The Express-Times reports on the proposed school budget of $67.7M, an increase over this year’s budget of $4.8M (read the article here).
The article notes that $1.1M of the increase is for new employees. This was most surprising to me, given one would have thought that having opened the new Intermediate School building this year, there would not be a need for so many new employees next year.
Why the perpetual increase in budgets?
Every year the biggest reason I hear from the Board and Administration for the increase in budget is because we are a “growth” school district with “increased student enrollment”.
Twelve years ago (1998-99 school year), the cost per student was $7963, the overall expenditures were $32.1M, the staff was 397, and the enrollment was 4033. Next year’s proposed budget indicates $14,387 or $13,152 (my number vs. NASD number – see below “Enrollment Calculation”), $67.7M expenditures, 572 staff, and 4814 or 5151 enrollment (again see below).
Based on these comparisons, enrollment is up 19.4% or 27.7% (depending on next year’s enrollment number used), staff is up 44%, cost per enrollment is up 80.7% or 65.2% (again depending on how one considers next year’s enrollment), and expenditures are up 110.9%.
The nearly 111% increase in expenditures is what most grabs my attention compared to a nearly 20% increase in enrollment.
Growth or Bloat?
Looking at staff, there are 572 proposed staff (up 44% from 1998-99) and their salary and benefits account for 62% of the total expenditures, or $41.9M. Of the staff, 349 are teachers.
The projected budget has 13.5 teachers for every student enrolled (4814-105) or 14.8 (5151 – see below), compared to one for every 17 students in 1998-99. This difference in ratio probably accounts for $3M - $5M minimum increase in annual expenditures.
The administration accounts for 5% of staff and has grown from 18 to 28 (56% increase since 1998-99) with a ratio of one to every 168 or 184 students compared to one for every 224 students in 1998-99. This difference in ratio probably accounts for $0.5M minimum.
Support staff has grown from 72 to 124 (72% increase), while Teamsters (maintenance/custodial) has grown (50%) from 42 to 63.
Less salary and benefits other major areas of spending are debt service (12%), transportation (6%), and buildings (4%), leaving 16% to all other supplies, training, activities, community college, CIT, etc.
Enrollment Calculation
This year our enrollment dropped by 105 students compared to last year. And looking back at budget data to the 1998-99 school year the total enrollment has grown from 4033 to 4814 or by 781 (19.4% total increase and 78 per year on average).
Interestingly the proposed budget does two things regarding enrollment. First, it indicates an increase in enrollment of 337 students. This increase doesn’t make sense when one considers since the 1998-99 school year our largest increases in enrollment in a single year have been 195, 122, 114, and 102. All other increases were less than 100 and twice enrollment has decreased from the previous year.
Second, it indicates no charter or cyber school enrollments. This also doesn’t make sense since we’ve had at least 75 every year since the 2006-07 school year and we peaked at 105 during this school year.
The impact of these two calculations is that it drives down the cost per enrollment figure. In the budget document, the school calculates the cost/enrollment by considering total budget expenditures per enrolled student, which does not include those attending charter or cyber schools (where the district pays a fixed flat fee per student to the qualified school).
By not including charter or cyber students, the enrollment in NASD schools is inflated in the proposed budget.
If one calculates the cost/enrollment using this year’s enrollment of 4814, less 105 charter and cyber students, there would be 4709 enrolled students. Divide the $67.7M in expenditures by 4709 students and the actual cost/enrollment is $14,387. Even if we’d gain back the 105 students we lost, the figure would still be close to $14,000.
2 comments:
I agree with a lot of your calculations Ross. But an important part of comparing dollar figures over a 10 year time span is inflation.
Would love to see the health insurance plan costs 10 years ago versus today.
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