South Dakota Voices Response: Cassandra, thank you for sharing this information. Yes, things appear to be completely out of control. We are hearing about millions/hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent for prison studies, salary studies, building studies.... You name it, it is being studied with our tax dollars. These "studies" are happening at the state, county, city, and school district levels. Honestly, that just sounds like a handout to a consultant. Either you need a building or you don't. None of it makes much sense to the people who work in the real world.
Email comment from CS: "ANOTHER GREAT article!! I will tell you, my friends are/have been janitors in small town SD school districts. The amount of QUALITY curriculum and school things thrown out every day astound my friends. I also have several teacher friends who SPEND like crazy at the end of EVERY year - "it's our budget, if we do not spend it we will not get it next year" - so they buy stuff they may or may not use - insane stuff just to spend that budget. Blows my mind.
Mr. Pay, we really appreciate your input, but everything seems to be about more and more money (unwillingness to cut your budget in any meaningful way). People are being crushed and can't afford the more and more money (check out the graphs and the posts about real inflation). The point of the article was to talk about some possible cost drivers and open the floor to discussion. If you don't like what is being suggested, how specifically would you suggest we cut the education budget? It's over $1.6 billion per year, many of our kids are below grade level and we have way too many people in prison (education system is failing them). Please don't suggest a couple million here or there, but a significant amount (like $160 million or more, that's around 10%). Saying continue spending and being negative about almost every suggestion doesn't seem like a reasonable option when people are seeing a 1% standard of living drop per year.
As we have discussed, you continually misrepresent the "below grade level" statistic you and many others manufacture out of the NAEP data base. NAEP itself disavows using their statistics in the way you use them. It's time you dropped that false claiim.
You know, you are correct. Some people are being crushed by South Dakota's unfair taxing system. I notice you suggest increasing outlays by companies who employ what you call "foreign workers," so you are willing make other people pay for education. While that would be unworkable, there are other ways to make the tax system fair. Because South Dakota does not have an income tax as part of their taxing system, the poor and middle class get to pay more than their fair share toward education and every thing else government does. The wealthier folks and the big corporations, however, are not being crushed. Rather than make the rich pay their fair share, you seem to want to take it out of the hides of school children. If South Dakota had an income tax on high incomes, you could meet educational needs while giving the middle class and the lower class a tax cut.
I appreciate you trying to open the door to discussion of these issues, but it seems you have no real answers on what to do. That is why you have to ask me for answers. One problem is you have no idea of the history of how we got to where we are now. The state's education funding formula was changed in the 1990s supposedly to solve this issue by capping yearly increases in property taxes and state aid was increased slightly to In doing that they never considered what an education should consist of ten, twenty or thirty years, let alone even three years out. In fact the funding formula is more of a property tax relief system than means to fund schools, because the Legislature never addressed issue of what a K-12 education should be. And you have to understand that after that funding formula was passed, schools faced the added costs of new computer technologies. As a result schools have cut and cut and cut over the last thirty years and finally, they had to go to opt outs to prevent sinking into a third world education system.
This is not just a problem in South Dakota. States that adopted similar tax limiting measures through K-12 funding in the 1990s (Oregon and Wisconsin) ran into the same issues beginning in the 2000, exactly when South Dakota did.
Are there little pots of money in school budgets that can be found and cut? Probably. I'd have to see detailed annual budgets, and how that matches with yearly outlays. Some pots of money gets budgeted every year and never gets used. You can cut those.
For bigger cuts you have to close smaller older schools and build larger schools. That allows for cutting staff as well as more energy efficiency. The cons of doing this is loss of neighborhood schools. I preferred this approach to cutting programs.
Thank you for the concrete suggestion. This solution requires building which costs a lot of money. Is there something else that might work that does not require expenditures? I am not understanding your point about budget cuts. The budget has been going up year after year. At this point the spending is beyond what anyone can afford. My solution was to cut the cost drivers (or have those responsible pay for them). If you don't want to get the cost drivers under control and we don't have money to support the current spending what do you suggest specifically? California has a super high income tax and they are failing too, so that doesn't appear to be a solution either.
Sometimes it costs money to save money. If you want to save on your water heating bill over time, you purchase an energy efficient water heater to replace the old one.
Budgets go up because costs go up. Things are not static. After thirty years of the current school funding system, schools ain't overspending, I can guarantee that. Most of the waste, and there was some, was wrung out of the schools by the early 2000s. From that point on its been pretty bare bones. Here are the cuts made in Rapid City in the late 1990s to 2001 that I can remember: Closing 4 small schools to build two larger, more efficient schools with reduced staffing.
Cut public/media staff, Cut high school councilors (this was a bad idea).
Turned shop (expensive) into tech education (less expensive and attracted more students)
Cut a foreign language class.
Took over the bus transportation system to not pay extra money to a private company (technically not a cut, but it did save money).
Closed campus for lunch to reduce skipping school and added costs associated with students dropping out.
Cored courses to make it more likely students wouldn't have to repeat classes, which costs money.
Contracted with an energy expert to reduce energy costs.
Instead of having a grant writer on staff, we contracted with a grant writer who received payment if we got the grant.
Combined several highly paid administrative positions cutting at least 2 positions.
Cut assistant principals
These cuts were all done in the late 1990s, to early 2000s, at which point it was all bare-bones.
The goal was to keep cuts away from programs that served kids. And, we did a pretty good job at that.
Thank you for your work to cut costs. The problem is we are spending over $1.6 billion a year and while we would love to keep everything intact we can't afford to keep spending (we are seeing a 1% reduction in standard of living each year and 68% of the population is living paycheck to paycheck). We are going to have to cut large amounts. That's why we have been looking at cost drivers, because removing the drivers (or getting the group that is creating the issue to cover the costs) generates large savings. For example, getting the companies to cover the extra cost of educating children of foreign workers would reduce costs substantially. In Sioux Falls alone this is about 12% of the students. The extra cost to educate a non-English speaker (usually well below grade level) is about $7000 per year per student. Making companies cover this extra cost would reduce the taxpayer load by about $20.3 million (around 5% of the budget). Also, it removes the economic abnormalities and should stabilize the economy. Perhaps we could create a list of cost drivers and figure out how to eliminate them.
Yeah, well, you aren't being at all realistic. Every student is a cost driver, if that's how you want to look at it. I think it's a sickening way to look at kids. But let's do it. Kids who excel often cost more, because they are in lots of extra curricular activities and taking more classes and more advanced classes that have labs, which are more expensive.. Should we make their parents pay more because they have bright kids who are interested in a lot of thing? Bright kids take AP classes, which require more expenses. Then, of course, there are students in special education, who may require extra tutoring, and special classes. Should we just kick them to the curb because they are a "cost driver."
One of the special things about public schools is they take every student who comes through the door and seeks to give that student the best education we can.. We don't single out some students for abuse, like you do, just because they are on their way to learning English. My grandparents had to learn English and I bet your ancestors did, too. I'm sure they were a cost driver, too, for a few years. But they learned English and they were successful farmers.
The truth is people understand they can't afford NOT to spend money on education. The cost to not spend money on education is much worse for society. and for children.
You should know you are your own worst enemy on this. Your "foreign workers" nonsense marks you as a kook. You exaggerate to the point that no one takes you seriously. It's clear you have a lot of hate for "foreign workers." I'm wondering where that comes from. It's ugly and it taints your valid concerns about spending. But, your arguments show you are a dilettante who doesn't know her stuff. I have to warn you that you are making a fool of yourself.
My suggestion is to take the time to actually learn about schools and the budget. You seem vastly ignorant on the subject, but you seem capable of doing the real work of finding legitimate cuts. And, please, lose the hate. It ain't pretty.
It appears that my experience with education (I worked in the field from 2004-2018) was very different than yours. I am not trying to be disrespectful, but it seems that you live in a very different world to most of us. We didn't have the luxury of building wealth and buying our first home when inflation wasn't out of control. Also, based on when you began working, the radical standard of living drop hasn't impacted you the way it has the rest of us. The $7000 per child of a foreign worker is the incremental amount above normal, not the baseline cost. We are just asking the company to pay the incremental cost, not transfer it to everyone else. I am not sure why this is unreasonable. About schooling - it was not handled the same way when your grandparents came here as it is now. It was a relatively inexpensive thing - one room schoolhouses, no elaborate classrooms, no fancy gyms, and no stadiums. There were some extra-curricular activities (not very many), but everyone had to pay. There were just basic subjects, no fluff. It's as if we want Lamborghinis, but we can only afford a Fiats.
If you think our taxes are expensive now wait until we lose much of our federal tax supports. I think everyone wants to streamline government and cut some things but like was said earlier, not everyone agrees on what priorities should be.
Sadly, the reality is we can't afford it. It isn't the 1960s or 1970s anymore. The federal carrots are just a way to lure people into more and more spending. We are going to have to cut because people literally can't afford any more.
That is simply false. The title programs go to schools with the neediest students, whether that be on the basis of family income, disability, incarceration. English proficiency, etc. They also provide for teacher advancement and improvement. Cutting those will have a devastating effect on the most vulnerable students.
Regarding the schools, the problem really is that the state K-12 funding formula is not based on educational needs. When it was developed in the mid-1990s the formula was designed as a property tax limiting measure, and did not address the educational needs of students. There was zero discussion about what was needed to address educational needs. The state's schools have been limping along with a funding formula that underfunds districts for decades. In order to allow districts a limited ability to address needs that the state deliberately underfunds, the state law allows districts to make small adjustments in their revenue stream by "opting out."
The Sioux Falls District has done this for a number of years on a year-by-year basis. The opt out they are proposing is not really a new tax but a continuation of a small opt out that state law allows districts to do.
The opt out amount is trivial, but the budget is not ($390 million a year -- they get about $159 million from property taxes) . Honestly, the people are ticked that the school district has 390 million and can't cut 2 million. Everyone knows they could easily cut that amount without blinking an eye. Given the financial pressure people are under 390 million is unreasonable, the schools need to be a lot more efficient (and that isn't related to a funding formula). Granted every company who brings in a foreign worker should have to pay all the extra costs for the children of those workers. Transferring those costs to taxpayer is 100% unreasonable. Then we should spread out prison reentry so we aren't overloading a school system in one area with kids of prisoners. While it might have been nice to expect the taxpayer to cover all these costs years ago, with the rapid standard of living drop it isn't possible.
First, the cuts you wanted and more were already made. The Sioux Falls cut $3 million. That's more than you suggested.
Second, it's federal law that English learners be educated, and the federal government provides funding for ESL and similar programs. The companies you are referring to pay federal, state and local taxes and fees, and some of that money goes to the local school district to educate those kids.
South Dakota has had English learners since Territorial days. They used to have schools that taught in German only. It's part of South Dakota culture and custom to teach English to the new arrivals.
What is the student count in Sioux Falls from prisoners families? You talk a lot about this, but you have no data to back it up. The argument you make is actually works against your push for rural prisons. If Sioux Falls can't handle the few students from prison families, how is Pukwana going to? Anyway, the state already pays for those students through the state aid education formula. Where's the beef? I have no problem with spreading the prison out. It will probably cost more money to do that, and you will bitch about that, too, won't you?
Sigh.... It's a $390 million dollar budget. $2 million is around 1/2%. Any business person could have made the necessary cuts. When you are fighting over 1/2% that normally shows one of two things, a management problem or an attitude problem. Families are seeing a 1% standard of living drop per year, so they are having to cut more than the school district is willing to do. That seems pretty unreasonable. And by increasing a tax a family is now seeing an even bigger hit. What the article is suggesting, if there is a problem that is really impacting your budget discuss it openly so we can working on fixing it. Don't just keep saying you need more and more money. That's not sustainable.
Districts are required to discuss their budget openly. Now we know why your claims about the district's budget are so off-base: you didn't do your homework!
That's a rather condescending comment. I reviewed the entire Sioux Falls budget, line by line and have looked at other budgets around the state in the cursory way. Have you reviewed these budgets? If so, perhaps you could explain your comment and specifically where I am off base.
Nobody likes to pay taxes, me included. But we need things that government supplies. The things you want to cut out of the budget someone else thinks it is the most important thing. The taxes in SD are not high by comparable standards but are not very fair. Sales tax, especially when food is included, is the most regressive tax I can think of. Property tax is somewhat regressive, especially for renters. Those are the two major revenue generators in SD. Income tax is way less regressive , and inheritance tax not very regressive at all. SD does not have either. I venture to say the reason we don’t have those is because people with resources to have good lobbyists, pay the highest percentage of those taxes.
I agree that the tax system in SD is very regressive. I doubt that it will ever change because those folks that have the money don’t want to pay their fair share. Instead, they buy off the citizens by “donating” monies to build facilities like the Premier Center in Sioux Falls or the Sanford Sports Complex that our tax dollars are then required to support. Nice facilities but still a drain on resources.
I know the cost to operate Sanford Complex is an expense to the city, but supporters of the complex will argue the sales tax from tickets, extra businesses that sell to people coming to events will more than cover the cost of maintenance. I don’t know if that is accurate but like I say what I want to cut will be counter argued by a supporter. As years ago a boss told me “nobody asks for money for a bad cause”. All the causes need to be balanced.
The big issue would be what private business is impacted by what is happening at the Sanford Complex. If Denny wants to completely run the facility that is fine, but asking the taxpayer to fund activities that might put them under business pressure seems a bit unreasonable.
The issues with taxes are a symptom, not the problem - the problem is the attitude of the currently elected officials. As SD is where it is today, this is going to take effort and time to correct -BY THE PEOPLE OF SD, not by the politicians. Metaphorically speaking, asking politicians to correct themselves is akin to asking a truck to stop barreling down the highway uncontrollably - the driver (the people of SD) has to either go along for the ride (which it appears the people SD as a collective have been doing for far too long) or throw the truck (the politicians) into neutral and either hit the brakes or start downshifting like crazy.
Michael G Trier is half-right - politicians riding off of their power and forgetting they are beholding to their constituents need a nasty reminder. That includes the politicians who are in charge.
Thinking it is up to the politicians to make a change is a fool's errand - the last 20+ years have been more than enough to prove that on all levels of jurisdictions (federal, state, local) - and not what our Founding Fathers had in mind in drafting our Constitution - the government is supposed to be limited in power. When that limitation has not been controlled by the people, well, need I say more?
The best thing the people of SD can do is go silent and take action - serious action. By going silent I mean not telling politicians what the people of SD are about to do. Full impeachment and removal, replacing those removed with those willing to abide by their oath. Sec of State Monae Johnson has the current oaths on record - if the oaths need to be revisited for the better, that is a separate matter for the moment but must be addressed soonest. Would not be surprised if 90% or more have not kept their oath of office.
What has been working are citizen journalists (CJs) making the call and leading the charge with their voices - and not just one. A meeting of the minds needs to be had - CJs and their subscribers to determine the best-suited replacements of those willing to serve. Others may have to be persuaded.
Either that, just go along for the ride while the politicians suck up even more power, drain the wallets of their constituents, and wonder why people are moving to other states.
I have to address this statement: "Some places are allowing students to meet art, music, and PE requirements through approved off campus options. This could reduce the number of kids in these classes."
The assumption is that reducing the number of kids in art, music and PE classes will decrease costs. That is not necessarily the case.
In Rapid City the administration wanted to cut the orchestra program as a cost saving measure. The problem was the following: high school orchestra had a lot of students. If you cut that program, those students would have to be served in other classes. To do that the district would have to actually have two classes to do that, which means you have to add an additional teacher and classroom. That costs money. It turned out that cutting orchestra didn't save any money. The money saved by the larger orchestra classes in middle and high school actually paid for the smaller orchestra classes in the elementary grades.
When you deal with cutting programs, you have to think about what you are cutting. You have to know if the actual cost of cutting programs is going to cost you more money. Are you actually saving money, or are you just having a temper tantrum about taxes and shooting yourself in the pocketbook.
The same can be said of a number of your solutions. The cost of cutting activities is a lot more students not having anything to do after school. They'll be roaming the streets, getting into mischief.
Here a little rule my mom had: "Look before you shit!" It can save you an uncomfortable trip to find a new roll of toilet paper.
It is also quite interesting that you find it challenging to discuss options on how we might be able to do things more efficiently (for less money) by using a different structure, fewer people, etc. Sometime change is good for everyone.
Have you ever participated in one of these programs? If designed correctly they are highly effective and reduce class load on campus (and are very simple to administer). It does not sound like like what you are describing is the same thing.
And why is it the government's job to worry about what children are doing after school? It is NOT. It is the parents job. I take my job seriously...yet I should pay taxes so that other parents can slack off on their job? No thanks.
The government is the electorate of the state and the local districts. If you want to end sports, you have every right to propose it to your representatives, or as a statewide initiative. As a former school board member I can tell you that the vast majority of parents want school activities, including sports, and the communities around South Dakota want school sports and other activities to remain. Sports and other activities are a South Dakota tradition.
Some might say you are slacking off in your role as a parent by not urging your kids to engage in extracurricular activities. I wouldn't shove them into anything, but if they have an interest in sports or music or debate or any of many other after school activities, they would be more than welcome. My daughter was not an athlete, but she had a competitive spirit that found a home in high school debate.
Not in South Dakota. The state Constitution prohibits it. You can be charged fees for laundry and other such costs and you likely have to pay for meals when on an overnight trip, but not for participation in extra curricular activities.
This seems like it would work - pay for the club/sport you are in. I've heard stories of football teams getting oodles of $$ while the soccer or ski team (which performed much better overall) had to raise it's own funds and barely got transportation to events (not in SD). But I'm sure the same thing happens here - one or two sports get the majority of the funds. And really, we can't expect the community to pay for every single possible sport/activity that every single child in the system wants to try out! So, let the parents keep more of their tax money, and then the parent can choose to pay for the extracurriculars that are deemed useful.
Students and parent booster clubs raise funds for various things, but not for the teachers/coaches who supervise the activities and most of the costs of the activities. The boosters help poorer families pay for any of the incidental costs. My daughter got some funding to attend her first summer debate camp from Knute Knudson, because I had not known about it and budgeted for it. My daughter and I were so thankful for Knute's donation to the debate program that was used by my daughter. It helped turn her into a champion debater.
My comment was in regards to your statement that "The cost of cutting activities is a lot more students not having anything to do after school. They'll be roaming the streets, getting into mischief." which implies that it is up to the school to provide something to insure that mischief doesn't happen.
What students do after instructional hours is not the concern of the education system. Public schools need to STOP pretending they are in charge. The parents are simply contracting with the government school to teach core subjects. This is not something that needs to take the majority of the day, and thus yes, parents will have to step up and handle their own children if there is not enough money leftover for extracurriculars.
Enriching activities do not need to happen at a school, nor do they need to be planned by a gov't entity and paid for by taxpayer dollars. You'd be surprised how innovative parents can be when they have no other choice...
Someone's got to do it, and I don't see you volunteering. The schools are traditional and convenient places for after school activities. The bell rings and you go down the hall to your activity, or outside onto the tennis courts. No need for a parent to skip work to take you someplace else, where you can pay a fee to play tennis. Start living in the real world. Kids are either going to do something wholesome with adult supervision, or they are going to be finding something else. And there is a lot of something else that ain't that good.
So you think kids will only engage in wholesome activities with adult supervision? Why? Are they not being raised to understand right vs wrong, and to use critical thinking to discern between the two? Are they not being held accountable for their own actions at a young age, so that they then are responsible when in middle/high school?
The discussion is (or was) about funding all these extra activities. But you prove my point: parents have handed off their responsibilities to the government, and now everyone is stuck paying for it (monetarily and culturally).
If a school district can fund extracurriculars within the given budget - that's fabulous! If not, well, welcome to that real world you spoke of, where people get to learn how to do without or find creative solutions. (both of which build character, require creative thinking, & likely call for teamwork as well - all those things that the extracurriculars are supposed to be providing, right?)
No, I think most kids know or can figure out what's right and what's wrong. It's just that what's wrong may be more fun in the moment, and kids tend to be more in the moment than we would like.
I had a friend in childhood who was a really dedicated Christian. He went to church all the time. He had pretty strict parents who held him accountable, that's for sure. He was a Baptist, and Baptists, of course, think you shouldn't have sex because it could lead to dancing. When he was 13 he got interested in seeing what was inside a Playboy magazine, besides the articles, of course. He didn't want to try to buy it at Lewis Drugs, because they had a sign saying you had to be older than he was to buy it. So, in the spur of the moment our friend, Pete, the Cheat, encouraged him to steal it. Well, we all knew it wasn't right. We didn't think he would do it,. He thought about it for about a nanosecond, walked up to the news stand, swiped it and walked out the door. That was sin number one. I guess when he got outside and safely away fromt he store, and knowing he was going to hell anyway, he opened up the magazine to the Centerfold. Coveting made sin number two.
South Dakota Voices Response: Cassandra, thank you for sharing this information. Yes, things appear to be completely out of control. We are hearing about millions/hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent for prison studies, salary studies, building studies.... You name it, it is being studied with our tax dollars. These "studies" are happening at the state, county, city, and school district levels. Honestly, that just sounds like a handout to a consultant. Either you need a building or you don't. None of it makes much sense to the people who work in the real world.
Email comment from CS: "ANOTHER GREAT article!! I will tell you, my friends are/have been janitors in small town SD school districts. The amount of QUALITY curriculum and school things thrown out every day astound my friends. I also have several teacher friends who SPEND like crazy at the end of EVERY year - "it's our budget, if we do not spend it we will not get it next year" - so they buy stuff they may or may not use - insane stuff just to spend that budget. Blows my mind.
Mr. Pay, we really appreciate your input, but everything seems to be about more and more money (unwillingness to cut your budget in any meaningful way). People are being crushed and can't afford the more and more money (check out the graphs and the posts about real inflation). The point of the article was to talk about some possible cost drivers and open the floor to discussion. If you don't like what is being suggested, how specifically would you suggest we cut the education budget? It's over $1.6 billion per year, many of our kids are below grade level and we have way too many people in prison (education system is failing them). Please don't suggest a couple million here or there, but a significant amount (like $160 million or more, that's around 10%). Saying continue spending and being negative about almost every suggestion doesn't seem like a reasonable option when people are seeing a 1% standard of living drop per year.
As we have discussed, you continually misrepresent the "below grade level" statistic you and many others manufacture out of the NAEP data base. NAEP itself disavows using their statistics in the way you use them. It's time you dropped that false claiim.
You know, you are correct. Some people are being crushed by South Dakota's unfair taxing system. I notice you suggest increasing outlays by companies who employ what you call "foreign workers," so you are willing make other people pay for education. While that would be unworkable, there are other ways to make the tax system fair. Because South Dakota does not have an income tax as part of their taxing system, the poor and middle class get to pay more than their fair share toward education and every thing else government does. The wealthier folks and the big corporations, however, are not being crushed. Rather than make the rich pay their fair share, you seem to want to take it out of the hides of school children. If South Dakota had an income tax on high incomes, you could meet educational needs while giving the middle class and the lower class a tax cut.
I appreciate you trying to open the door to discussion of these issues, but it seems you have no real answers on what to do. That is why you have to ask me for answers. One problem is you have no idea of the history of how we got to where we are now. The state's education funding formula was changed in the 1990s supposedly to solve this issue by capping yearly increases in property taxes and state aid was increased slightly to In doing that they never considered what an education should consist of ten, twenty or thirty years, let alone even three years out. In fact the funding formula is more of a property tax relief system than means to fund schools, because the Legislature never addressed issue of what a K-12 education should be. And you have to understand that after that funding formula was passed, schools faced the added costs of new computer technologies. As a result schools have cut and cut and cut over the last thirty years and finally, they had to go to opt outs to prevent sinking into a third world education system.
This is not just a problem in South Dakota. States that adopted similar tax limiting measures through K-12 funding in the 1990s (Oregon and Wisconsin) ran into the same issues beginning in the 2000, exactly when South Dakota did.
Are there little pots of money in school budgets that can be found and cut? Probably. I'd have to see detailed annual budgets, and how that matches with yearly outlays. Some pots of money gets budgeted every year and never gets used. You can cut those.
For bigger cuts you have to close smaller older schools and build larger schools. That allows for cutting staff as well as more energy efficiency. The cons of doing this is loss of neighborhood schools. I preferred this approach to cutting programs.
Thank you for the concrete suggestion. This solution requires building which costs a lot of money. Is there something else that might work that does not require expenditures? I am not understanding your point about budget cuts. The budget has been going up year after year. At this point the spending is beyond what anyone can afford. My solution was to cut the cost drivers (or have those responsible pay for them). If you don't want to get the cost drivers under control and we don't have money to support the current spending what do you suggest specifically? California has a super high income tax and they are failing too, so that doesn't appear to be a solution either.
Sometimes it costs money to save money. If you want to save on your water heating bill over time, you purchase an energy efficient water heater to replace the old one.
Budgets go up because costs go up. Things are not static. After thirty years of the current school funding system, schools ain't overspending, I can guarantee that. Most of the waste, and there was some, was wrung out of the schools by the early 2000s. From that point on its been pretty bare bones. Here are the cuts made in Rapid City in the late 1990s to 2001 that I can remember: Closing 4 small schools to build two larger, more efficient schools with reduced staffing.
Cut public/media staff, Cut high school councilors (this was a bad idea).
Turned shop (expensive) into tech education (less expensive and attracted more students)
Cut a foreign language class.
Took over the bus transportation system to not pay extra money to a private company (technically not a cut, but it did save money).
Closed campus for lunch to reduce skipping school and added costs associated with students dropping out.
Cored courses to make it more likely students wouldn't have to repeat classes, which costs money.
Contracted with an energy expert to reduce energy costs.
Instead of having a grant writer on staff, we contracted with a grant writer who received payment if we got the grant.
Combined several highly paid administrative positions cutting at least 2 positions.
Cut assistant principals
These cuts were all done in the late 1990s, to early 2000s, at which point it was all bare-bones.
The goal was to keep cuts away from programs that served kids. And, we did a pretty good job at that.
Thank you for your work to cut costs. The problem is we are spending over $1.6 billion a year and while we would love to keep everything intact we can't afford to keep spending (we are seeing a 1% reduction in standard of living each year and 68% of the population is living paycheck to paycheck). We are going to have to cut large amounts. That's why we have been looking at cost drivers, because removing the drivers (or getting the group that is creating the issue to cover the costs) generates large savings. For example, getting the companies to cover the extra cost of educating children of foreign workers would reduce costs substantially. In Sioux Falls alone this is about 12% of the students. The extra cost to educate a non-English speaker (usually well below grade level) is about $7000 per year per student. Making companies cover this extra cost would reduce the taxpayer load by about $20.3 million (around 5% of the budget). Also, it removes the economic abnormalities and should stabilize the economy. Perhaps we could create a list of cost drivers and figure out how to eliminate them.
Yeah, well, you aren't being at all realistic. Every student is a cost driver, if that's how you want to look at it. I think it's a sickening way to look at kids. But let's do it. Kids who excel often cost more, because they are in lots of extra curricular activities and taking more classes and more advanced classes that have labs, which are more expensive.. Should we make their parents pay more because they have bright kids who are interested in a lot of thing? Bright kids take AP classes, which require more expenses. Then, of course, there are students in special education, who may require extra tutoring, and special classes. Should we just kick them to the curb because they are a "cost driver."
One of the special things about public schools is they take every student who comes through the door and seeks to give that student the best education we can.. We don't single out some students for abuse, like you do, just because they are on their way to learning English. My grandparents had to learn English and I bet your ancestors did, too. I'm sure they were a cost driver, too, for a few years. But they learned English and they were successful farmers.
The truth is people understand they can't afford NOT to spend money on education. The cost to not spend money on education is much worse for society. and for children.
You should know you are your own worst enemy on this. Your "foreign workers" nonsense marks you as a kook. You exaggerate to the point that no one takes you seriously. It's clear you have a lot of hate for "foreign workers." I'm wondering where that comes from. It's ugly and it taints your valid concerns about spending. But, your arguments show you are a dilettante who doesn't know her stuff. I have to warn you that you are making a fool of yourself.
My suggestion is to take the time to actually learn about schools and the budget. You seem vastly ignorant on the subject, but you seem capable of doing the real work of finding legitimate cuts. And, please, lose the hate. It ain't pretty.
It appears that my experience with education (I worked in the field from 2004-2018) was very different than yours. I am not trying to be disrespectful, but it seems that you live in a very different world to most of us. We didn't have the luxury of building wealth and buying our first home when inflation wasn't out of control. Also, based on when you began working, the radical standard of living drop hasn't impacted you the way it has the rest of us. The $7000 per child of a foreign worker is the incremental amount above normal, not the baseline cost. We are just asking the company to pay the incremental cost, not transfer it to everyone else. I am not sure why this is unreasonable. About schooling - it was not handled the same way when your grandparents came here as it is now. It was a relatively inexpensive thing - one room schoolhouses, no elaborate classrooms, no fancy gyms, and no stadiums. There were some extra-curricular activities (not very many), but everyone had to pay. There were just basic subjects, no fluff. It's as if we want Lamborghinis, but we can only afford a Fiats.
If you think our taxes are expensive now wait until we lose much of our federal tax supports. I think everyone wants to streamline government and cut some things but like was said earlier, not everyone agrees on what priorities should be.
Sadly, the reality is we can't afford it. It isn't the 1960s or 1970s anymore. The federal carrots are just a way to lure people into more and more spending. We are going to have to cut because people literally can't afford any more.
That is simply false. The title programs go to schools with the neediest students, whether that be on the basis of family income, disability, incarceration. English proficiency, etc. They also provide for teacher advancement and improvement. Cutting those will have a devastating effect on the most vulnerable students.
Regarding the schools, the problem really is that the state K-12 funding formula is not based on educational needs. When it was developed in the mid-1990s the formula was designed as a property tax limiting measure, and did not address the educational needs of students. There was zero discussion about what was needed to address educational needs. The state's schools have been limping along with a funding formula that underfunds districts for decades. In order to allow districts a limited ability to address needs that the state deliberately underfunds, the state law allows districts to make small adjustments in their revenue stream by "opting out."
The Sioux Falls District has done this for a number of years on a year-by-year basis. The opt out they are proposing is not really a new tax but a continuation of a small opt out that state law allows districts to do.
The opt out amount is trivial, but the budget is not ($390 million a year -- they get about $159 million from property taxes) . Honestly, the people are ticked that the school district has 390 million and can't cut 2 million. Everyone knows they could easily cut that amount without blinking an eye. Given the financial pressure people are under 390 million is unreasonable, the schools need to be a lot more efficient (and that isn't related to a funding formula). Granted every company who brings in a foreign worker should have to pay all the extra costs for the children of those workers. Transferring those costs to taxpayer is 100% unreasonable. Then we should spread out prison reentry so we aren't overloading a school system in one area with kids of prisoners. While it might have been nice to expect the taxpayer to cover all these costs years ago, with the rapid standard of living drop it isn't possible.
First, the cuts you wanted and more were already made. The Sioux Falls cut $3 million. That's more than you suggested.
Second, it's federal law that English learners be educated, and the federal government provides funding for ESL and similar programs. The companies you are referring to pay federal, state and local taxes and fees, and some of that money goes to the local school district to educate those kids.
South Dakota has had English learners since Territorial days. They used to have schools that taught in German only. It's part of South Dakota culture and custom to teach English to the new arrivals.
What is the student count in Sioux Falls from prisoners families? You talk a lot about this, but you have no data to back it up. The argument you make is actually works against your push for rural prisons. If Sioux Falls can't handle the few students from prison families, how is Pukwana going to? Anyway, the state already pays for those students through the state aid education formula. Where's the beef? I have no problem with spreading the prison out. It will probably cost more money to do that, and you will bitch about that, too, won't you?
Sigh.... It's a $390 million dollar budget. $2 million is around 1/2%. Any business person could have made the necessary cuts. When you are fighting over 1/2% that normally shows one of two things, a management problem or an attitude problem. Families are seeing a 1% standard of living drop per year, so they are having to cut more than the school district is willing to do. That seems pretty unreasonable. And by increasing a tax a family is now seeing an even bigger hit. What the article is suggesting, if there is a problem that is really impacting your budget discuss it openly so we can working on fixing it. Don't just keep saying you need more and more money. That's not sustainable.
Districts are required to discuss their budget openly. Now we know why your claims about the district's budget are so off-base: you didn't do your homework!
That's a rather condescending comment. I reviewed the entire Sioux Falls budget, line by line and have looked at other budgets around the state in the cursory way. Have you reviewed these budgets? If so, perhaps you could explain your comment and specifically where I am off base.
Nobody likes to pay taxes, me included. But we need things that government supplies. The things you want to cut out of the budget someone else thinks it is the most important thing. The taxes in SD are not high by comparable standards but are not very fair. Sales tax, especially when food is included, is the most regressive tax I can think of. Property tax is somewhat regressive, especially for renters. Those are the two major revenue generators in SD. Income tax is way less regressive , and inheritance tax not very regressive at all. SD does not have either. I venture to say the reason we don’t have those is because people with resources to have good lobbyists, pay the highest percentage of those taxes.
I agree that the tax system in SD is very regressive. I doubt that it will ever change because those folks that have the money don’t want to pay their fair share. Instead, they buy off the citizens by “donating” monies to build facilities like the Premier Center in Sioux Falls or the Sanford Sports Complex that our tax dollars are then required to support. Nice facilities but still a drain on resources.
I know the cost to operate Sanford Complex is an expense to the city, but supporters of the complex will argue the sales tax from tickets, extra businesses that sell to people coming to events will more than cover the cost of maintenance. I don’t know if that is accurate but like I say what I want to cut will be counter argued by a supporter. As years ago a boss told me “nobody asks for money for a bad cause”. All the causes need to be balanced.
The big issue would be what private business is impacted by what is happening at the Sanford Complex. If Denny wants to completely run the facility that is fine, but asking the taxpayer to fund activities that might put them under business pressure seems a bit unreasonable.
Nothing will change unless the people in charge are changed. The ones in charge are doing the best they can, but it's not good enough.
Have you checked out how the elections are held? Maybe that is why the same types of people are elected time and time again.
The issues with taxes are a symptom, not the problem - the problem is the attitude of the currently elected officials. As SD is where it is today, this is going to take effort and time to correct -BY THE PEOPLE OF SD, not by the politicians. Metaphorically speaking, asking politicians to correct themselves is akin to asking a truck to stop barreling down the highway uncontrollably - the driver (the people of SD) has to either go along for the ride (which it appears the people SD as a collective have been doing for far too long) or throw the truck (the politicians) into neutral and either hit the brakes or start downshifting like crazy.
Michael G Trier is half-right - politicians riding off of their power and forgetting they are beholding to their constituents need a nasty reminder. That includes the politicians who are in charge.
Thinking it is up to the politicians to make a change is a fool's errand - the last 20+ years have been more than enough to prove that on all levels of jurisdictions (federal, state, local) - and not what our Founding Fathers had in mind in drafting our Constitution - the government is supposed to be limited in power. When that limitation has not been controlled by the people, well, need I say more?
The best thing the people of SD can do is go silent and take action - serious action. By going silent I mean not telling politicians what the people of SD are about to do. Full impeachment and removal, replacing those removed with those willing to abide by their oath. Sec of State Monae Johnson has the current oaths on record - if the oaths need to be revisited for the better, that is a separate matter for the moment but must be addressed soonest. Would not be surprised if 90% or more have not kept their oath of office.
What has been working are citizen journalists (CJs) making the call and leading the charge with their voices - and not just one. A meeting of the minds needs to be had - CJs and their subscribers to determine the best-suited replacements of those willing to serve. Others may have to be persuaded.
Either that, just go along for the ride while the politicians suck up even more power, drain the wallets of their constituents, and wonder why people are moving to other states.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the disconnect between politicians and government bureaucrats and those paying the salaries.
Somehow Donald Pay is being paid - no pun intended - by the corrupt education lobby.
Not a penny
I have to address this statement: "Some places are allowing students to meet art, music, and PE requirements through approved off campus options. This could reduce the number of kids in these classes."
The assumption is that reducing the number of kids in art, music and PE classes will decrease costs. That is not necessarily the case.
In Rapid City the administration wanted to cut the orchestra program as a cost saving measure. The problem was the following: high school orchestra had a lot of students. If you cut that program, those students would have to be served in other classes. To do that the district would have to actually have two classes to do that, which means you have to add an additional teacher and classroom. That costs money. It turned out that cutting orchestra didn't save any money. The money saved by the larger orchestra classes in middle and high school actually paid for the smaller orchestra classes in the elementary grades.
When you deal with cutting programs, you have to think about what you are cutting. You have to know if the actual cost of cutting programs is going to cost you more money. Are you actually saving money, or are you just having a temper tantrum about taxes and shooting yourself in the pocketbook.
The same can be said of a number of your solutions. The cost of cutting activities is a lot more students not having anything to do after school. They'll be roaming the streets, getting into mischief.
Here a little rule my mom had: "Look before you shit!" It can save you an uncomfortable trip to find a new roll of toilet paper.
It is also quite interesting that you find it challenging to discuss options on how we might be able to do things more efficiently (for less money) by using a different structure, fewer people, etc. Sometime change is good for everyone.
I have no problem discussing options on doing things more efficiently, but so far I have heard none from you.
Have you ever participated in one of these programs? If designed correctly they are highly effective and reduce class load on campus (and are very simple to administer). It does not sound like like what you are describing is the same thing.
And why is it the government's job to worry about what children are doing after school? It is NOT. It is the parents job. I take my job seriously...yet I should pay taxes so that other parents can slack off on their job? No thanks.
The government is the electorate of the state and the local districts. If you want to end sports, you have every right to propose it to your representatives, or as a statewide initiative. As a former school board member I can tell you that the vast majority of parents want school activities, including sports, and the communities around South Dakota want school sports and other activities to remain. Sports and other activities are a South Dakota tradition.
Some might say you are slacking off in your role as a parent by not urging your kids to engage in extracurricular activities. I wouldn't shove them into anything, but if they have an interest in sports or music or debate or any of many other after school activities, they would be more than welcome. My daughter was not an athlete, but she had a competitive spirit that found a home in high school debate.
It used to be that you paid for extra curricular activities. Why has that changed?
Not in South Dakota. The state Constitution prohibits it. You can be charged fees for laundry and other such costs and you likely have to pay for meals when on an overnight trip, but not for participation in extra curricular activities.
This seems like it would work - pay for the club/sport you are in. I've heard stories of football teams getting oodles of $$ while the soccer or ski team (which performed much better overall) had to raise it's own funds and barely got transportation to events (not in SD). But I'm sure the same thing happens here - one or two sports get the majority of the funds. And really, we can't expect the community to pay for every single possible sport/activity that every single child in the system wants to try out! So, let the parents keep more of their tax money, and then the parent can choose to pay for the extracurriculars that are deemed useful.
Students and parent booster clubs raise funds for various things, but not for the teachers/coaches who supervise the activities and most of the costs of the activities. The boosters help poorer families pay for any of the incidental costs. My daughter got some funding to attend her first summer debate camp from Knute Knudson, because I had not known about it and budgeted for it. My daughter and I were so thankful for Knute's donation to the debate program that was used by my daughter. It helped turn her into a champion debater.
My comment was in regards to your statement that "The cost of cutting activities is a lot more students not having anything to do after school. They'll be roaming the streets, getting into mischief." which implies that it is up to the school to provide something to insure that mischief doesn't happen.
What students do after instructional hours is not the concern of the education system. Public schools need to STOP pretending they are in charge. The parents are simply contracting with the government school to teach core subjects. This is not something that needs to take the majority of the day, and thus yes, parents will have to step up and handle their own children if there is not enough money leftover for extracurriculars.
Enriching activities do not need to happen at a school, nor do they need to be planned by a gov't entity and paid for by taxpayer dollars. You'd be surprised how innovative parents can be when they have no other choice...
Someone's got to do it, and I don't see you volunteering. The schools are traditional and convenient places for after school activities. The bell rings and you go down the hall to your activity, or outside onto the tennis courts. No need for a parent to skip work to take you someplace else, where you can pay a fee to play tennis. Start living in the real world. Kids are either going to do something wholesome with adult supervision, or they are going to be finding something else. And there is a lot of something else that ain't that good.
So you think kids will only engage in wholesome activities with adult supervision? Why? Are they not being raised to understand right vs wrong, and to use critical thinking to discern between the two? Are they not being held accountable for their own actions at a young age, so that they then are responsible when in middle/high school?
The discussion is (or was) about funding all these extra activities. But you prove my point: parents have handed off their responsibilities to the government, and now everyone is stuck paying for it (monetarily and culturally).
If a school district can fund extracurriculars within the given budget - that's fabulous! If not, well, welcome to that real world you spoke of, where people get to learn how to do without or find creative solutions. (both of which build character, require creative thinking, & likely call for teamwork as well - all those things that the extracurriculars are supposed to be providing, right?)
No, I think most kids know or can figure out what's right and what's wrong. It's just that what's wrong may be more fun in the moment, and kids tend to be more in the moment than we would like.
I had a friend in childhood who was a really dedicated Christian. He went to church all the time. He had pretty strict parents who held him accountable, that's for sure. He was a Baptist, and Baptists, of course, think you shouldn't have sex because it could lead to dancing. When he was 13 he got interested in seeing what was inside a Playboy magazine, besides the articles, of course. He didn't want to try to buy it at Lewis Drugs, because they had a sign saying you had to be older than he was to buy it. So, in the spur of the moment our friend, Pete, the Cheat, encouraged him to steal it. Well, we all knew it wasn't right. We didn't think he would do it,. He thought about it for about a nanosecond, walked up to the news stand, swiped it and walked out the door. That was sin number one. I guess when he got outside and safely away fromt he store, and knowing he was going to hell anyway, he opened up the magazine to the Centerfold. Coveting made sin number two.