MDUSD made a new offer to MDEA this last week. The blogs are writing about it, the District is explaining, the teachers are angry, and we are curious. Why was this offer so much less than the offer on the table in November? Is it a mismanaged budget combined with state-wide cuts? Is it a revenue problem? This blog has been, and continues to be, a supporter of a parcel tax.... no question. However, there are other districts, with less revenue, paying their teachers more and we want to know why?
Here is the data:
Here is the data:
Revenue, Benefits, and Salary Comparison by District-
Should our teachers be angry.... you bet! Something is not right, they deserve a comprehensive, competitive, compensation package and they deserve to know why other Districts with less revenue can provide their teachers this and MDUSD can't.
3 comments:
The chart comparing MDUSD concerns me. I suspect we are not comparing apples to apples. Why does it show MDUSD getting more state and federal $ per student? Are these special ed funds? Those should not be listed under per student revenues because they are not distributed for every ADA, just special ed ADA. Average teacher salaries are going to be lower due to lower experience levels. We can not pay salaries or benefits with money we do not have. I understand the teachers' anger, frustration, etc. I would hope each employee understands that the parents and community appreciate the work they do each and every day. If you need proof look at the amount of money the district receives each and every year from donations, contributions and community funded grants. We are already supplementing the state and federal funds by a large amount. We support the programs that are important to us, and expect the district to be able to cover the basics with the state and federal funds. Is this unreasonable? Are times difficult financially? You bet. Many folks are losing their jobs, many are not getting raises or promotions this year, or last. Many have little or no health benefits, or their choices of health benefits have been greatly reduced.Many work long hours doing more than one persons job, it is called multi-tasking. Welcome to the real world.
Sandra,
I too am concerned. I am concerned that we keep hearing that there is no money in the budget. I too believed this until I did the research and now I am asking, "Are you sure MDUSD is spending our money wisely?"
I went back and looked at Federal Entitlements and Grants for Special Ed and if I backed out those numbers from each of the sample districts it does not change the fact that MDUSD has more revenue per student. In the category for Current Year Apportionments under Other State Revenue there are items that are deemed Special Ed. There are also several other areas covered in this section. When I subtracted this revenue source from the sample districts a few districts on the list moved above MDUSD. For every district I lost I have gone back to the list of California Districts and have found others that provide the benefits and have lees revenue. I don't have the time to look at every unified district in the state but I have found enough to ask MDUSD to look for the waste in their organization and see if they can do better. As for your comment regarding teacher's salaries being low because we have so many new teachers, I understand your argument but we have so many new teachers because our total compensation package is low. Lack of teaching experience and teacher turnover is hurting our kids. This problem needs to be solved. I am asking the District to really sharpen their pencils and look at what other districts with similar revenue sources are doing. I will be disappointed if they jump automatically to the politically charged items like music and sports. They can do better than that.
Sandra is right about the average teacher experience impact on your assertions. There is a huge difference in income between a teacher with 8 years and a teacher with 12 years of experience. On our schedule, there is between $4000 and $5000 difference in the compensation. It is flatly misleading to attempt to compare districts using average teacher salaries (this is what MDEA does).
You are correct that the low average experience level is due to the teacher exodus we are experiencing and that is certainly a bad fact, but you still have to adjust for the difference in experience level to make a fair comparison. Teachers don't make the decision to leave our district because a teacher with 4 years more experience than them makes more money - they make that decision because a teacher with the same experience as them makes more money.
Also, the revenue numbers you use are not helpful. The main thing overlooked is that MDUSD has a large amount of restricted revenue built into the overall figure. If you look at unrestricted revenue only, which is the most relevant as that is what we have control over, you will see the problem. For example, your numbers show that MDUSD has $500 per student more than San Ramon. If you look at the unrestricted revenue, you would find that San Ramon has $566.90 more than MDUSD. If you multiply $566.90 by our ADA (34115), you see that they have the equivalent of $19,33,873.68 more money PER YEAR for unrestricted expenditures.
There are several very important reasons why unrestricted is more important than restricted when you are looking at compensation. We do not have the ability to spend restricted funds on across the board pay raises. In other words, we can't fire someone who is paid for with restricted funds and then use those funds to increase everyone's salary - we have to spend the restricted funds on what we are told to spend them on.
In addition, there is a hidden impact to the restricted funds. For some restricted funds, you essentially have no choice but to accept them if you have the identified need (e.g., EL students, or students in poverty), but the restricted program does not always pay for itself, so there is an encroachment of "restricted expense" onto the unrestricted revenue.
As simple example of restricted funds that the district gets that are not available for other purposes, consider free and reduced lunch. Mt. Diablo provides some 30% of students with free and reduced lunch. San Ramon, 1.4%. Should we be penalized by an analysis that takes into consideration total revenue when one portion of it has to be spent on a specific cost? I don't think so.
Bottom line - San Ramon has at least $19 Million more in unrestricted revenue to spend on compensation and whatever else they want to.
Also, I think it is worth referring you to my analysis from last year regarding comparing teacher salaries. The approach I took is far more balanced than the average approach reflected in the numbers you have displayed.
I took the ACTUAL experience and credit numbers for teachers and applied the salary schedules of all of the unified school districts in Contra Costa County to those ACTUAL numbers. This is by far the fairest way to compare our salary schedule to others. The outcome? Only San Ramon had a higher salary schedule. If we were to have adopted the 06-07 salary schedule for any other unified school district in Contra Costa County, the teachers would have LOST between $9 million and $18 million in salary - money that would then have been available (and is being used in the other school districts) for benefits. These are real numbers based on real teacher experience and credits.
As I am sure you are aware, I am always more than willing to discuss these financial issues. Feel free to call me anytime.
Please don't misunderstand the above - I truly believe we have to work hard to provide better compensation of our employees. We need to continue re-prioritizing our budget. What we also need is to be willing to look at the true and relevant facts to identify the problems we have so that we can fix them. There is no question that we suffer from a lack of revenue. Making statements contrary to that does not help our district in any way.
We must have more revenue and the only solution is a parcel tax.
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