Village Manager Search Narrowed to Five Candidates

The Village Board narrowed the pool down to five candidates last week.  Here's the list, plus a few of each applicants' highlights, listed in alphabetical order:

• Patrick Boyle - Masters of Public Administration from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Boyle worked in Whitefish Bay Village Hall from 2001 to 2005 as the Assistant to the Village Manager and Management Assistant before leaving to be Cedarburg's City Administrator.
• Curt Carver - Northern Illinois University, University of Virginia and Harvard.  He has been Village Administrator for Carpenter, then Inverness, Illinois.
• Paul Evert - Georgetown University, then law school at UW-Madison. City Attorney, then Assistant City Administrator, for Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.
• Denise Pieroni - Marquette University, Masters of Public Administration from the University of Illinois-Springfield.  City Administrator for Jefferson, WI, then Village Manager of Barrington, Illinois.
• Jason Slowinski - University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, then law school at John Marshall (Chicago), Assistant Village Administrator in River Forest, Assistant City Manager then Interim City Manager of Des Plaines, Illinois.

I think this is a solid field, with individuals who have a good range of experience and education.  Next week, these candidates will be brought in for two days of final interviews and selection. 

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Looks like I underestimated the school district's budget deficit when I guessed it would be $1.5 million. which is around 7 percent of last year's budget, before any inflation is figured in. (Even 1 percent inflation factor increases the budget by $330,000.)

The contract with the teachers' union expires at the end of this school year.   Apparently SB11, which requires more pension and health premium contributions from teachers, will mean teachers will pay $810,000 more for their benefits, saving the District that amount, but leaving at least $1.2m in deficit.

As a guide, Whitefish Bay has 214 teachers educating 3,006 students. Imagine a dozen teachers being laid off, 5 percent of the force.

It will be very interesting how the school district, board, and teachers' union work together over the next six months. 

By the way .. there is a three-way race for two slots on the School Board -- . 

(There's a Trustee write-in candidate forum in the works, too.)

A few other news bits:

• During last week's Trustee meeting, we had an agenda item that I think some folks misread as a condemnation of the proposed 2011-13 State Budget.  The Village Board wanted to address one specific element of the budget, namely the loss of local control of our tax levy.  The wording wasn't quite right, so it was tabled.
• I was really pleased to read that Rep. Sensenbrenner's Whitefish Bay .  
• Congrats to the Whitefish Bay girls and boys basketball teams for advancing this weekend.

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