School Operating Levy Increase

Why I am voting against the operating levy?

After the September 13th school board meeting, where the board approved the new teacher’s contract, I had sent emails to school board members Lisa Fobbe and Brenda Hoffman on September 14th asking what I considered to be an important question to me. I want to make sure the taxpayers money is being used wisely. A blank check is not the answer to all the problems in the schools.

In private industry the great majority of non-union employees are paid based on performance. I believe we should be demanding the same of our teachers. The State of Minnesota has approved a performance based pay system for teacher called QComp. To encourage school districts to adopt the performance based pay system the State of Minnesota has authorized an increase in per pupil spending of $260 for districts that implement QComp. This information comes from the MN Department of Education web site.

I am aware that the school board cannot implement this without the approval of the teacher unions. I would like to know that the school board is at the minimum pressuring the teachers unions accept the performance based pay system. This was the subject of my emails to school board members Lisa Fobbe and Brenda Hoffman. I was trying to find out if the newly approved teacher contract included QComp. I must assume that my emails were ignored by both Lisa Fobbe and Brenda Hoffman as of today I still have no reply.

The levy increase would increase per pupil spending by $325 per pupil. Now if QComp was not implemented in the new teachers contract and not pushed for in the recent negotiations then the school board just threw away $260 per pupil of funding and is asking the taxpayers to make this up. My numbers indicate that $325 minus $260 equals a $65 per pupil shortfall. Now I would vote for a levy increase that would result in $65 per pupil increase in funding. My thinking may be wrong but I attempted to get answers from the school board prior to writing this letter but was not provided with any response. At the present time my vote will be no.