Seattle School District officials admit new budget is an increase, not a cut

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Jul 14, 2011

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On Monday, I wrote a blog post criticizing the Seattle School District for calling their budget increase a cut, teasing the district that an increase is not a cut. Yesterday, the seattlepi.com reported that the Seattle School District officials now admit their new 2011-12 budget of $577 million is an increase, not a cut, over last year’s budget of $566 million. They also admit they are receiving additional revenue from the state for the expected enrollment increase.

The District still claims that its expenditures require it to receive $45.5 million more than its new, increased budget of $577 million. This is a surprising expectation. $45.5 million more than $577 would have amounted to a 21% increase over last year’s budget, with only a 3% increase in student enrollment.

Here are some additional facts from the new Seattle School District budget:

The Basic Education Allocation grant from the state has increased by $7.2 million to cover the enrollment of an estimated 1,362 new students, from 43,325 students in 2010-11 to 44,687 students in 2011-12;
The Basic Education Allocation grant from the state for 2011-12 is $5074 per student, up from $5064 per student for 2010-11.
The District is adding employees: in 2011-12 it will have 5,161 full-time employees, 73 more than the 2010-11 total of 5,088 employees. See page 53 of the budget.
Of the 5,161 employees, only 3,487 work in the schools. The rest, or 1,674 employees, work in or from the central district offices. See page 63.
District leadership has approved increases to teacher and principal salaries of $8.5 million, as the seattlepi.com reports.
District leadership has increased health and insurance benefits to $10,008 per employee, up from $9,856 average insurance benefits in 2010-11 for certificated staff. See page 37 of budget.
The Superintendent receives a salary of $264,000, plus benefits.
177 district employees receive over $100,000 in salary, plus benefits. See this OSPI page.
The average pay for district administrators (Duty Codes 12 and 13, as defined by the Superintendent of Public Instruction’s Accounting Manual definitions) rose by 17.9% between 2006-7 and 2010-11, while average school principal (Duty Codes 21 and 23) pay rose by 10.5% over the same period. By increasing the number and pay of district administrators, the district spent a total of $1 million more on district administrator salaries in 2010-11 than it spent in 2006-7. This OSPI page provides this information. Go to Publications/Personnel Summary Reports, then Tables 15-18.
The Seattle School District’s budget has never grown by 21% in one year. In 2005-6, the budget was $419,556,967, increasing by 10% in 2006-7 to $462,537,934, increasing 4% in 2007-8 to $481,243,117, increasing 9% in 2008-9 to $528,663,176, increasing 0.5% in 2009-10 to $531,774,465, increasing 6.5% in 2010-11 to $566,865,750, increasing 1.9% in 2011-12 to $577,700,000. This is a 38% revenue increase over a 6-year period. See this report at fiscal.wa.gov.

Though the Seattle School District has received a 38% revenue increase over the past six years, this is the kind of language you will find in the budget:

“Over the last several years, the district’s revenues have not kept pace with its expenditures, resulting in significant funding gaps.” Page 34.

Evidently the District expects the state and taxpayers to assume the complete wish-list of the District’s spending decisions, including salary and benefit increases. This is not responsible budgeting.

In economic times like today, businesses freeze wages, benefits and pensions, and they certainly do not hire additional people, as the Seattle School District just has.

More honesty and transparency over budgets is clearly necessary here. Officials should stop scaring parents and the public that their schools are suffering from budget cuts, because they simply are not. The schools will open in September and be fully staffed with fairly compensated administrators, teachers and other employees.

Crying “budget cut” in this time of recession, when state and local taxpayers are providing more money to the schools than ever, is simply not the straightforward and honest behavior we expect from our school leadership.