By Andrew Pease

The Nicolet High School District reduced its budget for employee travel and development by over 58% for the 2005-06 budget year as part of a larger $300,000 budget reduction necessitated by declining enrollment.

Along with the overall reduction in spending, the school board approved a new travel and expense reimbursement policy that aims to close some of the loopholes that have, in the past, led to potentially excessive spending by employees on meals.

“The school board feels that if you are claiming a meal it should be for the amount of the meal, not to the maximum that’s allowed, and it should be for only those items that are authorized,” said Dr. Elliot Moeser, Nicolet District Administrator.

The new reimbursement policy, approved by the school board on April 24, 2006, eleven days after an open records request was sent to the district’s custodian of records, Jeff Dellutri, changed the documentation process for receiving meal reimbursement while traveling on school business.

Prior to the change, employees were allocated $35 each day for meals while traveling in Wisconsin and $52 per day when traveling out of state. As long as the total claimed for reimbursement did not exceed these maximums, receipts were not required.

A provision in the policy did say that where a consistent policy of maximum meal reimbursement claims is noted on an employee’s travel vouchers, the District Administrator will verify whether the expenses are actual and reasonable.

However, when confronted with numerous examples of maximum reimbursement claims, Jeff Dellutri admitted that this provision in the policy had been largely ignored in an effort to streamline the reimbursement process and avoid excessive paper work.

Although there is no evidence of impropriety, without receipts it is impossible to know if the taxpayer money was actually spent on meals and not on other non-reimbursable items such as alcoholic beverages or tobacco, or simply kept by employees as personal disposable income.

The new reimbursement policy now requires that itemized receipts must be presented for all meals.

This change, as well as the overall cut in reimbursable employee travel expenditures, was necessitated by budget constraints due to declining enrollment, said Moeser.

“Last year was our first year in a number of years that we had declining enrollment,” said Moeser. “And under the state funding formula you get money off of the number of students that you have.”

According to the district’s collective bargaining agreement with its teachers, Nicolet High School District must offer a 3.8% increase in salary and benefits each year, but the declining enrollment made it impossible to raise salaries and benefits by 3.8% without cuts in other areas.

“The revenue limit is basically how much our budget can grow based on enrollment,” said Dellutri. “We [Nicolet High School] need to grow by about 17 students a year in order to pay for just salary and benefit increases.”

The 2004-05 budget allocated about $30,000 of district money for employee travel. This amount was cut to $12,500 for the following 2005-06 year. Of the $30,000 in budgeted money for the 2004-05 year, Nicolet actually spent about $21,000 on travel and development. As of May 17, 2006, Nicolet has spent $14,500 thus far during the 2005-06 school year.

Further cuts to the employee travel and staff development would have a negative impact on the quality of teachers at Nicolet, according to Moeser.

“I think that you can go too far with that [budget cuts] and not give your staff the opportunity to grow,” said Moeser. “We as professionals have to grow to stay on top of current issues. Growth is important for teachers in order to pass on to the students the most current educational ideas.”

The bulk of the money allocated for travel and staff development goes towards sending teachers and administrators to various conferences and workshops, in state and out, in order to stay abreast of the current trends in secondary education. One such conference during the 2004-05 year dealt with ways to curb underage drinking and illegal drug use among high school students. Another dealt with improving technology integration in the classroom.

The single largest expenditure during the 2004-05 budget year in terms of employee travel and staff development was a program called AVID. Nicolet spent over $6,000, nearly 30% of its entire travel budget, to send six staff members to Texas for five days in June of 2005.

Avid is a program for students who need to be challenged in their educational endeavors, said Moeser.

B and C students who have the capability to go on to college but might not have the study skills, management skills, or have some challenges at home, are selected by Nicolet teachers to participate in the AVID program. The students sign a contract to participate in the AVID program, which entails taking an AVID class instead of a traditional study hall. College tutors are hired to come in and work with the students on a one on one basis.

“This year was our first year where we had one teacher committed to just the freshman students, and next year we’re going have another teacher have freshman and sophomore students,” said Dellutri. “Basically it [AVID] will follow the students through their senior year, so over the course of four years we’ll have all four years with an AVID program.”

While acknowledging the considerable expense involved with participation in AVID, Dr. Moeser said that the program was well worth the taxpayer money because sending students to college was one of the greatest priorities of the district.

One way to continue important programs like AVID, while still maintaining fiscal responsibility, is to bring more speakers and programs in house instead of sending teachers off to conferences in different states, said Dellutri.

“It’s more effective dollar wise,” said Dellutri. “You send somebody out of the building and it might cost you a couple thousand dollars, but you also have to pay for a substitute to teach the class. It all adds up.”

When asked how Nicolet School District can avoid allegations of impropriety like those levied against Greendale School District, Dr. Moeser was careful to say that while he is not aware of any specific things that Greendale did wrong, he is aware of the controversy surrounding employee travel spending in that community.

“It’s my impression that there is some skepticism out in communities that government units need to be more accountable and more open,” said Moeser. “I think open government is better government.”