03/02/2001

Cost-Cutting Measures in Schools

Connecticut educators strive to control costs within budgetary restraints, while improving educational programs and outcomes for students. In a recent article I suggested a number of ways to meet these goals. A sampling of reader responses follow:

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Dear Mrs. Bruno,

Many school districts are already putting some of your ideas into practice. As an elementary school principal who has struggled through the school budget process, I don't think some of your ideas will work.

First of all, the majority of a school budget is for staffing (around 75%). When teachers retire they are replaced with less experienced teachers at a lower level of pay. This does happen, but I cannot force teachers to retire and am bound by many contractual obligations. As teachers' salaries increase as per their contract, that becomes a fixed cost that cannot be changed. Also many districts are struggling with exponential growth. In the town where I work the student population has grown by 64% over the last 10 years. If you were to look at our budgetary growth, although it has grown every year, it has not kept pace with the student growth.

I am not sure how your program to train volunteers to become mentors will be a cost saving benefit. Programmatically it sounds like an outstanding idea, but where would the cost savings be?

Also, how would moving administrators from a 12 to 11 month calendar work as a cost savings measure? The idea doesn't take into account the shortage of administrators. So to lower the pay and shorten the year, but still have the same job expectations, is unreasonable. Many districts are offering a shorter calendar year with the same pay, just to attract administrative candidates.

I agree that creating a base of substitutes to work in a district would increase the quality of education, but again this is not a cost saving measure. When you get into-long term substitutes it becomes a contractual issue. You must pay them a teacher's salary with benefits, or must find certified personnel.

We have aggressively pursued grants and donations and have secured a great deal of money for our school in both competitive, private and state-funded grants. So this has been very helpful, but has not solved some of our basic needs.

At this time, many companies are reluctant to donate computer hardware and software, and have cut back in funding available. Many companies and individuals want to donate outdated or old equipment. Training is also a problem. We have not had much luck in responses from companies. We have worked hard with a Strategic Planning Committee of Educators, Community Members, Parents, and community leaders to help plan effectively for our district and schools to address the needs and challenges that we face, including funding and costs.

I think that your ideas have merit, but I would hate to have people think that the solutions are simplistic and readily available. Many of the issues are much more complex . We are constantly trying to come up with cost-saving measures that do not impact student learning and continue to meet current state and national standards in curriculum and learning.

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Mandates are symptoms of the, "I want to please everyone disease." Instead of raising the level of services to all, we have helped a few lead better lives. Can we, however, turn our backs on these few to concentrate on the mainstream student body? I think not. There is no going back to the fifties. The mentally and physically handicapped that are mainstreamed, at a tremendous cost to school systems, should rightly be tended to. We have come a long way; we have a long way to go. Red tape and regulations keep administration costs so high it is unimaginable. Anyone who suggests that the size of the administration is too large or that teachers be accountable is labeled as anti-education and vilified.

There are hard questions to answer. How can affluent Simsbury spend less per pupil than Hartford and be a superior school system? Tough stuff that will require people with thick skins to take the heat and implement the hard policies in both locales. Trying to come up with solutions will take people with a better mind than mine, but I know they are out there.

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I read your article and found the same old response to the age-old problem of how to pay for something that very few people value. We talk a good game, but when it comes to putting up the cash there is that part of us that hesitates. Some balk and others proteststrongly. What we do want in life we seldom hesitate to go for. We will pay for outstanding tickets to see people do things with a ball. Many of these people are paid beyond reason for what they do. On the other hand a person who carries our children on a school bus is compensated little for something very important.

The schools in this nation are in trouble from the lack of support and commitment to a basic tenant of life.

Articles written about education should focus on the incredible cost of the rebuilding of our aging buildings that are unhealthful and don't even have state or federal standards of health for students to learn in. Spend a little time researching this and you will find that the only time a building has to adhere to standards is when it first opens. After that the only standards are OSHA for employees. And those standards do not take into consideration the needs of the kids or the number in a room or the quality of air for a school. Ventilation for computers takes precedence over air quality in the classroom. There is an iceberg out there, and it is so large that government, both state and federal, better take some of that surplus money and direct it toward the construction of safe and healthy schools.

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I found some of the suggestions in your column interesting. However the only one that looked as if it would save much money was the regional approach to districts. The purchasing power of many school districts together could go a long way toward negotiating better prices for supplies. However, I am quite sure that very few school superintendents or their staff would be willing to take on the work load from another town's school system.

People working in the private sector face the reality of seeing their coworkers getting layoffs and knowing that they will be assigned more duties to take up the slack. The same is rarely true of any public sector jobs, school or other government jobs. I cannot remember any time when I read in the paper that the state, local or federal government had a large layoff of employees. On the other hand, it is not uncommon to read that people in the private sector are losing their jobs in large numbers.

The professionals that are paid by tax dollars should keep a wary eye on the private sector economy and plan their budgets on some known factor, such as the town's actual available revenue. We all want the best things that money can buy for the children, but there is a limit to just how much you can put on the card. Sooner or later the bills come due and somebody has to pay them.

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One important thing the state could do is reimburse towns 100% for mandated programs. I am not sure that the public realizes how many parents of special needs children demand placements outside of the local public school at costs that could be as high as $100,000 per child. There is a systematic appeals process by which towns can challenge these demands, but apparently very few make it to that level. Apparently, most towns settle with the parents and pay for all or a large portion of the private costs.

The sad thing is that the money spent on one single child could be put towards creating good programs within the public school, which could benefit more children. It is important to note these are not always severely handicapped children; some of them are learning disabled, high-functioning autistic, and even mildly retarded. Many parents have the mistaken notion that private schools are better, and therefore, they initiate the process to demand private tuition. It would be very interesting if the actual expense for each town was exposed to the public; I think people would be furious if they actually knew what was going on.

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We need more resources for students at the brighter end of the spectrum. Almost all schools in Connecticut used to have talented & gifted programs, until the money tightened up. These were the first programs to be eliminated since they were not "mandated" by the state and/or federal government. I recently read a newspaper article in which someone in the state government was trying to have the state require that these programs be made available. Unfortunately, in some towns, mandates are the only way to institute the programs. However, in order to fund this program, usually something else must suffer. Until the state and/or federal government begins to fund a larger portion of the school budgets, most students will be short changed. Then, if you have the TAG programs for the brighter students and the special education resources for the students at the opposite end, the bulk of the students in the middle tend to fall through the cracks. I don't pretend to have all the answers, but somehow, we need to address the needs of all students.

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School systems can cut costs is in the administrative area. I live in the town of Bethany. We are regional with the Amity school system, but our elementary school is our own. Only the junior high and high school are regional.

Years ago, when trying to control our costs during massive pay and benefit increases for teachers, some of us found out that a town with one school does not need a principal. By state mandate they only need a superintendent. Therefore, tremendous cost savings could be realized. Some of us pressed on this subject but got shot down and we are still paying for both. For the life of me I can't figure out what a superintendent of schools does with his time.

It is about time that the tax payers and parents demand accountability from our school systems. Every year we are told that the system is failing and they need more money to fix it. This does not wash in private industry. I was an engineer at one time, working in manufacturing, and if I did not produce I didn't get a raise. Sometimes the threat of being fired came with it. I had to prove my worth in order to receive higher pay and benefits, and I think this is what we need to do to both our teachers and administrators.

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The cost of education has risen to the heights of the outer solar system and will never get back to earth. Hire less expensive teachers to replace retirees? Great idea, but there is one hitch. How do you tell a teacher to "retire" to bring down the cost to the school district? Will the unions get involved? You bet, and can you say...lawsuit? Without co-operation, that idea is a utopia gone bad. Getting experienced teachers to work for starting wages could put the system in jeopardy by getting fewer teachers, unless you give them a "perk" for their willingness to come into the system.

Mentors are a workable solution. Getting students that have a hard time learning into a mentor program can be difficult. A student's pride is usually in the forefront, and he/she doesn't want to look stupid. Finding the people to get involved and stay with it no matter what happens is key to it working.

Administration contracts for less time can be a Pandora's Box of problems. In the one month that they are not working, they could not be renewed due to politics or lured away to better money.

Teacher internship contracts should be part of the education processes for the person who wants to be a teacher. What cost to the system in benefits and other fees can be accessed if the system is willing to give it a green light, provided that it doesn't interfere with a loss of another person's job? Grievances will abound if it does.

Using the school for functions while school isn't in session can generate revenue, but you need police, fire, and custodial services when an event is held. That costs money, usually in overtime. What school system owns its own buses to transport their students? Most cities will contract out to the lowest bidder, thus the cost of vehicle maintenance and related items isn't there.

Getting any philanthropist (like Bill Gates) to donate in large amounts of money, equipment, or technology usually has some sort of reward for them, like when a new school is built, to have it named after them or big tax relief.

The cost of education should always be looked into, to find ways to upgrade or improve teaching. Unions should be aware of costs and be willing to contribute to the over all scope of that cost. I don't want to see teachers work for $6.00 an hour, but how much is really enough? Getting quality books with little or no mistakes seems to be impossible today. Retirement and pension costs can make any savings null and void. Getting everyone, from Board of Ed., the Mayor, Students and anyone willing to take on the challenge to get the most "bang for the buck" for a great education system should be the goal of all. Yet politics and corruption, no matter how slight, always get in the way.

I guess that one can only hope that we don't graduate a group of functionally illiterate people.

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Please send questions or comments to bbruno@snet.net.