A few days ago, a commenter asked about the relative increase in administrative costs for our Regional District and I said I would look into it. Below you will find the administrative payroll costs for various aspects of administration for our Regional Schools from FY07-the proposed FY10 budgets. The documents I used can be found here. For "Tier 1 cuts" I used the most recent information I had (March 10, 2009). I'm sure as the budget changes, these numbers will also change slightly. I do want to note that I included only payroll expenses, partially because they were well-broken out in that budget section (and not as well-broken out under the "expense account" section), but mostly because it was relatively easy to find the "administrative" positions that were being cut/added under the Tier 1 budget whereas it wasn't as easy to determine which expense account cuts/additions might fall under the heading "administration." Payroll accounts for the vast majority of all costs, though, so this is a good place to start. The final note is that the cost of health insurance is the single largest category in "expense accounts" and since health insurance is linked directly to personnel, we do need to keep in mind that everyone accounted for in "payroll," also brings a health insurance expense. (It takes a lot to try to untangle all these numbers.)
As you can see from the data table, the Regional budget overall was originally increased by 6.7% but is reduced to a 1.7% increase under the Tier 1 cuts/additions budget. So how do the increases to our administrative costs compare to the increase to our overall budget?
For our administration overall, the original increase was 6.0%, slightly less than the increase of the overall budget. Under the Tier 1 cuts/additions (as best as I can figure it), the cost of administration would actually be decreasing 5.5%! The largest decreases come from the elimination of an assistant principal for both the high school and the middle school.
Even under the original FY10 budget, the cost of central administration was decreasing by 0.6%, primarily driven by the 16.2% decrease in the superintendent's office (and I don't know how this was affected by the salaries of our interim superintendents nor how it will be impacted by the salary of our newly-hired superintendent). On the other hand, the original total school administration increased by 8.2% with the largest increase seen for high school administration (13.1%) and a decrease actually seen for regular ed administration (13.9%).
For those who are wondering whether or not the administration is taking a proportional share of cuts in the currently-proposed FY10 budget, according to these numbers (which do only look at payroll expenses and only at the Tier 1 budget since the Tier 2 and Tier 3 budgets are less fleshed-out), it appears as if it is. If anyone has more detailed or more up-to-date numbers on this topic, please feel free to share.
20 comments:
Great to see the numbers again. Thanks!
I must say it is disturbing to see the 25% increase (nearly $200K) from 2007 to 2010 in the HS admin. I have to wonder about the justification for that. What has happened in the last 3! years, other than diminishing resources, that we need that much more HS admin. Nearly $1,000,000 does *seem* like a lot.
Abbie...I am not sure but did see what I could find out. Under our curent compensation structure, annual growth of 3-5% is not unexpected for any one unit. If the line item is relatively small and you see a larger increase or decrease, it could well be just the addition or subtraction of one employee or partial FTE (look at the ELL line). You could also have a relatively large fluctuation in the compensation for one position which is what I think is what is happening to the Superintendent's Office line given our recent changes. But with a larger budget line (and high school administration is the largest), it is more likely that a large change represents additions of multiple employees or some other re-organization of the structure.
I am not very familiar with the high school yet (next year will be the first year for my family), but did look back into budget documents on-line. The FY09 Regional budget does list an addition of one assistant principal to the high school for $75,000. (An assistant principal position at the high school is now one of the proposed Tier 1 cuts for FY10.) I did find some FY08 budget documents and in them I see that a proposed cut that year was one assistant principal for the high school ($75,000). It is not clear, however, which of the FY08 cuts were actually part of the final FY08 budget.
In short, I don't know what caused the increase in high school administration over this time period (since these additions and subtractions of assistant principal positions don't represent enough of the total change to explain it). Perhaps someone more knowledgeable about the high school will give us an answer.
Hi Alison,
I am still puzzling over the enormous admin costs of the HS. Although it may seem (is said) that a lot of the cut will come from the HS admin, it seems disingenuous to me. From the chart it looks like the budget was going to ADD $110K to the HS admin. This is what is probably being cut but IT DID NOT EXIST, so nothing (Little) is being cut from this. It seems a bit like a store that increases the price on an item and then the next day there is a "sale" on it, which makes it the price it had originally been!
I must say, I was not in the camp of the "too many administrators" but HS admin is VERY pricey!
Comparing Numbers from 2000-2010
(from page 7 of "Amherst Elementary Budget FY10" http://www.arps.org/files/AmherstBudgetFY10.pdf
I looked at the numbers for 2000 to 2010 (just to get a bigger picture). I wish there was a way for me to post my excel files but I will type them out.
Here is the percent change since 2000 (relative to 2010 proposed budget) for the various categories. I've written the percent change and the dollar amount (and it is important to look at both because sometimes a modest increase in dollar amounts of an item with a small starting price tag looks like a big percentage increase).
Here's how to read this:
Program/Expense name: Percentage increase in spending since 2000 (Dollar increase in spending since 2000)
And here's the data:
Regular Ed: 16% ($845K)
ELL: 66% ($355K)
Special Ed: 72% ($2 million)
Subs/Temp: 63% ($74K)
Other programs: 3314% ($356K)
Supp Services 29% ($286K)
School Admin 20% ($168K)
Central Admin 35% ($145K)
Information Systems 107% ($193K)
Facilities 65% ($592K)
Transportation 223% ($414K)
Health Insurance 189% ($2.2 million)
Oper and Other -6% (yes, that is a MINUS sign, of -$20K)
Looking it over.. here are some things that jump out at me.
1) What is Other programs? It is hiding a large percentage increase of 3000%, and is costing us an addition $167K over 2009 budget). Is this like a lawsuit or something? Spell it out so we know what it is!
2) Health insurance has skyrocketed (more than 2 million dollars). Do we have a lot more people on payroll or is this JUST attributable to the rising cost of insurance
3) SPED costs have skyrocketed (2 million dollars). Do we have a lot more SPED kids, have federal guidelines for mandated services increased drastically, are the costs of these services increasing, or are we adding more services than required?
4) Information systems have vastly increased in percentage cost (100%) - but presumably these costs will level off soon, assuming that we are wired for internet, everyone has a computer? Costs of technology are certainly going down.
5) Facilities have increased in cost by almost $600K or 65%. We are NOT as far as I can tell, serving significantly more students than in 2000.
6) The most obvious thing that jumps out at me is that the regular ed program has suffered at the cost of almost everything else. Besides "Operations and Other" the increase in regular ed budget is the smallest in percentage terms (16%). We have spent almost as much MORE on facilities ($600K) than we have on regular ed ($845K)!
Thanks for showing us how to find the numbers, they are enlightening.
Relative Numbers (2000 to 2009) for Regional budget:
I could not find the FY10 Regional budget so I used the info from 2009 and compared changes in terms of percentage and dollars from 2000-2009 for the MS/HS.
Regular Ed: 4.4% ($285K)
ELL: 44% ($100K)
Special Ed: 54% (1.7 million)
Subs/Temp: 39% ($44K)
Other programs: 81% ($753K)
Supp Services: 4% ($52K)
School Admin: 51% ($423K)
Central Admin: 42% ($213K)
Information Systems: 207% ($372K)
Facilities: 66% ($863K)
Transportation: 38% ($493K)
Health Insurance: 200% ($2.8 million)
Oper and Other: 250% (1.9 million)
What jumps out at me?
1) Regular education has suffered relative to all other categories. Beyond the baseline cost, we have spent MORE to transport the kids to school. What's more important, transportation or the actual education? We have added $645 in admin and central admin costs vs just $285K for the kids' regular education over this 9 year period. That sounds crazy to me. I bet there aren't more kids in schools in 2009 vs 2000. We have beefed up our information systems more than we've beefed up our kids' regular education. We've added $863K MORE to their facilities (and I bet they don't even appreciate it!) whereas we only added $285K more to their education.
2) Why have Oper and Other gone up so much (250%, an increase of 1.9 million?)
3) Why has SPED costs gone up so much ($1.7 million, or 54%)
4) Health insurance is killing us (ha ha, get it?)
My question is: how can we get back to basics, focus on the core mission of providing an education to the majority of the students (regular ed), and the SPED students. It seems we are spending way more on admin, facilities, transportation, Oper and Other rather than on actual education. Why not charge for the buses (with free rides for free lunchers?) Why not, gasp, cut some admin? Can we do with a little less of "Other?"
I can't find the Regional 2010 budget anywhere either. Can you provide a link,please?
Abbie, can you please tell me how you looked for the regional budget information on the arps site? Which menus did you look at? It helps me to know what pathways people follow.
If you type Regional Budget into the search box, you will find the page for FY2010. You will also find it if you go to Administration and then Budget Information. Hope this helps.
Abbie: I am puzzled too. I am hoping someone else can inform both of us!
Anon 10:20 (and 10:47? You are the same person, correct?): Fascinating analysis. Those pie charts in the budgets really are full of data. I, too, noticed the relative small increase in the regular ed budget over time which really concerns me. I don't know what falls into the "other" category but looking at the line-by-line budget may reveal that. I do want to say that I know health insurance costs have skyrocketed, not only for our schools. It is my understanding that changes to our town employee (including teachers) health insurance has been brought under somewhat better control (i.e. lower rate of annual increase) in the past few years, so that rate of growth should be slowing.
I agree with you that this changing allocation of our limited dollars is concerning and, like you, I hope the School Committee is looking closely and asking some tough questions.
The FY10 budget used to be here on the ARPS web site. Now I can only find the Elementary budget and the proposed cuts and additions to both the Elementary and Regional budgets.
oh I see what you mean, the pdf for the budget is now gone from that page. I have no idea how that happened. Let me see if I can find it and repost it. we have had some trouble with the attachments feature of the new web site.
Thanks! The budget is back up. It seems odd that the moneys we get for SPED isn't in the revenue. Is it included in Chpt 70?
Abbie,
I think if you look at the pdf at the top of the list, the one called "Budget Planning Information," you will find a lot of information about revenue. There are a lot of different grants listed, including some that have Special Education in the name of the grant. One of the federal grants is $860K. There are probably other sources of revenue that would not be obvious to untrained eyes like mine.
I think this would be a good example of a question to ask to the people who really know. Try the FAQ on the arps site. The more specific your question is, the better. And as I have mentioned previously, it may take a while to get a response, since there are several questions in the queue right now. But it is still worth asking.
also, there is a lot of information about Special Education costs and enrollment numbers here:
http://www.arps.org/node/725
If you think this information could be organized or labeled differently, please let me know.
Oh my. I am sorry, but all I can think when I read the posts here is if people who work(ed) for the town and the schools cannot even find this well hidden information about all the administrative costs how can the oridinary person be expected to know this stuff??
Whew...one milluion dollars.....one million dollars spent on administrators at the HS.
But, I thoughtwe were in a budget crisis here. I thoughtwe were having to close Marks Meadow to rescue this enormous deficit?
It doesn't jive in my book.
It simply does not make any sense!
I appreciate this coming to light.
Alison, areyou aware of Principal Crestos proposal to cut guidance, a program that serves all the children in the middle school, and re-create positions in its place that can only serve a much, much smaller group of kids there?
Someone has to put a halt to this utter nonsense, I just wish I knew who.
Abbie: I do think some special ed money is covered under Chapter 70 but have never seen it broken down that way. Perhaps Nina could point us to that information.
Nina: thank you for reminding people of the "Budget Planning Document" I have referenced before. It really is full of information. For those interested in the many grants our districts have, that is a good source. Do you have more specific information on what proportion of Chapter 70 aid is specifically given to Amherst for special ed? I think that was Abbie's question. Thanks.
Anon 7:25PM: TO clarify, the amount of money used for high school administration is not related to the potential closing of Marks Meadow since the Regional and Elementary districts are different and have different budgets. So even if they totally eliminated all high school administration (not that I am recommending that), that money would not go toward the elementary budget under the current configuration of our schools. If we were to regionalize K-12, that would be different.
There was considerable confusion about the elimination of one FTE guidance counselor for the middle school in Tier 1 and the addition of one FTE "School Adjustment Counselor" for the middle school (same salary--$54,000). At the March 10th meeting, we received a document titled "Answers to Questions on Regional Budget Proposed Cuts." (I looked for it on-line but all I could find are the budget FAQs which appear to be a subset of the Q&As we were given at the meeting.)
In that document, Q7 asks: "What is the difference between a School Adjustment Counselor and a Guidance Counselor (for example, what is the size of their case load, their availability to students?) What certification is required? What is driving the change?"
The answer to this question is lengthy so I won't post it all here, but it does look as if this move reduces the general guidance counseling for all students from 2 FTE to 1 FTE while increasing the more-targeted "adjustment counseling" from 0.8FTE to 1.8 FTE. It is not clear whether one staff member will be let go and another hired in his/her place or whether one of the current guidance counselors will now be assuming the role of Adjustment Counselor.
The brief definition of a School Adjustment Counselor--according to that document--is "a School Adjustment Counselor (SAC) works with and counsels students with behavioral, mental, emotionsl, or physical problems that impact school progress." Which, as you suggest, is probably a much smaller group of students at ARMS.
All of the FAQs from the meeting are posted. Just click on FAQ from the menu bar at the top. I guess I have to make it more obvious on the budget page that people can go to the FAQ page.
I tried to make it so that the questions identified as budget questions would also show up on the budget page and they do, but it looks like there are too many of them to fit on that page.
Any suggestions anybody has are welcome.
The elementary reorganization info is available on its own page, which is a link from the Amherst school committee page.
http://www.arps.org/node/654
Again, I welcome any suggestions about how to make it easier to find the info.
I think people forget about the search feature. If you search on "redistricting", you get that page in the search results.
I am still learning how people use the site, so just tell me what would make things more clear.
As for decoding the information itself, that is outside my area of expertise. I think Abbie should send in her specific question from the FAQ page and it will be forwarded to the appropriate people.
Nina: thank you for the helpful links. I didn't even think to look under the Amherst School Committee page but searched the budget-related pages for the reorganization information. Also thank you for helping us figure out how to find all the FAQs related to the regional budget. Now people can read the answer regarding the change from a guidance counselor to a School Adjustment Counselor verbatim.
This is how I understand the situation at the middle school regarding principal Cresto's decision to make a cut to the existing guidance program that has been in place there for at least 28years that I am aware of. A program that serves the students in 8th grade now being headed by a very dedicated young African-American man, Mr. Sadiq.
Mr. Sadiq is only one of two African-American men in the building and Ms. Cresto's moves in her feeble minded attempts to balance a budget will eliminate him from the building! Who is she anyway? One of 3 principals in this building?? Why doesn't she consider eliminating the "extra" two principals before she takes away a committed, valued, man who Amherst needs desparately.
It is not the responsibility of the public schools to serve children in a therapeutic manner outside of what the guidance program has offered for many years. We are not phychiatrists, or pyschologists or therapists. And no one where under public education have I ever heard of these services being required for a student to undergo to be eligible for graduation!
Please--tell me, what is going on here? Why would a school system who professes to serve its children in a 'multicultural' manner even consider making a move to eliminate its greatest assest to the kids?
Thank you.
Anon 11:51AM: I hope we don't lose Mr. Sadiq! The kids love him and I have been very impressed with how well he connects with them and how they respect him. He is such a professional. This would be a huge loss for ARMS.
Everyone should look at the school's administrative organizational chart below. Some of these program coordinators are listed as "administrators" under each sped administrators (i.e. SAC, ESAH, & STEP for HS). I'm sure state has increased demands on administrators but I wonder what the chart looked like few years back.
http://www.arps.org/files/Organization-Chart-08-09.pdf
Coordinators are not considered administrators.They fall under the same contract as teachers with a substantially lower payscale.
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