UPDATE Posted Monday July 6, 2009 -- 4:30 pm
By Zac Schultz

Madison: Madison Schools- and therefore Madison property taxpayers- got an unwelcome surprise when the final numbers from the state budget were crunched.

"We have a lot of questions that need to be answered," says Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad.

On Thursday, Nerad learned the school district was going to receive $3 million less in state aid than what he was expecting. "From that time we've been in a mode of trying to collect information, asking a lot of questions of the Department of Public Instruction."

Here's what happened: On Monday June 29th, Governor Doyle signed the state budget. During a press conference, Doyle said no school would face more than a 10% cut in state aid.

But when the Department of Public Instruction ran the numbers from the budget, they told Madison their cut would be 15.2%.

That's another $3 million hole in the budget. "We're very concerned and obviously disturbed by this difference," says Nerad. "The language in the final budget made it appear pretty clear that it wasn't anything greater than a 10% aid decrease, which is significant enough."

Dan Schoof, the Deputy Director of the Department of Administration, says Madison and 96 other school districts did lose 15% of their state aid. Those cuts took place early in the budget process.

Schoof says there were additional cuts later on, totaling $147 million per year, but they didn't impact Madison. That second round of cuts were what Doyle was referring to when he said no one would lose more than 10%.

Unfortunately, DPI couldn't run the numbers until July 1st, two days after the budget was signed, which is why Doyle didn't know Madison was facing larger cuts.

No matter how it happened, Madison has a bigger deficit, and it's too late to issue layoffs or furloughs. So that likely means programming cuts or an increase in the property tax. "We were working on that plan with a fair amount of detail, but obviously we have to take a step back and say now what are the options?" says Nerad.

All together Madison is dealing with an $11.5 million dollar budget decrease.

Superintendent Nerad says they plan to address the budget deficit with the school board at next Monday's meeting.

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Posted Monday, July 6, 2009 -- 12:10 pm
By Zac Schultz

Madison: Superintendent Dan Nerad wants to know why the Madison Metropolitan School District took an ever larger hit to state aid than expected.

During the budget signing last Monday, Governor Doyle said schools would not see more than a 10% cut in state aid.

However, on Thursday Nerad says the Department of Public Instruction informed his office their state aid reduction would equal 15.2%.

Nerad says that would lead to an extra $3 million loss to the district. He says they are still in communication with DPI to determine how that happened.

Patrick Gasper, a spokesman for DPI, says the finance team ran the numbers according to the language in the budget.

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Madison), the co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee, says his office is looking into the issue and trying to determine if an error was made or if this is a case of miscommunication.