Monday, September 24, 2007

Germantown Secedes

Good.

The Germantown School Board voted 7-0 tonight to seek to remove the school district from the Milwaukee Area Technical College District.

The decision to file a secession petition has rarely been done in Wisconsin. The school board wants to affiliate with the Waukesha County Technical College District, which has a lower property tax rate than MATC.

A petition would have to be approved by the state technical college board. The Germantown board hopes to draft a petition by Nov. 12.

(9) Comments
Posted by Owen at 2118 hrs
Politics + Politics - Wisconsin

  1. Won’t this result in a lot of duplication of services?

    Posted by scott on September 24, 2007 at 2335 hrs


  2. No.  Germantown is affliated and pays taxes to support MATC.  Germantown is just petitioning to be affliated with a different tech school, one that already exists.  There are no new services that would be created by this.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 25, 2007 at 0809 hrs


  3. Actually it probably will increase the cost ot the taxpayers that pay for Moraine Park.  It stands to reason that now that more students will be going to Moraine park it will require more facilities and staff to meet the need of the increased student population.  Of course it could be that they can be accomadated by the current set up.  It could also be that they will only need more sections of class and thus more teachers.  Does anyone know how many students that Germantown sends to Tech school every year?

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 25, 2007 at 1003 hrs


  4. RE: Germantown residents & where they attend tech school

    http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=638489

    In 2005-‘06, the figures show, 193 Germantown residents attended Waukesha County Technical College. Meanwhile, 156 Germantown residents attended MATC and 99 attended Moraine Park.

    About 53% attended MATC, the other 47% did not attend MATC.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 25, 2007 at 1029 hrs


  5. What is bizzare about this method of funding is, there is no correlation between services received by the constituents of a particular municipality vs. what they pay for.  A student from Germantown (or West Bend or Waukesha) is able to choose whatever school they want (choice is based on programs they need & location of that program).  It is probably to MATCs benefit if students choose other campuses - they get the revenue but don’t have to provide anything for it.  The losers would be the campuses that gain more students from areas outside of their taxing jurisdiction than they lose to other schools.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 25, 2007 at 1038 hrs


  6. Well the other really bizzare part of the funding is that we don’t get to elect anyone on the boards.  MATC just increased its tax levy again.  One of the big items was an expansion of the health insurance to cover domestic partners.  Without regard to whether a domestic partner should or should not get insurance coverage, I have a problem with unelected officals increasing my taxes to expand gov’t paid for health insurance.  They should be looking to cut benefits (if possible) not expand them.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 25, 2007 at 1249 hrs


  7. I agree, Joe, to an extent—but we don’t elect UW Regents, either.  Yet tech school teachers statewide average higher pay than UW profs.  And nowhere more than at MATC vs. UWM, so local anger here like Germantown’s is understandable.

    But with those disparities, despite similarly unelected boards, it may not be enough of an answer.  What the answer is, I don’t know—or what the answers are, as probably several factors have to change, and yours may be a start.  Maybe tech schools statewide also, like the UW, ought to have legislative oversight on matters like benefits?  (As just this benefit was, of course, quite the issue with the UW, which didn’t get domestic partner benefits.)

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 26, 2007 at 1125 hrs


  8. Tax me,

    Wouldn’t the tax dollars follow the students?  meaning the germantown area would then be under the taxing authority of Moraine Park.  I’m asking because I don’t know for sure.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 26, 2007 at 1644 hrs


  9. I can’t pretend to possess extraordinary information about our technical school system - when this issue first came up, I tried to find info on admissions policies at their websites, and came up with nothing that indicates that the geographical location of the student has any impact.  It appears that different systems (16 in WI) have various campuses (for instance, MPTC has 3 - West Bend, Beaver Dam, & Fon du Lac), and no two campuses necessarily have the same programs.  I think each board determines what classes are needed to meet the needs of their local employers.  Student selection of what campus to attend would be driven 1st by the degree they are seeking & where that course is offered.  For someone in Germantown, it might make more sense to take a class at Waukesha if the MPTC class that they need is offered only at Fon du Lac, for instance.

    That being said, and this is speculation on my part, I don’t see that it makes any difference to the individual school where the student came from - I think they serve all comers, and charge it to the tax levy.  Here is some info on their revenues:

    Financial Facts:  Moraine Park’s 2005-06 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report

    Funding Sources

    53 percent local property taxes (1.5 mil levy limit per statutes)
    10 percent state aid (aid distribution formula plus incentive grants and student financial aid)
    12 percent student tuition (estimated $1,650 per year for full-time students)
    7 percent institutional (contracts, interest income, auxiliary services)
    11 percent federal aid (grant awards and federal student financial aid)
    7 percent debt proceeds

    I think the question as to if the tax dollars follow the students would be “no”, but if someone knows better, please chime in.  What I am finding frustrating is that I can’t even access this kind of information, but I’ll keep trying.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 26, 2007 at 2015 hrs


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