Quantum physicist Albert Einstein is credited with the observation: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

There are no quantum physicists named Einstein living in Butler School District. We checked the phone book, just to be sure. But there have been plenty of school tax increases — 24 increases over the past 26 years, in fact. And we’re on the verge of No. 25. That’s amazing when you dwell on it. It must be some kind of record.

We don’t really need a Nobel laureate like Einstein to tell us what should be obvious — that tax increase after tax increase is insanity. We’re no closer to a budget solution with tax increase No. 25 than we were with the first one.

It’s particularly souring that the tax hikes haven’t stopped — haven’t even slowed down — after the consolidation that closed five of the district’s 11 elementary schools in 2015. It was broadly implied — at least, many of us broadly inferred — that closing five buildings would provide some relief from year after year of hefty budget increases and corresponding property tax hikes.

Now the Butler School Board is discussing a $104.23 million tentative budget for the 2017-18 school year. That includes a 3.2 mill increase in the property tax rate — the maximum allowed by state law — as well as furloughs of 37 staff positions and a demotion for eight staff positions.

Wait, there’s more. The proposed budget anticipates only $102.85 in revenue but calls for $104.23 million in expenditures, leaving a gap of about $1.4 million to be covered by existing fund balances, which continue shrinking to perilous levels — less than 5 percent of the budget total. In an emergency situation like the Summit Elementary water crisis, lack of funding could be a disaster.

The 2017-18 tax increase would raise the district’s rate from 97.8 to 101 mills. It would raise the tax bill for a property assessed at $20,000 from $1,956 to $2,020 — a $64 increase.

This follows 44 job eliminations and other cost savings associated with the shutdown of the elementary schools in 2015-16 — one of the two years in the past 27 that did not require a tax hike, by the way.

In April 2015, the district’s consultant, Thomas & Williamson, projected annual savings of $3.5 million from the consolidation. We were told to be patient; the consolidation entailed initial costs. Are we still incurring these startup costs? Is that why the tax increases continue?

There was a widely held assumption among the residents of the Butler School District that the consolidation approved a year ago would improve the district’s financial circumstance. Nobody really questioned the need to cut expenses by shedding unnecessary schools. It was widely understood that the move would save us money. However, it fuels the public’s skepticism to see expenses outpacing revenue as if the sacrifice of consolidation had no effect at all.

Last week, school board member Leland Clark raised the specter of financially distressed status as a possibility for the district. Clark noted that since 2012, the state Department of Education has had the authority to take control of financially distressed districts and place them in “financial recovery status.” In cases where this has happened, some of the reasons cited included having too low of a fund balance and not having a plan to become self-sufficient.

For now, Clark is asking rather than recommending the district to consider entering the state’s School District Financial Recovery Early Warning System. We agree. In the face of yet another unavoidable tax increase, we don’t see another viable option.

This isn’t quantum physics, after all.

— TAH