07/13/2025
The Appleton Area School District Board of Education met 06/23/2025. They continued their ongoing discussion about how to deal with the District’s $10-$12 million structural deficit. (https://allthingsappleton.com/2025/04/17/board-of-education-reviews-presentation-on-causes-of-aasds-11-million-deficit-and-impact-20-million-referendum-would-have-on-property-taxes/) This discussion followed two previous discussions on the matter, one that took place on 05/12/2025 (https://allthingsappleton.com/2025/05/22/board-of-education-discusses-strategies-to-deal-with-11-million-structural-deficit/) and one that took place on 06/09/2025. (https://allthingsappleton.com/2025/07/08/aasd-board-of-education-discusses-different-categories-of-funding-district-receives-and-types-of-referendums-they-could-pursue/)
During the discussion on 06/23/2025, the Board of Education members indicated that they were not in favor of making any cuts, they believed AASD was potentially spending too little per student and, when they went to referendum, it might make sense to ask for more money than the bare minimum necessary to eliminate their existing structural deficit.
It was stated several times in the meeting that AASD is a fiscally responsible district when compared to other districts. Board member Pheng Thao voiced the belief, “[I]t costs a lot more to actually educate the kids these days compared to back in the days many of us were being educated.” Board member Jason Kolpack expressed the District’s situation thusly, “[W]e're in a position where we have to try to decide which programs and services are expendable, and I think the answer is none of them, unfortunately.”
They also discussed the timing of a potential referendum. Superintendent Greg Hartjes told the Board he would want to hold one before they put staffing together for the 2026-2027 school year, which meant it would have to be voted on by February of 2026.
A transcript of the discussion is available for download on the All Things Appleton website: https://allthingsappleton.com/2025/07/13/aasd-board-of-education-discusses-11-million-structural-deficit-board-members-do-not-indicate-any-cuts-they-are-willing-to-pursue-suggest-that-aasd-is-spending-too-little/
The purpose of this specific discussion was to explore the Board’s priorities and guiding principals as they looked at ways to reduce costs or pursue a referendum.
They reviewed AASD’s four pillars as well as its portrait of a graduate. The four pillars are:
● Ensure a safe, healthy, and welcoming school environment for ALL.
● Ensure every student is academically, socially, and emotionally successful and graduates ready for college/career and their community.
● Create and maintain strong family, community, and business partnerships to accelerate our collective impact on student success.
● Align resources and operations directly to District priorities.
The AASD Portrait of a Graduate states, “Students will graduate academically, socially, and emotionally prepared for success in their personal lives, careers, and continuing education; and committed to lead, care for, and contribute to their community.”
Back in 2010-2011 AASD was faced with a similar deficit; although Superintendent Hartjes stated the situation, “wasn't as complex back then because we weren't thinking about adding revenue. There was just simply, how are we going to reduce expenses?” At that time, the District leadership put together a list of core values or guiding principals that shaped what they were and were not willing to cut. Those core values from 2010-2011 were:
● Our commitment to Early Intervention Programs
● Our commitment to limiting impact on Class Sizes
● Our commitment to programs that support Closing the Achievement Gap
● Our commitment to District Reading, Writing, and Math Goals
● Our commitment to Co-Curriculars as an extension of our classrooms and providing opportunities to each student’s educational experience
● Our commitment to the Arts as an integrated portion of a basic education
● Our commitment to Healthy Lifestyles
● Our commitment to the Elementary Neighborhood School Concept
Superintendent Hartjes noted that back in 2010-2011 AASD reduced school counselors moving from 4 full time counselors at the high schools down to 3.6.
Ms. Burr compared the amount of money AASD spent per student to the 9 other largest school districts in the state, excluding Milwaukee. Appleton at the lowest per student expenditure of all of the districts. The PowerPoint included a diagram, but the diagram did not include any specific numbers. It looks like Appleton is spending a little over $15,000 per student and is spending only slightly less than Janesville, Sheboygan, and Waukesha per student. Green Bay is spending over $2,000 more per student than is Appleton. The graph visually indicated that these expenses were composed of various categories of spending, including most prominently salaries, employee benefits, and purchased services, but it did not clearly label how much each of those categories was.
Ms. Burr told the Board, “Appleton is already the lowest spending district of this group. We have said this before, and you will see more examples in the coming months, that we are a very fiscally responsible district.”
Board member Oliver Zornow pointed out that AASD was spending over $2,000 less than Green Bay per student and concluded, “Appleton has forever been a fiscally responsible district, and I'm very proud of that track record we've had. It is important to note—and I believe Greg mentioned the sort of 2010 2011, that was shortly after I believe we decoupled revenue limits from inflation. And so, the result of this financial problem is not necessarily a result of special ed reimbursement or enrollment numbers, even though fixing those would fix our problem. It is primarily that we've sort of—the state is inflicting a sort of mandatory tax decrease on us pretty consistently for 40 years and not allowing us to invest in our kids the same way that we used to.” His understanding was that if revenue limits had continued to be tied to inflation, AASD would have approximately $40 million more per year.
[I can assure you that if I was paid a mere $10,000 per student per year, I would be able to competently make sure that my children were appropriately educated at no additional cost to the state and with no deficit spending.]
Ms. Burr indicated that making up a shortfall solely through cost reductions would involve a 5% across-the-board cut. She provided a slide showing what such a cut would look like. It would entail the reduction of 65 classroom teachers, 16.55 paraprofessionals, 3.6 administrators, 4.65 administrative assistance, 3.7 ASUs, and 3 maintenance employees. It would also involve a reduction of several hundred thousand dollars to things like special education and curriculum materials.
Board member Nick Ross asked what the reduction in teacher positions would look like. Ms. Burr responded that at the high school level it could mean combining two sections into one and reducing prep time for teachers. The reduction of paraprofessionals would mean one less paraprofessional per school.
Mr. Hartjes said that reducing teachers at the elementary level was particularly difficult because they had to add a new teacher at 35 students. In the past they might have looked at adding a new teacher when they had between 28 and 30 students in a class, but now they might not start looking until they had 32-34 students in a class. At the high school level, they would not run AP classes unless the initial course request had at least 20 students interested. They would also have to reduce guidance counselors and possibly try to split one guidance counselor’s time across three schools.
At this point, the AASD Leadership Team was looking to get feedback from the Board on what their priorities were and which programs or services they felt were most essential to be preserved.
Board member Kolpack stated, “[W]e're in a position where we have to try to decide which programs and services are expendable, and I think the answer is none of them, unfortunately. So, to Oliver's earlier point, and the point we've been making for months now, it's a rock and a hard spot. I know it's not a helpful answer, but it's the current thought that I have.”
He also felt that the arts programs were particularly important and thought that cutting counselors and social workers would be really detrimental.
Board President Kay Eggert liked the wealth of opportunities that students had such as the ability to get advanced degree credits while still in high school.
Board member Zornow stated, “I would view it as catastrophic if we decided to impose a sort of an $11 million cut on our district. And I don't believe that you can cut your way to being a destination district.” He went on to say, “I do think we need to be looking to put back in place some of those things we cut in 2010 and '11.”
Board member Ross thought they needed to prioritize literacy including early intervention. Superintendent Hartjes also pointed out that there were a lot of things tied to literacy. “[T]here's the one-time costs, like materials, but then there's the ongoing costs of instructional coaches, interventionists, making sure class sizes are appropriate at the early elementary level, that the instruction can happen—right?—the professional development that goes into it. So, all of those pieces do cost dollars, right? They do cost money. So, they are relevant.”
Board member Pheng Thao wondered about programs and services that other organizations were doing well and AASD did not need to duplicate within the schools and whether there were partnership possibilities that could be explored.
Board member Ed Ruffolo thought AASD needed to have a conversation with the community and find out what they wanted to do. “I think to be fair to our community, they have to know very clearly what the options are. And one option may look like some reduction of expenditures through perhaps refinancing in the long term, maybe some projected enrollment growth, or at least property growth, and a referendum. And I think that referendum has to be tied to very specific programs, whether that be the shortfall in reimbursement for special education or the dollars that we need to continue with our literacy programs so they understand what they're funding. The—and then option B is simply, if we don't want to do a referendum, here's what has to be cut.”
He went on to say, “I don't think there's any option on the table that says, well, we can cut all these things and it won't have a negative impact. I just don't see that. We've been operating on a tight budget, really, for forever here, and we're very low per student cost, so there is no option in front of us that says we can cut $13-$15 million from our budget and not have a negative impact on students. But that's a choice I think our community has to make. There has to be a very well-informed choice.”
He thought that reducing staff was one thing but he wanted to avoid cutting employee compensation and benefits because it was not the employees’ job to help the District stay within its budget and AASD also needed to provide competitive compensation in order to attract and retain employees.
[The 05/12/2025 discussion about the deficit (https://allthingsappleton.com/2025/05/22/board-of-education-discusses-strategies-to-deal-with-11-million-structural-deficit/) reminded me of Scott Adams’ thoughts on making cuts at a company, and this 06/23/2025 discussion once against reminds me of his words. “[E]everything looked like it was necessary. So nothing to cut, and we really need to expand a few things. So I’ll need about 20% more.” (https://www.youtube.com/live/u7kxHJiVNAk?t=139s) Things seem to be playing out exactly as he described.
It's baffling that a board member would openly admit that AASD used to educate students at a lower cost but doesn't take that thought to the next step of "Why don't we go back to how we were doing it then?"
Again, I will throw it out there, AASD can give itself a $5,000 discount and pay me $10,000 per student per year directly, and I will happily, personally, educate my children at no additional taxpayer expense and with no deficit.]
View full meeting agenda here:https://d3n9y02raazwpg.cloudfront.net/aasd/00157783-26a0-11f0-9f54-005056a89546-2171d860-3ac4-49db-84a5-200d91432c4c-1750696715.pdf
View full meeting video here: https://aasd.granicus.com/player/clip/83
