Alderman Calls For Delaying MPS Referendum Implementation

“The taxpayer is about to get snookered,” says Alderman Scott Spiker.

Spiker, in a statement issued before a Wednesday afternoon press conference, suggests that the Milwaukee Public Schools board executed a move that was both “tactically brilliant” and “dishonest” when it held a meeting Monday night to both review the proposed 2024-25 budget and consider the removal of Superintendent Keith P. Posley.

“When, predictably, almost the entirety of the ensuing raucous three-hour meeting devolved into cries for the Superintendent’s head, I am sure that those who were not interested in hearing from the public about the budget had to stifle a chuckle. The suckers (including me!) bought it.”

Posley ultimately resigned after a closed-session discussion that lasted hours. He’s faced great scrutiny for a federal government hold placed on the district’s Head Start funding and a more recent threat by the Wisconsin Department of Instruction to withhold funding following the district’s prolonged delay in submitting necessary financial reports.

“There was no discussion of the fact that the public might now want MPS to get its financial house in order before building an addition onto it with the help of their hard-earned tax dollars,” says Spiker. In April, voters narrowly approved a $252 million annual operating referendum for the district.

Spiker, a policy wonk on the Common Council and a stickler for budgetary process, says MPS doesn’t need to implement the referendum. It was only authorized to do so. The current budget proposal calls for phasing in the referendum with a $140 million expansion in the coming year.

At minimum, Spiker now wants board president Marva Herndon to call a special hearing for the budget. “This ask seems so anodyne that I can’t imagine the degree of denial and intransigence that would move one to deny it,” he said.

But he also has a more controversial position: cut administration staff and delay the referendum’s implementation.

“I also call on the Board to propose and pass a budget amendment that would lessen the blow to the MPS taxpayer. I call on members to propose a 25% – that’s 25 cents on the dollar – decrease in the (former) superintendent’s proposal to increase the tax levy by the $140 million allowed (but not required!). Basically, I call on members not to increase taxes as much as they are allowed to, in light of the fact that much of the electorate was duped into thinking that MPS had their financial house in order when it is clear to us now, after the fact, that they do not,” said Spiker. “But, I also propose the members pay for this $35 million tax cut without laying off teachers or any front-line staff or diminishing their unfilled positions. Instead, I propose that they pay for it by cutting Central Administration, the same Central Administration that failed so miserably to keep the books tight for who-knows-how-long and who also failed to tell the People’s elected representatives on the Board about it! (Though it must be admitted, the Board didn’t dig nearly deep enough here.)”

But a dearth of crucial central administration staff was cited by Martha Kreitzman, the MPS chief financial officer, as a contributor to the financial mismanagement, as Urban Milwaukee reported. “The challenge seemed impossible,” she said, “as we had essential position vacancies including the comptroller, the reporting manager… the budget director manager and coordinator.”

State law requires the MPS board to adopt a budget by the end of June.

The proposed MPS budget would cut nearly 300 full-time equivalent positions in the next school year. Almost half of the positions cut would be school support teachers. It is unclear how many of those positions are currently vacant.

School districts across Wisconsin are being squeezed by state-imposed revenue limits and rising costs. MPS’s issues have become particularly acute due to falling enrollment and aging facilities. The full $252 million is not to become available until the 2027-28 school year.

“The $140 million in extra revenue limit authority that will be delivered by the referendum in 2025 still leaves a budget gap for district leaders to fill, but options emerged to do so that largely spare classrooms from pain. For example, the budget adjusts to an historically tight labor market by shifting more teachers away from district-wide supportive functions and into classrooms, and by eliminating some positions that have been vacant for years and are now deemed unnecessary,” says a Wisconsin Policy Forum budget analysis.