District aims to shrink staff with deficit, referendum looming

The Port Washington-Saukville School District, whose staff size has steadily increased even as student enrollment has declined, has launched an effort to reduce positions ahead of a $59.4 million April referendum and projected $1.2 million deficit next school year.

The School Board recently approved changes to the district’s early retirement plan by lowering the minimum requirements for receiving retirement health insurance benefits to age 55 and 14 years of experience in the district in the hope of reducing the number of people it employs through retirement instead of layoffs. The minimum requirements had been age 57 and 15 years of experience in the district.

“We have outstanding staff members who we don’t want to retire, but we also have young staff who we don’t want to lose, so the goal is to reduce positions through attrition,” Supt. Michael McMahon said in an interview.

The staffing audit comes at a critical time for a district that decided last month to ask voters in April for $59.4 million to build a new Saukville Elementary School on a new site and tackle maintenance projects at its other four schools. The referendum comes with a pledge from school officials not to ask voters for money in the future to pay for maintenance by creating a fully funded 10-year maintenance plan made possible in part by savings from employing fewer people.

In addition, the savings realized by a reduction in positions will help the district deal with what could be a financially challenging future. Director of Business Services and Human Resources Mel Nettesheim has warned that without pandemic relief funds and with continued declining enrollment the district could be facing a $1.2 million deficit for the 2025-26 school year.

The goal, McMahon said, is to reduce positions without affecting the quality or breadth of the instructional programs the district offers, and data that shows the district’s staff size is out of sync with student enrollment suggests that is possible.

“We don’t want this staff audit to reduce student opportunities,” he said.

A district analysis of staffing vs. enrollment in other area school systems shows that while those trends match each other in other districts, in particular the Grafton and West Bend school systems, they have gone in opposite directions in the Port-Saukville School District.

While the size of the district’s certified teaching staff, which in addition to classroom teachers includes such positions as teaching strategists, instructional coaches, counselors and psychologists, has increased by more than 20% since 2007, its student enrollment has dropped by nearly 6%, with the most significant spike in staffing and drop in students occurring since 2022.

The district also has class sizes that at many of its grade levels are smaller than the average size of classes in other southeastern Wisconsin school systems, including Grafton, Cedarburg and Mequon-Thiensville, according to the district study.

For instance, while the district’s average class size is 16 students for 4-year-old kindergarten and 17.5 for 5-year-old kindergarten, the average among area districts is 20 and 24, respectively. In fact, the three sections of 4-K at Dunwiddie Elementary are small enough that if one section were eliminated, class sizes in the remaining two sections would be essentially at the average.

And with a 4-K enrollment this year that is smaller than enrollments in other elementary school grades, class sizes would continue to decrease going forward if adjustments aren’t made.

All but one of the district’s elementary school classes are smaller — by as many as 10 students in one first-grade section — than the average class sizes in other area districts, which are 24 students per class in first and second grades, 26 in third and fourth grades and from 26 to 29 in fifth through 12th grade.

Class sizes at Thomas Jefferson Middle School and Port Washington High School are also generally smaller than the average, according to the district study.

The process of what district officials are referring to as “right-sizing” the staff requires annual reviews of staffing and enrollment trends and the shuffling of teachers as needed depending on changes to enrollment and instructional needs, something the district is doing this year but hasn’t done in the recent past, McMahon said.

“We have to have a process so we know if we need to shift teachers,” he said. “You have to have these discussions in early winter so you have time to make changes and we don’t see these large gaps between staff and enrollment like we have now.”

To help facilitate that process, the deadline by which employees must notify the district of their intent to take early retirement has been moved from June to February to give the district more time to make staffing adjustments, McMahon said, noting the deadline for the district to issue preliminary layoff notices is in March and final notices must be given in April.

The district is also looking at school schedules, particularly at Thomas Jefferson Middle School, although a change there could not be implemented until the 2026-27 school year at the earliest, he said.

“Schedules sometimes affect your FTEs (full-time equivalent positions),” McMahon said.

In addition, the district may adopt a class size policy, which it does not currently have, he said.

“We can have a policy so our staff is comfortable that they won’t see class sizes of 30 or our kindergarten classes won’t be unmanageable,” McMahon said.

When asked if he believes the district’s goal of reducing staffing through retirements is attainable, he said, “Yes, I think it is. Mel (Nettesheim) is doing a great job of connecting with anyone and everyone who may be eligible (for early retirement).”

The process of reducing and reorganizing the district’s staff is not easy, but it’s necessary, especially at this juncture in the district, McMahon said.

“It has to be done in order to be fiscally responsible, and we’ll be having those discussions this winter and going forward,” he said.

McMahon was referring to the community sessions school officials will host in the near future not only to make their case for the $59.4 million referendum but explain their plan to end the reliance on referendums to pay for maintenance.

If the referendum is approved, School Board President Sara McCutcheon said last month, “We would be starting with a clean slate so we don’t have to come back (to voters) for maintenance.”

The district’s goal is to save enough money to pay for all projects on a 10-year maintenance plan.

“We won’t be able to do an entire roof at first, but with a good plan in place we will be able to do sections of roofs, and we can get to the point where we will be able to do a whole roof,” McMahon said.

The district is also conducting a utility audit in the hope of saving money on gas, electricity and water.