From: klf@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (karen.l.fenton)
Newsgroups: misc.education
Subject: Re: EDUCATION, MONEY, AND THE FACTS OF LIFE
Date: 5 Nov 92 19:32:53 GMT
Article-I.D.: cbnewsi.1992Nov5.193253.14273
Distribution: na
Organization: AT&T

In article <1992Nov3.145219.13810@midway.uchicago.edu>, jss5@ellis.uchicago.edu (jeffrey s sweeney) writes:
> 
> Catholic parochial schools pay subsistence wages to many of their
> workers (nuns and priests). I suspect the schools may also be
> subsidized.

They are.
Not only by the Church(s) in their diocese, but in NJ at least, they
receive some tax revenues as well.


> Are there any school board members or private school administrators out
> there who can give us numbers?  What does it cost to run a school?


You've got it.
I'm doing this off the top of my head: any mistakes are my own (teach
me to leave my Board-bag at home!). But you can get the drift.

In my district:
average Per Pupil Cost is about $6500 - about 75% of the state average.
We generally float near 60% of the average ppc of similar
socioeconomic districts. (This *might*  suggest we're doing a
pretty efficient job?)

We have about 10k students in 17 buildings. We also have a number
of students who are special ed outplacements. (This is based on
child study team assessments - we *can't* provide what the
child needs - OR a court decision, reversing our team's opinion that
we COULD provide it.) There are about 1k students in our schools
who are classified and receive special ed services of some description
and possibly another couple of hundred in other facilities.
We also rent space in a local facility for a group of disaffected
students who need an off-campus environment.

We're a middleclass community with a "high" socioeconomic designation
by the state.

Our overall budget is close to $80 million. $57 million of that is
local property tax revenue. The rest is state or federal aid.
Some of this is channeled to private schools in the area for
nursing services, textbooks, substance abuse counseling programs,
and transportation. Parents who choose a private school within 20 miles
for which there is no bus service are entitled to about $600/year
for their private transp. expense.

State aid is broken into several major catagories: special education
aid, transportation aid (for state mandated bussing) and pension "aid"
which is really the state rolling over money to itself in our name.
There is also some money tied to "at risk" students. These are identified
as the kids eligible for the federal subsidized lunch program, rather
than by tested ability. Go figure.

NJ requires - by constitution - that the local school district 
provide a "thorough and efficient" education for ALL children -
regardless of their need - and *meeting* all their needs, from birth
to age 21.

We have about 895 teachers. Starting salary this year (B.A., no
experience) is $32,600. I think the top of the guide is about $67,000.
Cost of benefits per employee (family plan) is about $8500 per.

We have the following administrators:

	Superintendent (req'd by law)
	Board Secretary (ditto)
	Chief Business Administrator (ditto)
	Head of Personnel (about to be combined with Business Administrator)
	Assistant to Supt. for Secondary Curriculum
	   6 sec. curric. supervisors (math, scie., voc., social studies,
                                  foreign lang., english)
	Assistant to Supt. for Elementary Curriculum
	   3 elem. curric. supervisors (math, scie., reading)
	Assistant to Supt. for Special Education
	   2 assistants for special ed
	17 building principals
	8 assistant secondary principals
	1 Athletic Director

Top administrative salary is $95k: lowest is about $54k.
Administrators have agreed to pick up 5%-10%-15% of the total
cost of their benefits over 3 years, beginning last year.
All employees pay resaonable deductibles, etc., in addition.

The state has been on our backs for not having enough administrators to
cover all areas reasonably (safely?! - note the lack of a Phys. Ed
supervisor and only 1 Athletic director to cover all schools?)
We are also having trouble recruiting administrators because we
pay too far below the market for our area.

Our facilities are in rough shape because we can't get our
community to approve a capitol budget (or any other budget -
INCLUDING the one which offered *NO TAX INCREASE* two years ago).
One necessary project is the removal of underground storage tanks -
required by law to be completed by November 1993. We have 10
and the estimated cost of removal is about $245,000 EACH.

We try to spend about $75000 for textbooks per year, but that
number often gets cut. We have in use textbooks from 1971.
We try to allocate about $1500 per elementary school for
library books, another 1000 for periodicals (remember Weekly Readers?).
This, too, is a frequent casualty of budget cuts.
The corresponding numbers at the secondary slide to about 
$12000 (library) and $5000 for periodicals (class and library).
Thsi usually takes a hit. One year it had to be cut altogether:
we have no reference section for 1990-91 in our libraries.

Our district no longer participates in any
state workshops or conferences. We have very little money for
training or inservice. We can't afford a district newsletter to
tell the community what is hapening in our schools.

Our community believes that we have a bloated budget, are paid,
(exhorbitantly), have vast pockets of waste, and too many
administrators. They think we have cut programs and
services to "get them" for not passing budgets (only 8 budgets
have passed since 1955).  And they know they're right, because they
read it in a magazine! ("well, it was SOMEBODY'S district...")
They deride us for "refusing" to look for creative solutions.

The Board meets 2-4 nights a week - year round - to try to stretch the dollars
and deliver something approaching a decent (remember excellent?)
education. The meetings consistently run until 12:00 and can
frequently go until 2 am.
Board members do not receive a salary.
Board members cannot bill back their expenses to the district.
When I have to make a long distance call or drive to Trenton, I'm
on my own dime. It costs me about $1000/year to serve on this board.

We contribute $7/month, each, for coffee.

If anyone has any other questions, or would like more detail (I haven't
worn you out yet?), let me know.

Karen
Newsgroups: misc.education