I wrote the below post in response to a question emailed to me by a community member.. (JSMBoE@GMail.com) That question was essentially asking for my thoughts on the Budget and the laying off of 7 teachers.
It is long. The TL;DR would be:
With compensation being, rule of thumb, 75% of the budget and the reduction of 7 teachers, why is the budget going up almost 3%? No matter what the Board or the Administration say, the budget tells you exactly what the priorities and intentions are of the district. It is a mirror to the Board and Administration fiscal discipline and spending plan.
As for the 7 teaching positions being reduced, the Board and Administration is telling the community, through its actions that either the teachers are not needed based on enrollment or there is not enough money in the budget to keep them or some combination. I find that hard to believe. I served 12 years previously on the Board and there is always a way to find the funds to pay needed teachers. Always. I also find it hard to believe that in a $134 million budget, we cannot afford to keep class size down to previous grade standards.
Budget 2022
I have always contended that not enough people pay attention to the school district budget. Yes, residents complain about the high taxes, but they never really focus on the why. They just assume that since the schools are terrific and ranked that the District is spending money wisely. Because so few get down into the nitty gritty details, it is doubly important for members of the Board of Education to scrutinize the Administration’s proposals. It is my experience that not every Board member has the desire, the knowledge, or the experience to truly understand the budget. That is not to say that any are negligent in their duties, it is to say that different Board members focus on different things. One of my areas of focus was the budget and the financial statements. Having run my own business, I know well to watch the money. It tells you everything you want to know about a business.
Or, maybe the people that are paying attention to the schools are focusing on the effect rather than the cause. The budget is the most important item/document/information source in our district. Nothing is a close second.
The budget is a statement of the Board and the Administration’s priorities. Let me reiterate that by rephrasing it. If you look at the budget book itself or even at the vague slides the district presents every year, the allocations among the various line items tell you exactly what the district thinks is important, what the district is focusing on, and what the district thinks are priorities. The Administration and/or the Board can say anything they want, they can speak about desires, but it is all just words. Look at the budget categories and line items.
The CCSD budget is a “zero-based” budget meaning the District starts each year with a blank slate and builds the budget from the bottom up. Each department is tasked with presenting a budget to the Superintendent. On the face of it, very little is discretionary. But in reality, almost all of it is discretionary.
For example, look at the compensation lines. Salaries and benefits. The amounts paid to every district employee is negotiated with one of four unions, the Chappaqua Teachers (CCT), the Administrators, the Clerical staff (COSA), and the maintenance and facilities staff (CSEA). Those contracts are public documents and can be found on the district website albeit with some effort. There are also sites that you can search for any public employee and see their exact salary. For the most part, the salaries are prescribed based on tenure (length of service), advanced degrees for educational staff, specialties for non-educational staff, and extra-curricular participation such as coaching or being a club supervisor. For COSA and CSEA, there is overtime too.
While that sounds like it is contractual and not able to be changed, it can be increased or decrease based on the number of employees in each category. For the purposes of this discussion, I will focus on the 7 teacher reductions. First, the only way to remove a tenured teacher, outside of malfeasance, is if there is not a need based on enrollment vis a vis the Board’s class size guidelines. Having said that, it is extremely rare that the district pushed up against the class size guidelines. The district usually stays consistent with prior years. When laying off teachers based on enrollment, it is done on a strictly seniority basis within the license category (Elementary, etc). This is contractual. It is also district wide meaning that if there is a reduction based on enrollment and class size at say WO, but the last elementary teacher hired was at RB, the RB teacher would be let go and a WO teacher would move to RB.
Based on the slides presented at the budget meeting(s), projected enrollment is down for next year at all three levels, elementary, middle and high school. The enrollment projections are usually accurate within a very tight tolerance for grades 1-12. The student populations are usually stable in that there are few move-ins and few move-outs once they are in the system. There are some factors that can affect enrollment such as new housing stock and if the mix between residents with students in the district and residents without changes. I may be off a percentage or two, but I recall it is almost a 50-50 split. (I think it is/was 52% without and 48% with.)
What strikes me as odd, is that with the rise in housing prices the last few years and many longer-term residents taking advantage of that by selling, that enrollment has not crept up instead of the slight decrease. It makes intuitive sense that with more housing sales, more families with school age children would be moving in while those whose children are grown would be moving out. The other thing to consider with respect to enrollment, and this was a big thing with the New Castle Town Board fight over Form Based Code, is new housing stock especially condos and apartments.
While the district would gladly fulfill its mission of educating all school age children residing in the district, apartments and condos are not taxed as single-family homes are. Single family homes are taxed as Fee Simple. Condos and apartment rentals are taxed at a much lower rate. They are taxed based on the commercial value at which they can be rented. In rough numbers, the average condo may be paying $7,000 per year in taxes while the average home is paying $30,000.
The part of enrollment projections that is more of an art than a science is kindergarten enrollment. That is where the summer timeframe is critical. Many parents either close on a house in the late spring or early summer or simply do not know (or care) to register their child until August when it suddenly dawns on them to ask the school what class and what bus, etc. Kindergarten projections are somewhat based on the most recent years, home sales, and social economic conditions. For Kindergarten, it makes sense to leave the class sizes bumping up against the guidelines until the summer when we can best determine actual enrollment.
The last primary driver of teacher staffing levels is enrollment by grade. This comes into play in two ways. One, in the upper grades, class size guidelines are larger than at the elementary level. So, even if enrollment stayed constant one year over the previous, the mix of what grades are the enrollment could affect the number of teachers. At the high school, class offerings can be altered to add or reduce the need for certain teachers. Electives can be added or dropped. Two, with two middle schools and three elementary schools, there is a minimum number of sections needed. For example, because of enrollment numbers, the sections at 7B may have an average of 21 students and at Bell 24. The district strives to keep the schools on par with each other in every way, but sometimes that cannot be accomplished because of the vagrancies of where people live and enrollment.
Another piece of background information is that while the district reports teacher counts, and humans cannot be divided up, we do hire part-time or less than full-time teachers. So, while there may be 375 (guess) reported number of teachers, some may be a .5 and some a .8, etc. The slide may say 375 teachers, but that is a budget calculation not necessarily a head count. There could be 10 teachers at a .5 that would add up to 5 so that the budget number is 375, but the head count is 380. This comes into play in the high school mainly and with some specialty teachers such as reading specialists.
Parenthetically, for budget purposes, the district does not pay benefits to teachers that are less than a .8. Between the 20% reduction in salary and the not paying benefits that could be as much as $50,000 per teacher. Last I looked, the average teacher compensation (salary plus benefits) in the district was $150,000. For most of them, worth every penny.
It has always been and remains my belief that the biggest asset this district has is its teachers. The staff that is in the classroom everyday responsible for our youngest learners and up to our young men and women in the high school. Without the teachers and without their level of expertise, we would be just another public school.
A lot of credit goes to the Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources and Leadership and the building administrators who do the hiring. We have strict requirements when hiring. Because of our district culture and our high level of compensation vis a vis our peers, we attract a large pool of highly qualified candidates. While there are select cases, usually in a specialty, where we have a hard time finding a candidate to meet our standards, for the vast majority of positions, we can pick and choose. I say all of this because without our teachers and without the proper level of staffing, our academic standing will likely fall. We also have a culture and practice of spending time on professional development.
What is up with this year’s budget and the reduction in teacher staffing? Should the reductions be “equitable” (your word) between classroom instructors, administrator, and support staff?
First, in 2008, following the economic meltdown, we had some large staff reductions. I would have to look up the exact number, but my recollection is 15 plus retirements and resignations in one year. That number included classroom teachers, administrators and support staff as well as maintenance personnel. It was painful for the community and of course for the personnel and their colleagues, but we survived and thrived down the road.
But, because it is a LIFO system, we lost some good young staff and had some long-time near retirement and, quite frankly, bitter teachers just mailing it in staff remain. We have also had years where we offered retirement incentives. The difference in compensation for a new teacher versus 25 years in service teacher is huge. Historically, we have worked well with the CCT in terms of contracts. In the 2008 year, they agreed to a zero increase in salary which helped us reduce the number of teachers laid off. Having a working relationship with the CCT rather than an adversarial union v management relationship is a big plus for both the district and the teachers. The ultimate winners are the students.
That year we also laid off administrators. Back in the late aughts, a few community members were vocal about reducing the number of administrators before reducing teachers. I totally appreciate the concept, but it is not always practical. First, by NYS regulation/law, we have to have a certain number of administrators in both the buildings and in the operating staff (Ed Center). Every building needs a certified Principal. While an Assistant Principal is not a requirement, it is a practical necessity in most cases. We need a Superintendent, an Assistant Superintendent for Finance, a Treasurer, and as a practical matter, with a district our size, an AS for Curriculum, an AS for Human Resources, a Director of Facilities, and an Athletic Director. I may even be leaving a few out.
We have not hired back the full number of administrators we laid off back then. We have, at times, had 2 Asst Principals at the HS and at times 3 or even 4. We have reduced guidance counselors at the HS. But these are all hot button issues or touch points for various parents. Try to tell a parent who is trying to get their child into the college of their choice that we are reducing the number of guidance counselors and cannot provide the level of support they think they require. Those board meetings stink.
Is there room to reduce the number of non-classroom academic personnel? Technically yes. It is about priorities as I started this long missive about. It is about developing the leaders of tomorrow. We have increased the number of curriculum staffers. I argue that is a good thing as they directly influence our primary mission, educating our students. Do we need a Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion? How much would that save us? I guess it would be ironic if, in the name of equitable layoffs, we laid off the Director of DEI. How do you make a decision between someone doing curriculum development versus a less quantifiable role?
I can tell you where I stood on that sort of decision in the past. The Board of Ed is an oversight board, not an operating board. The Board only hires directly two people. One, the Superintendent (natch). Two, is a little less intuitive, it is the Treasurer who for risk and compliance reasons reports directly to the Board with a dotted line to the Asst. Sup. for Finance. The Superintendent is the expert on matters having to do with curriculum, teaching and learning. They run the district on a day-to-day basis. For the most part, I deferred to their judgement. I would advise them. I would tell them what I think the community would prefer, but the ultimate decision is theirs to make and theirs to live with the consequences if there are any.
My final thought on “equitable” staff reductions is that any reduction should first consider the learning part. The students come first. I think it would be a mistake to make a decision based on a pro rata allocation or anything other than a case-by-case basis analyzing how each possible layoff would affect the teaching and learning for the students.
As for the 7 teaching positions being reduced, the Board and Administration is telling the community, through its actions that either the teachers are not needed based on enrollment or there is not enough money in the budget to keep them or some combination. I find that hard to believe. I served 12 years previously on the Board and there is always a way to find the funds to pay needed teachers. Always. I also find it hard to believe that in a $134 million budget, we cannot afford to keep class size down to previous grade standards. Using my previous estimate that the average teacher is compensated at a rate of $150k/year, 7 teachers would cost just over $1million. $1 million over $134 million is 7/10s of a percent. Hmmm.
Ok, so where is that money? As additional background, the community votes on a budget every year. That vote is for the total number and for the associated tax levy. It does not bind the district to keep the budget in the same line items in which it was developed. If you watch or attend the Board meetings, there is often an agenda item to transfer money from one classification to another. Also, as part of the development of the budget, certain assumptions have to be made.
For example, the Special Education allocation is very fluid. The budget is developed in the winter, voted upon in May, yet most of the CSE meetings that determine the level of services for next year don’t happen until after the budget is finalized in April before the May vote. We simply cannot know how many students will be sent out of district and the cost of those services. We cannot know for certain how many aides will be needed in district. It changes dramatically from year to year. And, we are often challenged in court when the parent disagrees with our staff assessments. While we rarely lose those cases, there are at times settlements. It is prudent to err on the side of over allocating to the SE categories. So, there may be, at the end of the year, excess money in the Special Ed budget lines.
Another place to “find” the money would be in the salary and benefits line itself. While I am quite certain that if you asked nicely or FOILed it you could get a detailed line by line breakout of what that encompasses, it would not add up specifically to the staff levels projected on an operating basis. For example, a teacher who has a lot of experience that is earning at the top levels of the contract may retire in June. Right now, the district does not know that. So, even if we replaced that teacher, it would likely be with a teacher at a much lower compensation level. That could even be a $50,000 savings. Do that a few times and you can pay for another teacher. Also, built in to the line are usually two or three positions because of the previously mentioned summer determination of enrollment. There are contingency positions built in to that line.
If a community member takes the time to do a year over year for numerous years comparison of just the slides that have the columns of Budget and Actual, there are usually savings there. Even if it is $30k here and $55k there, that adds up.
For the years I served with the previous Assistant Superintendent for Finance, John Chow, we always ran at an at least $1 million, what I called, “surplus”. We always spend the budget, but one needs to look at two things. One, the fiscal year-end accruals. Education accounting calls them something different, but they are the same thing as an accrual for a corporation. While there are GASB limitations on what can and should be accrued for, we can certainly maximize them if necessary. The reason you would not just spend under the approved budget has to do the tax cap and the next year’s budget and tax levy. It is a use it or risk losing it the next year.
Using round numbers, let’s say the reserves are $20 million. In the Budget there is a line item for the amount of reserves to be used. The revenue side of the ledger consists of the tax levy, some sales tax revenue, State funding (very complicated and biased formulas) and use of reserves. The tax levy does not change once it is determined by the final budget approval. State funding can go down, but it usually goes up slightly. Most of the final state funding is already determined at budget approval or can be calculated by formula to pretty close to the actual number. Sales tax and other revenue is a variable and can be a not insignificant number. They can swing by the low six figures.
So look at the reserves. Every year I served; the amount of the reserves used never was the amount the Board approved. I would implore the district to return some of the reserves to the tax payers by using more and not increasing the tax levy by as much as they wanted. We would come back the next year and the reserves amount often went up. How is that possible when we asked for voter approval to use millions of reserves to supplement the tax levy and state funding? The answer is in accruals and ever reserving for certain items like tax certiorari claims. Actually, the tax cert line is always under reserved vis a vis the paper liability, but settlements are usually lower than the claim, some people don’t make claim when we expect them to, and other factors. To be clear, there is NOTHING inappropriate going on with that line, but it points out where we can reduce an accrual and add a cash expenditure of salary.
Finally, the class size argument comes up almost every year for at least one grade level. As I said previously, we are an oversight board not an operating board and the experts are the Administrators. I personally have reviewed studies that say a lower class size is better for the student learners and studies that say that within certain levels, class size does not matter.
My campaign slogan, my so-called bumper sticker is, “Common Sense with an Uncommon Commitment”. Now, common sense tells me that a smaller class size can only be better than or no worse than a larger class size. If I were on the board this year, and I will next year when I am on (you will vote for me, right?) I would advise and advocate for adding an additional teacher to each of the elementary schools. At quick glance at the enrollment projections, it looks like adding a teacher to the 4th grade next year across the board would be appropriate and beneficial.
Another interesting aspect to the budget is the per pupil spending. Many people and education analysts as well as some of the publications that come up with a “rank” for schools use per pupil spending as a measure of commitment to the students and compensation levels for the staff. I contend that it is a very imperfect number. Looking at a year over year calculation, our per pupil spending will be greater this coming year than this current year yet we have declining enrollment and staff reductions. By definition, even if the budget was stagnant, with a decline in enrollment (the denominator) our per pupil spending will show an increase. So, when someone says look at the per pupil spending, it is increasing, that district is committed to spending whatever it takes, uh, no. Or, maybe.
The days of easy money are now passed. The government dumped money into the schools with Covid. State funding will be hard to be maintained at pandemic levels. I personally think that increasing the budget and the tax levy by 2.9% while laying off 7 teachers amidst declining enrollment is a mistake. I have served with 5 Superintendents and I can say that Christine Ackerman is the freest spender of them all. With the previous Asst. Sup. For Finance now gone and with the current makeup of the Board, she gets little push back on spending. That would be ok if there was a linear correlation between spending and academic excellence. At a certain level of spending, more spending has marginal affect on the academic program.
Further, Dr. Ackerman makes the facilities and the maintenance of the facilities a lower priority that previous administrations. Like a homeowner you can pay to maintain or pay a whole lot at once when the system breaks. I think part of what makes our District so great is having great efficient facilities. I would push to restore some of the funding taken away from facilities. It takes a lot of discipline to look at spending over a 5 or 7 year period. It is easy to fall into the trap of only looking at this upcoming year and saying, we can get to it next year. It is similar to a CEO of a publicly traded company only worried about next quarter’s results and this year’s results and not spending on R&D. Sooner or later that will bite you in the ass.
(To be clear, outside of the budget, overall, I think Dr. Ackerman and her staff are doing a terrific job.)
JSM
