Madison school district administrators have proposed a budget cut that would hurt students in an Operation Fresh Start program that helps them graduate and train for jobs, the organization's leader says.
The proposed cut is an early sign of the potential tumult ahead in the district's 2023-24 budget, with more staffing cuts expected amid a difficult budget year. District officials already told the School Board earlier this month they cut more than 22 positions from central office administration, but school-level cuts have not been made public yet.
The Operation Fresh Start Legacy program helps people ages 16-24 to earn their high school diploma and a driver’s license while they get work experience by improving parks or building affordable housing in the area. The Madison Metropolitan School District pays for half of a full-time equivalent position for a teacher to work with students toward graduation, with Fresh Start covering the other half.
In the district’s 2023-24 budget, though, administrators will reportedly recommend moving the half-time staff position elsewhere in the district, in what’s known as “surplussing” a position. That will leave students in the program with about half a day less of one of their teachers.
“If this position is surplussed, MMSD will not be fulfilling its role in instruction and oversight of student progress toward graduation,” Operation Fresh Start Executive Director Greg Markle wrote in a letter sent Tuesday to the Madison School Board and Superintendent Carlton Jenkins.
In an interview, Markle told the Cap Times that Fresh Start's partnership with MMSD is “very important” and that many people at the district work well with the group “with the interests of the young person at heart.”
“This, from our perspective, isn’t keeping with that philosophy of how the partnership has been built,” he said. “I don’t think the partnership is going away, (but) this important part of it seems to be going away.”
The Legacy program enrolls about 45 students each year, Markle said. Fresh Start has three teachers total, with two others that it funds itself and the position that it splits with the district.
“It’s all tightly wrapped programming between Fresh Start and MMSD and it works very well,” Markle said. “We’d love to maintain that relationship as it has been working.”
MMSD is facing a difficult budget year as enrollment continues to decline, uncertainty surrounds the state budget and the district approaches the end of federal COVID-19 relief funding. The state has also not provided an increase in the per-student revenue limit over the past two years, which school district leaders around Wisconsin have said created an extremely difficult situation.
The administration will present its recommended budget to the School Board in late April, with a board vote expected at the end of June to approve a preliminary budget. The board will vote on a final budget in October after enrollment counts are finalized.
District spokesperson Tim LeMonds on Tuesday confirmed the administration’s recommendation to eliminate the part-time position.
LeMonds wrote in an email that the district’s work with Fresh Start is considered a “paid program,” rather than a partnership, as the district pays up to $6,831 per student enrolled in the program depending on how many hours they participate. For other paid programs such as the Omega School, Horizon High School and Madison College HSED, LeMonds said, the district does not provide staffing.
“The shift in Operation Fresh Start (OFS) is an unfortunate example of how the lack of state funding is forcing school districts to choose between what is right and what is right,” LeMonds wrote. “OFS is a paid program, and as the district works through the process of strategic budgetary realignment, we are also ensuring consistency in how we invest in partnerships vs. paid programs or services.”
According to the district’s Employee Handbook, which outlines policies for employee relations and pay, a surplus teacher is any teacher “who has been declared by their principal to be above staff requirements.” The position is part of the district’s Office of Youth Re-engagement.
School staffing allocations have not been made public yet, but more cuts are expected in next month’s budget. Staff members spoke about their concerns during each of the four School Board listening sessions earlier in March based on what they had been told by principals.
That included Erich Eifler, who holds the position that teaches at Fresh Start.
“I was surprised recently to receive notice that my (Office of Youth Re-engagement) teaching position was being surplussed,” Eifler said at Memorial High School on March 15. “I’m not worried about me; I’m an adult, and I’ll be fine.
“What I am worried about is what’s going to happen to my students, what opportunities going forward are they going to miss?”
Markle said he was uncertain how students would achieve a high school diploma through the program if MMSD did not have a staff person on-site working with students, but hopes if the position is eliminated that “perhaps there’s another way to work through that.”
“Currently, that position’s in charge of signing off on the young person’s completion of programming and is the person who’s linked within the MMSD system as far as recording attendance and grades and all those things,” Markle said.
Markle’s letter estimated the district would actually save about $12,000 from the change, as whoever occupies the position will likely have to switch their insurance benefits to MMSD instead of receiving them through Operation Fresh Start as they do currently. LeMonds did not dispute that the cost savings of this particular decision would be small, but wrote that it combined with other “difficult decisions will add up to significant savings.”
“In addition to consistency, our strategic budgetary realignment is looking at positions across departments in the entire district,” LeMonds wrote.
Eifler was also concerned about what the change for his position might indicate about coming shifts elsewhere in the district.
“If my situation is indicative of what’s happening around special education and (alternative) ed, I think that we’re failing our students, the students with the greatest needs,” Eifler said. “I think we’re not also supporting the district’s highest priority of equity.”
