Focus on TUSD - September 2007

Joint Message from the Board President and the Superintendent
It's no secret that life today is maddeningly and increasingly expensive. In many cases, our best dreams and hopes must be scaled down or postponed while we stretch just to pay the bills for basic needs. It is cold comfort to us that TUSD shares intimate knowledge of that phenomenon with everyone in America struggling to make ends meet.

In the midst of the highly publicized difficulties of our contract negotiations, we are not arguing here with our employee group representatives nor are we going to rail against "job actions." We are instead going to explain some of the demands placed upon us by the state and the federal government that put the squeeze on the TUSD budget. We believe this is important information with financial implications that haven't been illuminated or understood as we have progressed through negotiations. The government demands may be there for the best reasons as they insist upon our improvement. But because they come to us without adequate-or sometimes any-funding sources attached to them, they also function to undermine the integrity of our budget and, consequently, the well being and morale of our employees, who constitute 92% of our operating budget.

It has been widely and correctly stated that the legislature gave school districts a 2.98% increase in funding from last year to this year. .98% of that money, legislators said, must be used for "non-administrative salaries and benefits" salary increases and benefits for teachers and other staff that are not classed as administrators. That explains the opening 1% offer, which would have allowed the District to use the remaining 2% to begin to pay for those otherwise unfunded mandates and balance its budget.

As you have read there are also expenses above, beyond, and outside the mandates. Those include TUSD Governing Board priorities such as small class size in primary grades and ensuring that the curricula being offered includes the arts. That means funding the moderate expansion of the renowned Opening Minds through the Arts (O.M.A.) program. This year's budget also includes additional stipends for teachers of hard-to-find exceptional education specialties. Stipends began to be paid to math teachers in restructured schools to attract the best and the brightest to areas of high need. Liability insurance costs went up considerably and contracted services for exceptional education students increased dramatically

Perennially questioned is the quantity of administrators and their cost. One reason TUSD has more administrators than some other districts is simply because we have more schools than anyone in the state and therefore more principals. Because we have a large percentage of students qualifying for free/reduced meals we have a large Title I budget which needs to be administered. Schools need supervision and support so five principal supervisors, along with other duties, each supervise an average of 23 schools. Significant programs such as exceptional education, interscholastics, technology, professional development, curriculum, student services, transportation, school safety, finance, human resources, food services, procurement, engineering, planning, and the bond program, just to mention some, all need to be administered. All districts, regardless of size have the same myriad responsibilities, but the scale of each in TUSD requires an administrator at the head. And while our teacher's salaries and benefits compare equally or favorably with surrounding districts, our administrators' salaries do not.

People will point to our $63 million desegregation budget and assume that we have plenty of additional resources. However, those resources have specific, not District-wide spending requirements. Some of those funds are indeed used for salary and benefit increases, but they can only be used for personnel assigned to desegregation responsibilities. This year that budget was increased by 2%. Any increase to teachers above 2% will require cuts in other areas of the deseg budget to accommodate it. This year was the first in 4 years that budget was increased and yet, over that time employee salaries have increased over 12% and benefits have increased over 50%.

As you can see, financially, public education is on a disastrous collision course. Years of both federal and state under-funding combined with the new requirements are intersecting now with too many bills and not enough income. We continue to lose potential income because of the state funding of charter schools. That situation cuts twice, because it allows charters to become more attractive, facilitating the exit of our students which then results in yet another net loss of funds.

We recognize that even the 3% solution doesn't fully address the bills, not to mention the hopes and dreams of the District's educators. What can we do about it? We must persuade our federal and state governments to step up to their fiscal responsibilities. It appears much easier for them to create mandates and requirements that are attached to expensive consequences. The forgotten attachment? An appropriate budget to address them! Or better yet, eliminate some mandates!

We are responsible for creating an educated electorate. In our social studies classes we teach our students the workings of our government encouraging their participation and involvement. We ask them to become petitioners, voters, to write to legislators, to speak up when they see injustice. We need to show the same courage that we ask of our students. Speaking at call to the audience is akin to preaching to the choir. Marching on 1010 makes the 5:00 o'clock news. Impacting the state legislature might make a difference.

--Joel T. Ireland
Governing Board President

--Roger F. Pfeuffer
Superintendent