The Tosa Taxpayers Alliance did a study comparing salary and health care benefits for government employees (city and school district) to the household incomes of our residents.  Please click on the headline link above to read the full study and our sources of information. 

Note:  If our 470 city and 900 school district employees had a private sector plan ($5,000 less/year) and the same average deductibles  (25% in private sector vs. 2% in public sector), Wauwatosa property taxpayers would save $12.5  million dollars in premiums and premium contributions alone each year.  Multiply that savings for every city, county, school district, and state employee.

For information on Wauwatosa government employee retirement benefits click here http://www.wauwatosanow.com/blogs/communityblogs/43446377.html

Taxpayers’ Ability to Pay

The rankings of teacher compensation and economic measures for the thirty-three school districts in southeast Wisconsin indicate that there are four school districts with lower median household incomes and equalized property values that provide higher teacher compensation than Wauwatosa. The average total compensation is used in identifying equitable salary adjustments since it takes into account the level of fringe benefits that is provided. Wauwatosa taxpayers are already providing the ninth highest fringe benefit package for teachers out of the thirty-three school districts.

The highest total compensation of those four districts is $84,063. It would take salary increases that average 10.18% for Wauwatosa teacher salaries combined with the average of their fringe benefit costs to reach this level of compensation.

Performance Based Compensation

Salary adjustments based on academic performance is accomplished by comparing school districts’ educational outcomes. Students’ composite ACT scores and graduation rates are two ways to assess school districts’ academic performance. Of the four districts identified for compensation comparisons based on taxpayer ability to pay, two districts have either higher ACT scores or higher graduation rates than Wauwatosa does. Strict application of the academic performance standard would mean that these two districts be excluded since their academic performance is higher than Wauwatosa’s.

The next highest compensation level is $80,324. This level of compensation would involve a 9.99% average salary increase.

Overview and Sources:

1) The TTA Report: Ranking of School Districts’ Teachers Compensation and Economic Measures
indicated that out of the 33 southeast Wisconsin districts the $51,574 average salary for Wauwatosa teachers ranks 27th; the average fringes totaled $27,335 and ranked 9th and average total compensation of $78,909 ranked sixteenth. Rankings of districts’ economic measures indicated that Wauwatosa’s average household income of $64,889 ranks 16 out of 33; the City’s $54,519 median income ranked 19th and Wauwatosa’s total equalized property values was $5,372,543,900 and ranked 6th.

The rankings however are not a sufficient basis in and of themselves for evaluating equitable compensation and ability to pay due to the lack of uniformity in the rankings between the compensation and economic measures.

Comparisons based on interrelationships between the categories do provide a basis for evaluating salary increases that are within Wauwatosa taxpayers’ ability to pay. This is accomplished by identifying districts with higher average total teacher compensation than Wauwatosa that have lower median household incomes and equalized property values than the City’s.

2) Median household income is used as the measure of residential property owners’ ability to pay for property tax assessments. Household income is a commonly used indicator of relative wealth between communities. The median is considered a better measure than the average because it is not affected by extreme values.

Equalized property values represent all property owners – residential, commercial and manufacturing – ability to pay. It is not sufficient to utilize one of the two measures and exclude the other measure when considering taxpayers’ ability to pay.

3) The source for teacher compensation is the Department of Public Instruction data on 2008 Teacher Salaries. Wauwatosa School District provided data on average salary, fringe and total compensation based on updated calculation for 2008.

4) Average household income is compiled from data reported by Wisconsin Department of Revenue – Wisconsin School District Statistics for Tax Year 2007.

5) The equalized property values data is from the Wisconsin Department of Revenue Fall School District Certification of 2008 Values Report. The values used for district comparisons exclude Tax Incremental District values.

6) Data for the 2008-09 average composite ACT test scores and the 2007-08 graduation rates were compiled from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instructions’ website data section – academic achievement.

TTA: Dennis Menzel
To read the complete report, visit the TTA blog at www.wauwatosanow.com