Kenosha spent half a million

Though the Kenosha Unified School District claimed that budget constraints forced the layoff of 142 teachers and aides in April, a JMC 500 investigation has found that the district spent over $588,000 in conference and travel costs over the 2004-2005 school year.

The cost represented a 50-percent increase in travel expenses from the 2003-2004 school year. Sacramento Sosbe, a Senior Fiscal Clerk for the KUSD, said that just over $300,000 of the expenses came from government grants and subsidies.

Two other school districts which are similar to Kenosha in terms of both number of staff and number of students, Green Bay and Racine, spent $136,518 and $112,938, respectively, in their travel expenses. Kenosha spent well over two times as much on their travel expenses as did Green Bay and Racine combined.

Sosbe said that the district was not in the same predicament as Green Bay and Racine. “Racine is having financial problems,” she said. “That would explain why we spend so much more. We’ve had no real big cuts in our budget.” Green Bay is also facing a $10 million shortfall in their 2006-2007 anticipated budget.

But this discovery comes in the wake of the KUSD’s announcement in April that they would need to cut $9.1 million from the 2006-2007 anticipated budget. The layoffs, blamed on the unexpectedly large raise in the cost of district employee health insurance, are set to clear $7.2 million from the budget for the next school year. The district is open to the possibility of changing insurance providers while keeping the same benefits, a move that would cost the district only about $1.1 million rather than the $7.8 million that they would lose under their current provider.

The district, though, would still like to cut money from next year’s budget.

Many of the costs comprising the $588,000 district travel expense total are the result of the cost of the conferences to which the employees travel. In the summer of 2006, for example, the district will pay $1,500 to attend the League of United Latin American Citizens national conference in Milwaukee to encourage their minority recruitment.

The district has tried to limit employee spending during these conferences. According to Eileen Coss, the KUSD’s Account Manager, the district has only just begun issuing district credit cards, called P-Cards, to some of its employees this year. The district has about 30 employees that carry P-Cards, but the spending has not risen very much from their use. Most of the conference-goers do not carry these cards.

According to the KUSD travel policy, employees are expected to travel on their personal funds and file for reimbursement upon their return. “It is better for employees to spend their own money and then ask for reimbursement later,” Coss said. “Then they are worried about having to pay the price themselves if they spend improperly.”

The district has taken several steps to see that the employees keep costs as low as possible while on district-funded trips. Employees must stay only at hotels that offer them the government rate for their rooms. Employees are also given a $35 per diem for meals and are reimbursed .445 cents per mile, the standard government rate, for their mileage when using a personal vehicle.

The district, though, does not keep track of employee spending in the form of itemized receipts. This makes it difficult to truly know how the $588,000 has been accrued or if there are any anomalies or extravagant expenditures in district employee spending. The expense reports are simply a list of how much money is owed to what retailers or providers.

Coss deflected any concerns about extravagant spending. “There have really been no problems so far,” she said. “I was glad as a taxpayer and as the account manager to see how controlled the spending really is.”

The KUSD defends their spending by pointing out the positives that have come from the conferences its employees have attended. “The cost of these conferences is high,” said KUSD school board member Marc Hujik. “But through them, we have created policies that have made us into a very strong district.”

One conference the district pointed to as an example of the usefulness of their spending is the Reclaiming Youth conference. The conference, which took place in June of 2005 in Rapid City, South Dakota, focused on the need that school districts had to control bullying in their schools. As a result of that conference, which was attended by three KUSD employees, the district created and implemented a bullying policy that is now used district-wide. The policy has received state recognition for its effectiveness.

But how essential was the conference to the creation of the policy? According to Bullen Middle School, the four rules of the policy are, “1. We don’t bully others, 2. We help students who are being bullied, 3. We include students who are easily left out, and 4. When we know someone is being bullied we tell an adult at school and at home.”

According to the district, balancing the cost of each conference and its necessity to creating policy is important to them. “It’s hard to put a price on the conferences, since we do them to better the educational opportunities of the students, “Hujik said. “We believe that we’ve done a good job concerning balancing the cost with the production we think we will actually get out of the event. I can assure you that the conferences are first and foremost about the betterment of the district.”