Q & A
Thank you for your interest in my effort to serve on the Eastern Carver County School Board. Here is my forum for responses to questions from members of the community. If you have a question for me, please click on the Engage link at the top, and please return to learn more. I will update this content until the election to help those get comfortable to join Team Tim and
VOTE on or before November 3rd!
Why am I running for another term?
What are my priorities for this term?
What's up with me and social media?
What's up with my campaign?
To finish what I started
Academic achievement for all with responsible growth
Not a big fan. Have basic presence. I'm here...
I believe in public service, but don't enjoy campaigning
Are ECCS students not proficient in school?
Is there a student retention issue?
What's the issue with open enrollment?
How to understand ECCS finances?
Test scores are within historical ranges and improving
We lose funding, but we also avoid added costs
It is a bit complicated, but here are the basics
That depends on your perspective
Select the links above to read about the various topics and use this button to return to this list.
Q&A Topics
I've been fortunate to serve on the school board through some very challenging times over 16 years including navigating the pandemic, making difficult budget and labor reductions, earning support for critical funding of our schools, negotiating with our labor groups through very challenging economic realities and overseeing strong improvement across the academic performance and climate in our buildings. We will need all of that momentum to face some significant questions ahead as our district continues to evolve with more aging in place to the East and new homes to the West. So there is important work yet to do. We have made great strides improving our academic performance and closing gaps between learners of different backgrounds and means. We need to continue to elevate academic achievement, create more inclusive classrooms and manage the financial needs of a growing, aging, and shifting district. While I never envisioned serving this long, I remain concerned by trends towards groups that want to politicize our schools and our learners. Look no further than the affiliation of candidates and political parties - unheard of when I first ran for office. I believe this is an existential threat to public education which is a pillar of our society, especially in these turbulent times with the continued weaponization of social media and the growting threat of AI. As a result, I'm seeking to serve another term to ensure that the foundation now in place can withstand attempts to politicize the institution which is the foundation of our community. I believe that my experience can help lead the community through these divisive times to address an important inflection for our schools. I willing and excited to continue to serve the community as long as I can be of value.
Emerging from the pandemic, we need to have a renewed focus on academic achievement for all learners regardless of their background or desired career path. With a new strategic plan and a strong leadership around personalized learning, I believe the district is well positioned to realize that improvement. In order to achieve their best, learners need to feel welcome, safe and included. We have made great progress here, but the strategic plan provides a roadmap to better ensure that all ECCS learners have the opportunity and support to succeed. Lastly, we need to continue to manage scarce resources given the ongoing demands of a growing community and the competition for talent with districts richer in commercial and industrial resources. As a board member, I promise to listen to the broader community, ensure we’re measuring results, asking hard questions and supporting the necessary budget and policies.
I know there can be good engagement on social media, but, unfortunately I have witnessed how the lack of interpersonal connection in the digital world can erode behavioral norms and destroy human relationships. I have also seen social media used by people to wish harm and even death to others, including myself. I welcome honest, constructive engagement into how we can serve our learners and our community, and while that exists on social media, it is too often obscured by false identities, ideas and superficial sentiment. I created this website to communicate and engage with interested members of the community. I strongly welcome any outreach so please feel free to email me at teamtim4eccs@gmail.com and I will get back to you. If there are common questions, I will add to this Q&A. I would also welcome meeting in person, or better yet, meeting with you and some neighbors to discuss the future of our schools. Please reach out and let's connect!
To those who have been asking about my website, I thank you for your interest and appreciate your patience. I hope this is helpful information for the community. Those that know my history, can appreciate that I've never been a big believer in campaigning. I feel strongly that school boards are a true form of community service, and while they are elected roles, I am sensitive that these campaigns not be influenced by politics. This approach is evident in the fact that candidates do not affiliate with any political party. It is very disconcerting when I learn that candidates are actively involved in party politics. My campaign consists of this website and conversations with neighbors. I'm not walking in parades, asking for donations, paying anyone to build my site (that's pretty obvious) or advise my campaign. I built this website myself and funded it on my own. I'm hopeful that my dedication to public service will be sufficient to earn support.
This has been a small issue for ECCS going back decades. Over my tenure, I have drilled down into this topic many times. The reality is that we have an unusually high number of alternatives in our area including many faith based alternatives. We also have a very aggressive neighboring district to the north that is responsible for most of the open enrollment losses. Our northern neighbor has invested heavily in marketing to neighboring districts and has approximately 3x the staff that we do. They have also invested in some expensive specialized programs to attract students. We are not the only district to suffer as a result since approximately 1/3 of their enrollment comes from outside their enrollment boundaries.
The reality is that if all of those students were to return, we would have a notable tax increase to build at least two new schools. The incremental funding we would get from the state for these new students only covers around 2/3 of our costs. I believe that we should focus on stabilizing the retention levels by focusing on the strength of our "small school" approach and the increased opportunities for learners. In addition, improving academic achievement will also help make ECCS a destination district. The improvement in our academic outcomes and the addition of one resource to our small communication staff should start to improve retention. The open enrollment topic provides more insight into this issue for those interested.
Some candidates are citing proficiency score figures that are either false or out of context. There are many measures of academic achievement, but the annual MCA tests for subject matter proficiency are important to many. This isn't to say that these instruments of academic achievement don't have their flaws and critics, but they are something we need to watch closely. You can review ECCS scores along with any other district by searching for the MN Department of Education Report Card. For example, 20.2% of ECCS learners tested do not meet grade level reading proficiency (not 1/3 as some have claimed). What you'll notice is that ECCS proficiency scores declined during the pandemic just like most, if not all others. You'll also see that when it comes to the MCA proficiency scores ECCS has historically outperformed the statewide results typically by 8-10 percentage points. The good news is that in last year's results, the gap between ECCS scores and the state widened, meaning that our learners outpaced the state even more than last year. While the gap with the state for reading proficiency increased from 9 to 10 points, the gap in math expanded from 8 to10 points and science from 7 to 13 points!
While we want all students to be proficient, the reality is that our children are performing well above their state peers and they are improving at a faster rate. I'm confident that with kids back in the classroom and a leadership that is focused on measurement and data, the improvement in 2022 will continue to expand in the future years.
The state of MN provides nearly 70% of ECCS funding and the per student formula in the current year is $7,281, so as a result, when students enroll elsewhere, ECCS does not get that funding. The district had historically retained around 75% of its students historically and that has recently dropped to under 70%. This has resulted in familes of approximately 3,800 ECCS eligible students choosing to enroll in local private schools for faith based reasons, other public/charter schools for programming or home schooling for family reasons. The district has also seen open enrollment into the district grow at a faster rate than enrollment out such that this group has expanded from 3% to 6% of ECCS enrollment over the past 10 years. If all of these students returned to ECCS, that would mean another $28 million in state funding to help cover the additional expenses associated with these students in our general fund. However, the challenge is that state funding is a declining percentage of per student funding, so retaining all of these students would increase the local tax burden for operating expenses and we would also have to build at least two new schools which would cost at least $50 million each. So, when families in our community exercise their school choice, we really lose nothing and are actually saving money.
ECCS is committed to serving its learners with a strong academic and extra-curricular experience. The district will continue to grow with area development and increasingly become a district of choice for its smaller schools, dedicated educators and quality experience.
School finance can be complex but at the core, it’s just revenue and expenses like any operation, and the net of which impacts our ongoing fund balance. Our fund balance is basically the amount in our checking account which is something you want to be large enough to sustain the us through ups and downs, but not one that is too large and represents idle capital. Another complexity is that there are a variety of different budgets which are organized to ensure appropriate allocation of funds, but the one that represents the bulk of the education finances (>78% of revenue) is called the General Fund.
In the General Fund, 77% of our operating costs are people and the overwhelming portion (>82%) of that goes towards the classroom experience for items related to instruction, pupil and teacher support. To pay for these expenses the bulk of our revenue comes from the state (69%) with the next highest being local taxes (25%). The final 6% of revenue comes from Federal and Other sources.
The main financial challenge is that the average annual increase of State funds has been around 2% per year over the past 10 years. As you probably know, this increase doesn’t cover inflation in a typical year, let alone the current high inflation environment. And from a competitive reality, our peer districts have been increasing their labor contracts over 3% annually, on average, in recent years.
When it comes to financing the accumulating gap between state funding and labor costs, that falls disproportionately on local households vs. many peer districts because of two main factors. First, our home values can be lower due to the impact of newer, more remote developments. Second, we may also have a lower commercial/industrial tax base due to being more bedroom-type communities. The result is a greater financial burden on households to support our local schools.
Some have asked why we don’t just cut administrative costs to pay teachers more — I also used to think this. Unfortunately, the district's administrative costs are already just over 3% of expenses, which is among the lowest of our peer districts. Having managed the district through three rounds of budget cuts, the simple reality is that the only way to realize notable savings is to reduce spending in the classroom which means larger class sizes.
The good news is that Carver County is a desired area as is evident in the fact that it is one of the top two fastest growing counties in the state (as of 2020 census). This growth is important as every new house that is built, helps reduce the tax burden to existing households. You can see this in the fact that the average tax burden has declined per dollar of home value. The challenge is that home values are appreciating which offsets the declining rate of tax burden.
With so much land in the western part of the district, we will continue to grow and this will require us to manage the above financial realities. Key to this will be the ongoing effort to educate and inform the community so everyone is proud of their investment in education.