I just saw the following note on the South Milwaukee School District website …
The 2011-2012 budget recommendations will not be discussed at the February 23, 2011 School Board meeting due to the lack of a state budget. Recommendations will be discussed at the March 2, 2011 meeting.
So stay tuned. This won’t be pretty.
It also begs the question: What’s left to cut? Check out this list of school district cuts since 2003. It’s stunningly long, and depressing, and it provides some context around the new labor deals approved by the School Board and ratified by the unions last week.
The only glimmer of hope here is that there are very dedicated and smart people at all levels of the school district — from the School Board and administration on down — that I know will act fairly and reasonably in doing the tough work in front of them. That much was driven home during the thoughtful and honest discussion during the district’s long-range vision and planning process I was a part of last fall.
I wish them the best … and realize we’ll probably be making some of these same tough choices at City Hall before too long.
South Milwaukee Blog 
Interesting that in that “depressing” list of cuts there is not one instance of teachers having their pay or benefits frozen or reduced. In fact, it rose anwhere between 4-6%! Most people in the private sector would have been lucky to get half that. Almost all the cuts were in eliminating positions, eliminating programs and increasing fees. Why aren’t the teachers upset about all of their fellow union jobs being eliminated? Why should the teachers pay/benefits be exempt from consideration when it is the overwhelmingly largest part of the budget? Because it’s NOT about the children or quality education – it’s about their cushy compensation packages and union power.
I’m with you on that Randy. It amazed me several years ago when it was stated at a school board meeting that 86% of the school budget was for pay and benefits. I wonder what that figure is now, and I still would like to know how much it costs SM taxpayers to fund one teachers health care plan per month. In Milwaukee it costs $1900.00 per month (over $22,000.00 per year) to fund a single MPS teachers healthcare plan. I guess that’s why Shorewood just recently ratified their contracts with the benefit to teachers who don’t take the healthcare plan, getting a lump sum payment of $6000.00.
and it only took 20 months of collective bargaining for Shorewood to come up with an agreement!!