Response to Wally Johnson's letter that appeared this week in local newspapers

“…the facts should always be provided with complete candor…” is how Wally Johnson continues his decade-old lobby against public education in his 10 October editorial.   I just wish Wally would invest some of this free time to get the facts right himself – they might change the way he thinks about the Delano Schools.

First the election is not forcing all voters to one location - -the City of Independence is also having an off-cycle election so the Independence voters are voting in Independence.  The smear that the school board is doing something that “smacks of being unethical” is based on Wally’s refusal to seek the facts, which are clearly published on the district’s website.  The voting location falsehood may lead to voters going to the wrong polling place, or not going at all.  That is wrong and inexcusable.

I don’t know what cash model Wally’s looking at, but in our school board meetings and on the district web-site it’s very plain that the budget we’ve adopted includes deficit spending THIS year, not 2013.  We’ve been sharing this fact non-stop and in complete candor in our public meetings this summer & fall too, which although attended by many voters hasn’t produced Wally in attendance yet.

Our models do want to maintain current staffing levels and class sizes – this is about the closest to accuracy Wally achieved.  And why not – at $8204 cost per kid we’re one of the lowest priced education levels in the state.  For years we have run our schools lean, built a modest fund balance, and have forgone many hires other schools have.  If Wally lived in Orono he’d be denouncing a $1531 operating levy per kid in an $11,227 cost-per-pupil district.  If Wally lived in Mound Westonka he’d be paying a $1480 operating levy producing an $11,535 cost-per-pupil.  By the way – the state average cost-per-pupil is $10,639, and the state average operating levy is $1055 per pupil - I’d like to think we’re doing a sensational job with the financial resources we have.

As a conservative I agree with Wally that there is more to education than money, but I don’t shirk from the facts, either, the key fact being that the State of Minnesota has under-funded K-12 education – the General Education aid was $5074 per kid in FY08, and five years later we’re at $5174, or about a 0.3% increase per year.    Even in a district run as lean as ours, this means we either cut staff or run at a deficit, and right now we’re looking at doing both.

During our open-house forums this year we solicited public feedback on a number of levy amounts, and in the end selected $990 because even though we still were deficit-spending, we’d be able to stave off cash-flow issues thru the next state budget biennium, by which time we hope the state will be adequately funding K-12 education again. 

The bottom line is to keep Delano’s educational quality consistent we need local levy support.  True conservatives know that public education for all kids and families – regardless of learning disabilities, language abilities, etc. – is the foundation of our merit-based economic and democratic system.  It also means we hold our duly-elected school board members accountable, because as we have shown in Delano, we can run our schools very lean and produce some of the best academic results in the state.

To Wally’s last sentence, voting “no” to the levy will of course impact our schools – for months we’ve had $800K of cuts already identified on our district website if it doesn’t pass, and we’ll follow that up with more cuts the next school year, as the deficit will be untenable.    What a statement to make – we’ll cut 15 staff including paras and teachers, and kids won’t be affected?  Good grief.

Peter Brasket, Chair
Delano School Board