curriculum reductions
• Increased rental revenue for Range Line School
• Added and increased extracurricular fees
• A special education case worker reduced to half time
• Drug and alcohol prevention coordinator eliminated
• Increased student resource fee

In addition, the school board and administrators are in the process of reviewing a new set of district policies. District superintendent Robert Slotterback said that the district is three-quarters of the way through the process, which he hopes will be finished by the beginning of the school year in September.

One of those policies the board and administrators are reviewing is an official policy on staff travel.

Although no official staff travel policy is in place, Slotterback said that the lack of a policy has not been a problem in his experience.

“Lack of policy doesn’t mean [there is] a lack of procedure,” Slotterback said.

The district pays for its staff’s professional travel, including mileage, lodging, registration costs, incidental expenses, and a maximum of $15 a day for meals. Leinfelder said that all expenses must be pre-approved for staff to get reimbursement.

“Nobody can come and say that it [was] 500 miles instead of 100, or that they decided to spend the night,” Leinfelder said.

According to the district’s educational technology coordinator, Connie Jaeger, conferences are a way of ensuring that the district has all of the information it needs.

“We can’t all be experts on everything, so these are agencies in the state that focus on disseminating information for all of us,” Jaeger said.

Most of the conferences and training sessions attended by staff are in the state. However, some teachers traveled as far away as Florida and Alabama for conferences.

One such conference, held in Auburn, Al, cost approximately $3000, according to Homestead High School science teacher Tracy Grace, who attended with another teacher. Grace said she believed that all of the costs for the trip were covered through grants from the district’s foundation.

Grace and her colleague, Debbie Peck, attended the conference, which taught them to use a radio telescope. Grace said she has since put the knowledge to use in teaching her earth science classes, and hopes to expand the target in the future.

Grace and Peck followed procedures to get reimbursement for their traveling, and Grace submitted a total of three reimbursement request forms.

“We initially bought airline tickets, then the next batch of forms was for receipts, then for some additional charges we put on our own credit cards,” Grace said.

After attending the five-day-long conference and traveling back to Wisconsin the day after, Grace submitted a stack of credit card receipts to the school’s business office. The charges for meals came to almost $224 for the two teachers, an average of more than $18 per day for meals, which is over the district’s limit of $15 a day.

On certain days, the pair charged more than $60 for meals, including a meal at an Italian restaurant in Al for $34. Grace said that she was unaware of the district’s limit on meal spending.

Bruce Duncan, the treasurer of a group called Keep Our Schools-Save Our Homes, a group that opposed the recent referendum, said that the school’s real problem does not lie in smaller expenses like that of staff travel. However, he went on to say that he believes teachers and administrators in the district take too many trips, and that a policy should be in place and budgeted for staff travel.

“There seems to be a lot of non-teaching staff and they take trips to justify their existence,” Duncan said.

Cheryl Rebholz, a member of the Keep Our Schools-Save Our Homes group and a parent who put two children through the Mequon-Thiensville School District believes that the district spent too much on staff travel during the past two school years.

“That money should go into the budget for infrastructure and maintenance, the roof,” Rebholz said. “They need an expense policy, and I want to see the outcome of the conferences they attend. I want to see an outline, and I want to see how it improved the district. I want to see how it affects the student.”

Lake Geneva School’s travel expenses may be eye opener for tax payers

By: Paul Schwartz

May 19, 2006

Lake Geneva taxpayers paid more than $5800 per month in employee travel expenditures for the Lake Geneva School District for the 04’-05’ school year, which included a $4600 tab for teachers to attend a conference for DECA—an association for marketing students.

According a district expenditure statement that covered employee travel expenses for the 2004-2005 school year, the district spent more than $72, 000 in district-wide employee travel expenses, including:

• A $5200 bill for expenses at a DECA conference in March 2005. The expenses “most likely paid for teachers to go chaperone the trip”, according to Financial Assistant, Sue Dammeir. Wages are excluded from conference reimbursements such as the DECA bill, only allowing for “meals and travel” which included air travel if needed, said Dammeir.
• $2200 to a Hilton Hotel
• $186 to Ho-Chunk Casino

While the school district came under budget for the school year, the voter’s of Lake Geneva will be asked to approve a $19 million addition for Badger High School ($12million) and Star Center Elementary School ($7 million) on the September ballot.

Bret Strong, of the Citizens for a Responsible Government (CRG)-Walworth affiliate, has investigated government spending in Walworth County. Strong was not surprised by the Lake Geneva School District’s spending figures.

“I wouldn’t doubt it a bit if questionable spending was discovered in Lake Geneva,” said Strong. “I don’t think the referendum will pass when the voters find out that we’ll pay an additional $30 million for a non-mandated expansion to the Lakeland School.”

Additional records from the expense report showed payments to WASBO, The Wisconsin Association of School Business Officials. Listed on the WASBO website are links that talk about the School Administrator’s Alliance (SAA) advocacy group. The SAA is a political advocacy group for education lobbying.

“I’m not incredibly familiar with the SAA,” Strong added. “…but if they are advocating educational support and have supported a specific political candidate’s decision, I don’t think that tax payers should have to pay for WASBO.”

Lisa Seiser, editor of the Lake Geneva Regional News, did a story on the referendum in March of this year.

“I have not found anything out of the ordinary about the district’s spending or budgets,” said Seiser via email. “If anything, they are as tight as can be.”

Seiser said that the district analyzes everything and find the lowest goods and services. The only questions for here fell in the area of employee pay.

”In my eyes, there are always questions about personnel, with a great number
of high paid administrators,” said Seiser. “But probably nothing different than other
district.”

John Roth, the business manager for the Lake Geneva Area schools, is said to be a “money guru” by some. However, when asked about the unusual expenses in question, Roth became “confused” about a Open Records request, of which he is the Legal Custodian for.

Sue Dammeir, who is also Roth’s secretary, said that Roth was not around to be interview during two attempts at contacting his office.

With school expansions being asked for throughout the county, Bret Strong remained worried about the tax levy.

“The question is not that they are staying under budget; but are they spending in a way that they don’t need the budget that they have?” said Strong.

The referendum for the Lake Geneva Schools addition will be asked in the fall ballot, on September 12, 2006.

Where did the tax money go?

The Brown Deer School District spent a little over $28,000 on travel this year including stays at the Kalahari Resort and the Hilton, but they only provided documentation to account for $7,521.

The school district didn’t provide documentation for how over $20,000 was spent in travel expenditures for the 2005/2006 school year.

In a related case, a taxpayer group found that Greendale School District officials and school board members have attended 92 out-of-state trips in the last two years to places including San Diego and Orlando including one trip for five that tallied up to $10,000.

Brown Deer also failed to comply with an open records request for the credit card statements from the district for the last two years. The district was able to provide $2,200 in statements for the district’s two emergency credit cards. These cards were issued to Bruce Connolly, superintendent, and Kristin Kollath, business manager. There are statements missing from various months which are unaccounted for. Kollath is looking into this gap in the credit card statements.

“Is this in regards to the Greendale case?” said Kollath, when she was asked about the district’s travel expenditures.

The Greendale controversy is an entirely separate case, because Greendale provided documentation of their spending.

“They don’t have to submit documentation for short trips,” said Kollath.

• According to the Brown Deer School District’s 3.20 reimbursement policy, “receipts are required for all reimbursements.”
• Brown Deer provided documentation for a little over $7,500 that was spent this past year out of an aggregate total of $28007.
• Kollath and Connolly are the only administrators who obtain and use “emergency” credit cards. They used them to book flights, make purchases from amazon.com, hp.com, best buy, and other stores.
• Only credit card statements and no receipts were provided for the cards of the two administrators.
• Recently, Brown Deer had a referendum to do renovations to the district that was voted down by taxpayers, because it would result in a raise in taxes.
• Teachers and administrators attend a variety of different conventions from the Wisconsin Music Education Association Convention in Madison to the National DECA competition in Dallas, Texas.

Taxpayers are responding to this information about the district.

“28,000 is a lot of money, I don’t even make that in a year,” said Brown Deer taxpayer Kim Lee. “We, as taxpayers, have the right to know where money is being spent.”

In regards to the administrators who possess emergency credit cards, Lee said that, “if it’s for emergencies, then that’s how it should be used.”

Lee has two younger kids that will soon be apart of the school district and she said that she has heard a lot of good things about Brown Deer.

“It seems silly to send teachers to a lot of conventions,” said Lee.

Many of the districts employees go on these conventions every year.

“I get to see people that I don’t normally get to see,” said Kathleen Dimmer, Brown Deer Middle School band teacher.

According to Dimmer, these conferences are a great way to network with other band teachers and she has taken techniques and approaches from the WMEA convention in Madison and implemented them into her curriculum.

Dimmer’s total reimbursement for a two day convention in Madison was $296.04.

Kollath said the budget is set to a function, or a set account allotted for a particular purpose, and often employees will put more money in travel for the next year and less money in supplies depending on the educational initiatives within the school district.

Jim Sadowski, marketing teacher and adviser of the DECA program, feels that teachers should be able to go on these conferences. DECA is a national association of marketing education students that provides members with educational and leadership development activities to merge with the classroom instructional program.

Sadowski said that you can’t judge a book by its cover and a lot of times when administrators and teachers are planning on going on these conferences, “it may look worthwhile in the brochure, but when they get there it’s a whole different story.”

“I have gone to my share of conferences that haven’t been worthwhile,” said Sadowski.

Every year, the Brown Deer School District reimburses Sadowski of a little over $900 to take his DECA students to Nationals.

“We have forms in place to make sure that there is no abuse of the system,” said Kollath.

Connolly said that the school is really efficient within the district’s travel reimbursement policy. He said that Brown Deer did a joint study with Michigan State called “The Balance Score Card” on how to do reimbursement.

Connolly and Kollath both stated that reimbursement within the district is on a case-by-case basis. Connolly said that Brown Deer spends a lot more time internally on staff development in place of sending teachers to conventions.

“Administrators are responsible to make sure that travel is applicable to their job,” said Kollath.

Brown Deer alumni, Krystal Johnkins, commented on the travel expenditures of the district.

“If they are traveling to learn about psychology, it might be more helpful,” said Johnkins. “Band, I’m not sure,” she said.

Johnkins said that she is not confident that the teachers improved or enabled their students to benefit from the conventions.

“If our teachers are well-educated, they will be able to better serve the students,” said Connolly.

Tim Halverson, A JMC 500 Special Report

Though the Kenosha Unified School District claimed that budget constraints forced the layoff of 142 teachers and aides in April, a JMC 500 investigation has found that the district spent over $588,000 in conference and travel costs over the 2004-2005 school year.

The cost represented a 50-percent increase in travel expenses from the 2003-2004 school year. Sacramento Sosbe, a Senior Fiscal Clerk for the KUSD, said that just over $300,000 of the expenses came from government grants and subsidies.

Two other school districts which are similar to Kenosha in terms of both number of staff and number of students, Green Bay and Racine, spent $136,518 and $112,938, respectively, in their travel expenses. Kenosha spent well over two times as much on their travel expenses as did Green Bay and Racine combined.

Sosbe said that the district was not in the same predicament as Green Bay and Racine. “Racine is having financial problems,” she said. “That would explain why we spend so much more. We’ve had no real big cuts in our budget.” Green Bay is also facing a $10 million shortfall in their 2006-2007 anticipated budget.

But this discovery comes in the wake of the KUSD’s announcement in April that they would need to cut $9.1 million from the 2006-2007 anticipated budget. The layoffs, blamed on the unexpectedly large raise in the cost of district employee health insurance, are set to clear $7.2 million from the budget for the next school year. The district is open to the possibility of changing insurance providers while keeping the same benefits, a move that would cost the district only about $1.1 million rather than the $7.8 million that they would lose under their current provider.

The district, though, would still like to cut money from next year’s budget.

Many of the costs comprising the $588,000 district travel expense total are the result of the cost of the conferences to which the employees travel. In the summer of 2006, for example, the district will pay $1,500 to attend the League of United Latin American Citizens national conference in Milwaukee to encourage their minority recruitment.

The district has tried to limit employee spending during these conferences. According to Eileen Coss, the KUSD’s Account Manager, the district has only just begun issuing district credit cards, called P-Cards, to some of its employees this year. The district has about 30 employees that carry P-Cards, but the spending has not risen very much from their use. Most of the conference-goers do not carry these cards.

According to the KUSD travel policy, employees are expected to travel on their personal funds and file for reimbursement upon their return. “It is better for employees to spend their own money and then ask for reimbursement later,” Coss said. “Then they are worried about having to pay the price themselves if they spend improperly.”

The district has taken several steps to see that the employees keep costs as low as possible while on district-funded trips. Employees must stay only at hotels that offer them the government rate for their rooms. Employees are also given a $35 per diem for meals and are reimbursed .445 cents per mile, the standard government rate, for their mileage when using a personal vehicle.

The district, though, does not keep track of employee spending in the form of itemized receipts. This makes it difficult to truly know how the $588,000 has been accrued or if there are any anomalies or extravagant expenditures in district employee spending. The expense reports are simply a list of how much money is owed to what retailers or providers.

Coss deflected any concerns about extravagant spending. “There have really been no problems so far,” she said. “I was glad as a taxpayer and as the account manager to see how controlled the spending really is.”

The KUSD defends their spending by pointing out the positives that have come from the conferences its employees have attended. “The cost of these conferences is high,” said KUSD school board member Marc Hujik. “But through them, we have created policies that have made us into a very strong district.”

One conference the district pointed to as an example of the usefulness of their spending is the Reclaiming Youth conference. The conference, which took place in June of 2005 in Rapid City, South Dakota, focused on the need that school districts had to control bullying in their schools. As a result of that conference, which was attended by three KUSD employees, the district created and implemented a bullying policy that is now used district-wide. The policy has received state recognition for its effectiveness.

But how essential was the conference to the creation of the policy? According to Bullen Middle School, the four rules of the policy are, “1. We don’t bully others, 2. We help students who are being bullied, 3. We include students who are easily left out, and 4. When we know someone is being bullied we tell an adult at school and at home.”

According to the district, balancing the cost of each conference and its necessity to creating policy is important to them. “It’s hard to put a price on the conferences, since we do them to better the educational opportunities of the students, “Hujik said. “We believe that we’ve done a good job concerning balancing the cost with the production we think we will actually get out of the event. I can assure you that the conferences are first and foremost about the betterment of the district.”

Chase Cole Harvey

Final JMC 500 Project

Professor McBride

Portage Community School District was allowed $31,412 in total travel expenditures according to the 2004-05 budget summaries. They spent almost $1,000 under that amount.

Portage averages about one or two board members and four administrators per year going to national conventions at an average for everything about $1,400 per attendee district cost.

Some citizens think that spending budget funds on conventions is only worth it if teachers/administrators are able to get something substantial out of it. Evan Thom says, “As long as these trips are beneficial, I don’t have any problems with it.” Thom is a recent college graduate living in Portage and has children who will attend Portage schools when they’re old enough.

School District Administrator Dan Pulsfus said that “these travel expenses are normal.” The travel expenses this year went up about $300 from last year’s total. He explains the importance of in-state and out-of-state conferences for administrators and teachers and says, “They are very beneficial, because you constantly get new ideas, grant and networking opportunities. We expect results from attending, current legal updates which save the district thousands annually. There is no way we can get what we get from
a convention by just reading.”

School budgets are more closely watched after Greendale School District was caught being irresponsible with tax dollars. The Greendale School Board made excess costs wasting millions of dollars in taxpayer funds each year taking away resources for facilities and students. Portage wants to make sure that this sort of thing will never happen in their school district, and are coming up with a new paperless budget system always accessible by the internet.

The $31,412 last year was set aside for lodging, meals, and travel. There is a clear reimbursement policy that states meals are limited to a total of $45 per day. Lodgings have to be moderately priced accommodations that do not exceed the rates charged by the convention headquarters.

Business Manager Peter Hibner said, “The only ‘controversial’ circumstance I can recall in my 15 years is that an administrator once charged a wine cooler and an appetizer to the district credit card”. The wine cooler was apparently inadvertently charged to the card, and the administrator did reimburse the school district. As to the appetizer, the remaining board members, with the exception of one, saw no problem with the charge since the total expenses were within the guideline amount.

The average hotel cost is normally under $80 per night, and board members sometimes even doubled up at state conventions. Pulsfus explains, “The largest is the WASB always in Milwaukee in January! Doesn’t that sound fun? We send 5-7 board members/administrators each year.” It was six last year. They stay in the old Hilton downtown Milwaukee for the state convention and get a special price for about $125 per night per room.

Portage has a $70 per day max at nationals for meals. Tampa, Dallas, San Francisco, and Chicago are typical cities for conventions, but never in east coast cities because of the expense, and never in Vegas “for our own good” Pulsfus explains. He continues with national conventions stating, “It usually costs me about $300 out of my pocket for myself, plus nearly $1,000 for Carol (his wife) if she comes along for her share of expenses” This includes flight, hotel share, meals, and sharing of any taxis.

As of 2005, the school district has six total administrators with credit cards. Most of the supervision of reimbursement for expenses rests between Hibner and Pulsfus. The school board literally has access to all bills/expenses, but Pulsfus says, “they don’t read every one.” He explains this is because the expense sheets show every small expense down to pencils and erasers and Portage is always under the spending limit. The finance committee, made up of three board members and two citizen representatives, also randomly reviews expense reimbursements.

Currently, Portage is getting ready to go to e-procurement cards for the district. They are going fully to direct deposit with all payrolls. They are also coupling their e-procurement with a paperless purchasing procedure, including supervisors “okay” of P.O., issuing P.O. numbers, e-verification of purchasing and e-billing and bill paying.

Portage is switching to this to save money and time. Over 75% of the accounts payable checks that are issued are for $300 or less. In other words, a lot of time is spent processing many small purchases. Hibner explains, “a teacher fills out purchase order, secretary checks department budget to make sure funds available, principal then signs purchase order, purchase order delivered to central office, accounts payable clerk assigns P.O. number and verifies enough money in building budget, business administrator signs purchase order, accounts payable clerk keeps one copy for business office, sends one copy to vendor and one copy to teacher, teacher checks in materials and gives business office the approval to make payment, business office sends check to vendor.”

The e-procurement card is like a credit card. The district would decide which people would have the cards “probably administrators, other supervisors and school department heads,” Hibner says.

E-cards can be set up with many parameters including limit dollar amount of purchases to budget and a cap on the number of transactions per month. When possible, all purchases would be made with the e-card. The individual who possesses the e-card would be responsible for assigning a budget number to the respective monthly purchases and sending the report to the business office for approval.

The business office would then be cutting one check to the e-card vendor (Mastercard) and the report of all purchases would always be available on-line. Hibner says, “By switching to an e-card purchase program, we estimate that part of a position can be eliminated, and another benefit of this program is that the district does receive cash rebate dollars for purchases”. The district would be participating in a group program with other Wisconsin school districts and many large districts in Illinois. Since the total dollar amount of purchases for the group is so large, Mastercard has agreed to a cash rebate.

Local mail carrier and father of three Jeff Krohn says, “It sounds like a good idea to me. You can never be too efficient.” Pulsfus says Portage Community School District is always trying to stay ahead and to never run into budget and finical problems. “We have to keep the communities best interest in mind every move we make,” he says.

By: Jessica Kossow

Arrowhead Union High school district spent just under $5,000 a month on expense-paid trips for faculty and staff in the past school year, including teacher organized lunches, catered meals, and consulting services.

According to the district’s business manager Steve Kopecky (read full interview here), the district which is allotted $65,000 to spend on school related conferences and expenditures only spent about $57,000 of that in the last school year.

In several documents about their spending habits, it has been uncovered that the school’s faculty attends 25 to 30 state conferences a year for academic, superintendent, and special education reasons. Several are paid directly by the school including the hotel or conference fees, reducing how often faculty members are ever reimbursed, according to Kopecky.

The conferences, which range from one day to weekend presentations, have all been in state. Kopecky said he “couldn’t remember the last time anyone was sent on a conference out of state.”

The reports showed the mathematics department had higher expenses than many of the other departments. The very same day interviewing Kopecky the entire math department, including 20 people were away at a conference.

“Such conferences are for instructional purposes; learning new ways to teach topics and improve lesson plans,” Kopecky said.

One conference titled the Wisconsin Association of School Business Officials attended by Kevin Lipscomb, director of buildings and grounds for Arrowhead. The conference, held at the Kalahari Water Resort and Convention Center, was just one of the many conventions he attended in the last school year.

Kopecky said Lipscomb is in charge of maintaining the 60 million in buildings Arrowhead has on its campus.

“It’s important he stay on top of things to keep them in shape,” he said.

Unlike other districts on southeastern Wisconsin, Arrowhead does not use credit cards as a form of payment for faculty. Mr. Kopecky said they are trying to prevent using them as long as possible, because he’s “seen other districts use them and they don’t’ want to go down a risky path” like others have.

Resident Tracy Sodolski (read her full interview here) applauds Arrowhead for refraining from credit card usage.

“Such things are more easily abused and people take more care when they’re reimbursed out of pocket,” she said.

The policy for travel expenses allows district employees $55 per night when staying the night and transportation is reimbursed the current IRS rate, which is currently at $.44 cents a mile. Staff members are given allotted a total of $30.00 daily for food expenses; $5 for breakfast, $10 for lunch and $15 for dinner. However, uncovering records of past conferences, the totals spend on hotel rooms alone exceeded the low rate for a room.

According to Kopecky and the district policy, reimbursement for approved travel in areas where the cost of longing and meals are inflated “may exceed the reasonable rate.”

Residents also felt it was a very low amount to look for when booking a hotel.

“It would depend on what location the conference is in—the cost would be different in Wausau than it is downtown in Milwaukee,” Koepke said.  (read full interview here)

Kopecky said the totals may be something they look to in the future to adjust.

Lunches Welcome Teachers

The school also takes initiative in welcoming new teachers by holding school lunches, many of which are catered with Cousins Sub and Marriott, the school’s lunch company. According to Kopecky it’s also a way to keep the school’s productivity rolling throughout the school day.

“It may be worth more to pay for lunch and keep staff members on site—what happens when five or more take an hour and a half for lunch?” Kopecky said.

Other times Marriott will cater an in-service day when teachers are entertaining an in-school speaker or learning conference. The bill may as much as $1,000 but “it’s worth it,” Kopecky said.

However, local residents and taxpayers to the district find it acceptable for the school to show initiative for their faculty, “as long as there’s a reason for it,” said Sodolski.

Other residents like Laurie Koepke mentioned how competitive teaching positions can be.

“The working world can be very competitive, and to show their appreciation is important,” she said.

Arrowhead Activity Fund

The district is known for being a Division I school, and their excellent sports records are reflected in the numerous times teams compete at the state and sometimes national level. Arrowhead pools their funds for such activities into what’s called their Academic/Activity fund which contains 66 accounts that cover everything from boy’s football to girls track, the chess club, and even field hockey.

It’s an operational fund that rolls over into the school’s general balance fund; at the time of the interview the total in the account was $288,000 “in the black, which it good,” Kopecky said.

In the school’s reports, sports trips to state competitions drew large amounts of expenses:

• Varsity Boys Basketball State Tournament cost a total of $2,500.00

• Girls Swimming team and coaches spent $137.00

• Meal money for the Boys volleyball team spent $584.00.

Under the district policy, students are reimbursed $4 for breakfast, $6 for lunch, and $10 for dinner. Outside events, such as a trip outside the state to Minnesota are the responsibility of the student, according to Kopecky.

Other questionable expenses were uncovered, including several reimbursements to faculty members for work jeans and work clothing. At one point, an outside cleaning service was responsible for cleaning their clothes, but “they went away from that” said Kopecky. Through union contract, custodial employees are allotted $300 each for clothing for work.