The Wichita Eagle reports that the Wichita public school district may ask for more property tax revenue. Following are some charts for this district.
The chart of spending is per student, inflation adjusted. On the enrollment and employment chart, note that the ratio of employees — including teachers — to students has been on a mostly downward trend for many years. Click charts for larger versions.
In its campaign to convince voters to raise taxes, the Auburn-Washburn school district deceives voters. David Dorsey explains.
By David Dorsey, Kansas Policy Institute
Auburn-Washburn USD 437 is in the midst of a Local Option Budget (LOB) election, asking district voters to approve an up-to three mill increase in their taxing authority. As part of the effort to convince us to support their request, I received, along with every other USD 437 resident, a propaganda card via USPS last week. The card (of which I have provided both front and back) includes virtually every deceptive tactic used by school districts to cajole voters into supporting a tax increase, including the implication that without this extra money, the futures of little Evan and Clare are in doubt.
I must preface the following remarks by saying that I have largely supported the district’s expansion in the past, having enthusiastically voted in favor of building a new elementary school (Farley) several years ago. I also recognize that as school districts go, USD 437 is well run. Their administrative costs are below the state per-pupil average and are 17th lowest among the 25 largest districts statewide. And undoubtedly the relative quality of USD 437 plays a role in increasing property values in the district. Having said that, it doesn’t detract from the fact that this election is just plain unwarranted. Below is the flip side of the card followed by eight reasons why the election is truly needless.
A critical look at the statements coming from one of the largest school districts in Kansas leads to wonder if the Kansas City school superintendent is uninformed, misinformed, or simply lying. Dave Trabert of Kansas Policy Institute reports.
By Dave Trabert, Kansas Policy Institute
At a time when many school districts are issuing misleading statements about school funding to parents, teachers and legislators, recent claims by USD 500 Kansas City set a new transparency low. A story in the Kansas City Star outlined the district’s plans to reduce spending, which Superintendent Cynthia Lane blamed on “…years of low state funding, rising costs and the loss this year of $2 million in state money because of a new block grant funding measure….”
Citizens are also dealing with rising costs, and school districts would like to inflict even higher costs on them — more taxes — to fund districts’ financial desires. “Years of low state funding” is a matter of opinion but data from the Kansas Department of Education and the Kansas Division of the Budget show that state funding and total funding of schools are setting new records this year.
Part of the 2015 increase in state aid ($522 million according to block grant files prepared by KSDE) is money that had been inappropriately recorded as Local aid in prior years (20 mills mandated by the Legislature for all districts) but state aid is still at an all-time high with that adjustment. Total taxpayer support of public education will also set a new record this year.
Contrary to Supt. Lane’s implication, however, USD 500 is not getting $2 million less in state aid with the block grant, it is gaining $12.8 million in state aid this year without counting any increases for KPERS, Bond & Interest or Special Education. What she is really saying — but doesn’t want you to know — is that she wanted an even larger increase and says the district is being “cut” because it didn’t get as much of an increase as it desired.
That is just the beginning of the district’s conscious efforts to mislead parents, teachers and legislators. “We have cut more than $50 million,” Lane said. “There is no longer any fat left. … I frankly think there is very little left to cut that doesn’t dramatically impact what we do for our kids.”
The district has definitely not reduced spending by more than $50 million as implied by Supt. Lane. They may have budgeted for and spent less than they would like (which is what Supt. Lane is really saying) but they most certainly have not cut spending recently (as she wants you to think). This comparison of the district’s budget and actual spending over the last ten years shows that spending less than the amount budgeted is rather common but doesn’t necessarily mean that spending was actually reduced; most often, it means that their plan to spend more was reduced. Districts openly admit that they budget more than they plan to spend to avoid having to re-publish a budget … but conveniently forget to mention that fact when claiming that their budget was cut.
Operating budgets were at record-highs in Kansas City this year and the two previous years; actual spending on current operating costs set records the last two years and likely will do so again this year.
Operating spending increases between 2005 and 2014 in the Kansas City district have been very large across all cost centers; capital spending also jumped but debt service has been stable. Administration spending “only” increased by 23 percent but it was well above average in 2005 and was the second highest spender among large districts last year (profligate USD 501 Topeka wins that prize at $1,568 per-pupil). Shawnee Mission, by comparison, spends $942 per-pupil on administration; spending at that level would save $9.4 million in the Kansas City district, which could be spent on Instruction or returned to taxpayers.
Listening to administrators and media reports, one would think the district is suffering from extreme austerity but district financial reports show otherwise. And these spending comparisons only reflect what has actually been spent. USD 500 also boosted operating cash reserves by $26.7 million over the period, going from $25.1 million in 2005 to $51.8 million in 2014. Operating reserves increase when more money is collected than is spent.
Supt. Lane may claim that there is very little left to cut but a July 2013 Legislative Post Audit report on the district says differently; page after page lists recommendations to bring district spending in line with market conditions and reduce costs. One recommendation was “Reduce Custodial and Maintenance Positions and Salaries” since some salaries were found to be more than 20% higher than paid in the private sector and the district had more staff than comparable districts. The district response is listed in the audit: “The community and staff will resist any reduction in staff or salaries. The custodians might unionize if staff positions or salaries are reduced.”
Here is a sampling of maintenance, custodian and bus driver pay taken from an Open Records request of the 2014 school year payroll. This list reflects the highest paid in these positions and reflects total pay (wages, overtime, bonuses, etc.) but do not include any benefits. The position titles are shown as provided by the district.
The simple solution would be to outsource this type of work to private sector companies as is done by some districts. Private sector companies are fully capable of providing these services at the same or better quality and at a better price.
The LPA audit also recommended reducing administrative salaries to market wages through attrition; the district responded by saying “staff would resist any reduction in salaries.” This table shows pay increases given to the highest paid district employees, all of whom are administrators who mostly received double-digit pay increases over the last two years.
Supt. Lane told the Star “I absolutely believe if you have to cut people, you have got to start at the top.” She was referring to the dismissal of Edwin Hudson, chief of Human Relations, and “… 30 assessment managers hired three years ago to keep track of state assessment scores so teachers and principals could concentrate more on school instruction.” Loading up on managers to track state assessment scores that are released once per year (except last year when no scores were released because of technical issues) is symptomatic of district hiring practices.
Over the last ten years, USD 500 increased its management staff by 18.8 percent; management is a KPI-defined label that includes superintendents, assistant superintendents, principals, assistant principals, directors, managers, supervisors and instruction specialists. Maintenance, transportation and food workers jumped by 45.6 percent, teacher aides more than doubled and a variety of employment categories we lumped into All Other shot up by 42.7 percent. Enrollment, meanwhile, increased by just 7.2 percent.
Non-teaching staff jumped by a third and total employment is 24.4 percent higher. The district has one full time equivalent employee for every 5.9 students.
USD 500 has one manager for every 125 students, which is very inefficient compared to other districts. Shawnee Mission, for example, had one manager for every 210 students last year and has since reduced its administrative footprint because Superintendent Jim Hinson felt it was too large. If Kansas City had the same pupil/manager load as Shawnee Mission (before it was reduced), they would have 66 fewer managers … and those costs could be made available for instruction instead of suing citizens for more money.
Here’s another example of misleading information from USD 500. The employee count in the above table comes from official KSDE personnel reports with data provided by each school district. But USD 500 may have many more employees. The LPA efficiency audit shows that the district was significantly under-reporting employment to KSDE. Lest anyone suggest that the KSDE report doesn’t contain categories that capture all of the district’s staff, it should be noted that the Certified Personnel and Non-Certified Personnel reports each have an “Other” category for such purpose. Consciously and consistently underreporting employment by more than 200 employees fits the district’s pattern of providing misleading information.
The district’s financial position is much different than represented by management, but it should be noted that staff, students and parents are likely experiencing legitimate resource issues. Frankly, that’s part of a pattern across many school districts, which is intended to gain sympathy and support for higher spending at the expense of others. USD 259 in Wichita, for example, is telling staff and media that they are suffering a $4.8 million “cut” with the block grants this year when in reality, they plan to spend $87 million more this year.
The Kansas City district even takes misrepresentation into the courtroom. I was in the courtroom when Supt. Lane testified that lack of funding was the reason that many of the district’s students weren’t adequately prepared for college and career, but she is on record placing the blame elsewhere, months before she made her court appearance.
When the U.S. Department of Education denied a portion of the district’s proposal to raise standards in a requested waiver from the Kansas Approved Accountability Plan from USDOE, Supt. Lane responded by saying, “The Kansas assessment is not rigorous enough to guarantee that our students are on-track with where they need to be. We have asked to raise standards for our students by administering the MAP, which is a more rigorous assessment, and USDOE is telling us ‘No!’”
The district newsletter in which this quote appears makes no mention of funding; the blame for academic issues is placed solely on sub-standard assessment issues. Supt. Lane may say that funding is also an issue but the point here is that the story routinely is crafted to maximize sympathy for the desired outcome.
That’s a disservice to staff, parents, legislators and most important, to students.
The Topeka school district is asking voters for more tax revenue. Here are some figures for this school district. Click charts for larger versions. Data from Kansas State Department of Education.
The Kansas City, Kansas school district has implemented layoffs and salary cuts. Following are some charts of statistics for this district. Data is from Kansas State Department of Education. Click on charts for larger versions.
Kansas public schools ought to thank the governor and legislature for failing to give parents the power of school choice.
The public school establishment in Kansas is angry with the governor and legislature over school finance. Really, the public schools ought to be grateful for Governor Sam Brownback. In many states with conservative Republican governors, school choice programs have grown. In the summer of 2011 the Wall Street Journal reported on what it called “The Year of School Choice.”
Some governors have been warriors for school choice. Not Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, however. He signed a small school choice bill when it landed on his desk. But he has not vocally advocated for expanded school choice. There are several Kansas legislators who are in favor of school choice, but not enough, certainly not in leadership.
As public schools and their unions despise any form of school choice and the accountability it provides, they should be grateful for our governor and legislature. Kansas public schools operate without much competition, and that’s the way public schools and their unions like it.
How little school choice exists in Kansas? One implementation of school choice that is popular in some states is the charter school. According to National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, Kansas has a poor charter school law. That is, Kansas law makes it difficult to start and maintain a charter school. Of the 43 states that have charter schools, Kansas ranked 42. Kansas public schools are effectively shielded from the diversity and competition that charter schools provide.
Others have also found the Kansas charter school law to be very restrictive. The Center for Education Reform found the Kansas charter school law to be the worst in the nation.
Governor Brownback signed a tax credit scholarship program. The Kansas program is small and restrictive, earning the grade of “D” from Center for Education Reform. Kansas has no school voucher program.
Altogether, Kansas parents have little power to choose schools for their children. The primary power Kansas parents have is to choose where they live. If a family can afford to, it can live in a district where the public schools are not as bad as they are in other districts. Given that these desirable districts almost always cover higher-income areas, poor parents don’t have this possibility.
School choice won’t fix everything, but it goes a long way. Here’s a portion of the 2011 Wall Street Journal article “The Year of School Choice.”
Choice by itself won’t lift U.S. K-12 education to where it needs to be. Eliminating teacher tenure and measuring teachers against student performance are also critical. Standards must be higher than they are.
But choice is essential to driving reform because it erodes the union-dominated monopoly that assigns children to schools based on where they live. Unions defend the monopoly to protect jobs for their members, but education should above all serve students and the larger goal of a society in which everyone has an opportunity to prosper.
This year’s choice gains are a major step forward, and they are due in large part to Republican gains in last fall’s elections combined with growing recognition by many Democrats that the unions are a reactionary force that is denying opportunity to millions. The ultimate goal should be to let the money follow the children to whatever school their parents want them to attend.
The Topeka public school district is using scare tactics to persuade voters to raise taxes. David Dorsey of Kansas Policy Institute explains.
By David Dorsey
The USD 501 school board voted unanimously on April 29 to hold an election to increase the district’s local option budget (LOB). They claim the $3 million that could be raised with voter approval is necessary “in the face of state budget cuts.” The district held three public meetings to discuss how to deal with what they called a $1.6 million cut in state funding this year and $2 million over the next two years. KPI has shown in this blog that Topeka Public Schools will actually get a total increase in state aid of 6.5% over the three years of the new block grant funding law.
But that’s not how a school district sees things. To the educrats, a cut means getting a smaller increase than they had planned.
If I were the suspicious type, I might think the meetings were just a ruse, using the implicit threat of cutting school programs in order to scare the public into supporting an override election to raise more money.
The purpose here is not to revisit the increase vs. decrease debate. The purpose here is to discuss the spending side of the equation and show just how easy it would be for USD 501 to meet their self-defined shortfalls – and without having any impact on students.
First, here’s a little perspective on the realities between what is budgeted and how much is actually spent. The adjoining table shows the millions that have gone unexpended for the last four years. Given this recent history, it’s hard to imagine that a $1.6 million “cut” from the budgeted $203 million 2014-15 budget is even a concern, let alone cause for an election.
Even if one concedes the point of a revenue shortfall, should the taxpayers of USD 501 (in the name of full disclosure, I do not live in the district, so I don’t have a dog in this hunt) shell out more money to the district? Or could the district find ways to reduce spending and operate more efficiently (a concept foreign to any government organization)? As a former employee of USD 501 I can attest that finding a savings of what amounts to $114 per pupil should be pretty easy to accomplish.
I offer these three opportunities that would reduce spending far in excess of what the district calls a cut and save local taxpayers the burden of providing more financial support to a district that won’t look seriously at reducing spending.
Reduce a bloated administration
As the table shows, Topeka Public Schools has the highest per pupil administrative costs of the 25 largest districts in the state. A glance at their own budget document reveals the costs are trending significantly higher. The 2013-14 costs were a 14% increase from the previous year. The USD 501 2014-15 budget for administration and support of $28,301,407 is a whopping 25% higher than 2013-14! That’s an increase from two years ago of 41.8% when administration costs were just under $20 million.
Some of that increase can be explained by the decision made by the USD 501 school board to drastically increase salaries of the administrative staff by $435,400 in the summer of 2013 in the name of being competitive with other districts. Perhaps if USD 501 was “competitive” in terms of administrative costs per pupil, there would be no issue.
I’m guessing these facts didn’t come up at the public meetings.
Put literacy and math coaches back in the classroom
Little-known to the public is that in every USD 501 school there are licensed teachers who do NOT teach students. They are known as math coaches and literacy coaches. Each school has at least one coach and most have more than one. What is their job, you ask? They are in the buildings to help classroom teachers do a better job. Furthermore, USD 501 forbids the coaches from directly teaching students, except in special circumstances. They are there to teach the teachers.
There are several reasons the practice of having licensed teachers be coaches should end.
To be fair to USD 501, math and literacy coaches are an educational trend and most districts now employ them. However, it doesn’t stray from the fact that money spent on coaches doesn’t directly benefit students. In fact, students lose out anytime a quality teacher chooses to become a coach and leaves the classroom.
Putting just one coach per building back in the classroom through attrition would go a long way toward dealing with the budget “cut.”
Cash reserves
The district could easily deal with any short-term budget issue simply by using their current operating cash reserves. The following table shows USD 501’s cash reserves for the past ten years. The table not only shows the district had in excess of $24 million from which to draw at the beginning of this school year, but that is 56.2% more than a decade ago. I doubt they explained that fact to the patrons at the public meetings.
I now present a rather conservative approach to dealing with the “budget cut.” A 5% reduction in administration, returning just one coach in each building to the classroom, and tapping 10% from the operating cash reserves, hardly Draconian measures, would generate nearly twice as much as they could take from the voters.
| Savings Category | Spending reduction |
| 5% reduction in administration costs | $1.41 million |
| Returning 1 coach to the classroom (through attrition) in each traditional public school building – 26 X $60,000 (salary/benefits) | $1.56 million |
| 10% from operating cash reserves | $2.47 million |
Total reduction | $5.44 million |
Board member Patrick Woods was quoted as saying K-12 funding is a “state responsibility.” Maybe it’s time the state starts taking responsibility for how the money gets managed.
In making the case for more Kansas school spending, the focus on base state aid per pupil leaves out important considerations.
Much of the discussion surrounding school funding in Kansas has centered around base state aid per pupil. It’s the starting point for the Kansas school finance formula, and therefore an important number. But base state aid is not the only important number. Action taken by the Kansas Legislature has led to increases in state funding for schools at the same time that base state aid has fallen. Much of the increase is due to the conditions that schools say are costly, such as teaching students from low-income families or non-English speaking students.
School districts are compensated for these costs through weightings. If a district has a student who falls into certain categories — like qualifying for free or reduced-price lunches — that adds a weighting in that category. The number of pupils plus the number of weightings are multiplied by base state aid to determine total state aid. 1
A large weighting — in terms of its magnitude — is the bilingual education weighting, intended to cover additional costs of non-English speaking students. This weighting was originally 20 percent. Starting with the 2005-2006 school year it was raised to 39.5 percent.
The weightings have a large effect on school funding. For the 2004-2005 school year, base state aid was $3,863 and the at-risk weighting was ten percent. An at-risk student, therefore, generated $4,249 in funding. Other weightings might also apply.
Ten years later base state aid is $3,852 and the at-risk weighting is 45.6 percent. This generates funding of $5,609. If in a district that qualifies for the maximum high-density at-risk weighting, an additional $404 in funding is generated. (These numbers are not adjusted for inflation.)
The top school finance official in Kansas says that says that state aid for schools has risen for the current year. From Kansas Policy Institute.
By Dave Trabert
While some school districts and special interests claim state aid to schools is declining this year, Kansas State Department of Education Deputy Commissioner for Finance Dale Dennis confirms that state aid to schools is increasing.
KSDE published spreadsheets comparing block grant equivalent funding for the 2013-14 school year with block grant funding for this year and the next two school years. SF15-092 shows total funding last year was $3.263 billion including KPERS and $2.951 billion without KPERS. SF15-109 shows total funding this year of $3.408 billion including KPERS and $3.093 billion without. Even excluding KPERS, state aid to schools under the block grants will increase by $142 million.
