Think New Mexico Executive Director Fred Nathan says higher administrative salaries encourage an outflux of teachers from classrooms.
It’s Friday just before lunchtime, but Melville Morgan, the deputy superintendent of Santa Fe Public Schools, is anything but relaxed.
“You caught me on a very bad day,” Morgan says. “I was ready to go until last night’s news.”
He’s alluding to the announcement, on the afternoon of Nov. 11, that New Mexico’s state budget may be deeper in the hole than previously thought. For most of the year, working estimates for the state’s budget shortfall have hovered around $260 million; on Nov. 11, that figure jumped to $452 million.
Since the departure of SFPS’ former chief financial officer, Michael Erwin, Morgan is now the person charged with finding ways to fund education and services for the district’s approximately 13,000 students—not to mention its staff of approximately 1,200. He’s sweating it.
He sits at a round table, flanked by the two men he describes as the district’s entire finance department, and surrounded by stacks of recession graphs, budget documents and dire projections.
Today’s work, he says, is “setting the stage on the looming disaster.”
In many states, school districts are funded through local mechanisms such as property taxes. But in New Mexico, they depend on the state for funding. State statute requires that all schools receive funding based on the number of students and their relative needs. The formula is called the state equalization guarantee, and is meant to ensure that poor, rural districts have the same teaching resources as wealthier, more densely populated ones.
So—campaign promises aside—when the state’s budget takes a hit, it often affects school districts directly.
Take this current fiscal year. The state initially estimated that it could give Santa Fe Public Schools approximately $79.5 million for its operating budget. The first estimated budget shortfall ($260 million) reduced SFPS’ funding to approximately $77 million.
Fortunately, federal funding helped fill most of that gap; Morgan says the district covered the rest of its gap by changing the way it pays for certain programs.
But that federal funding will dry up next year, which puts even more pressure on the state budget to fund education.
Morgan estimates—it’s a very preliminary guess, he cautions—that this will mean another $3.476 million out of SFPS’ budget. That amount is in addition to prior estimates of a $7 million reduction in district spending.
“The question becomes: Where do you go?” Morgan says. He pauses for a long moment. “Where do you go when you have to reduce?”
The bulk of SFPS’ budget—between 80 percent and 90 percent, according to the latest figures available—pays for personnel expenses. Those expenses include salaries, benefits, overtime and “additional” pay—such as stipends for department heads—for everyone from teachers to bus drivers, custodians, board members and the superintendent.
Subsequently, “cuts”—a word Morgan eschews in favor of less-foreboding terms such as “reductions” or “cost savings”—are difficult without directly affecting the district’s workforce.
But cuts aren’t the only way to tighten the belt; many of SFPS’ critics say better financial management should be the district’s first priority.
“The big problem with the Santa Fe school system is that, quite frankly, the people managing the place probably wouldn’t [qualify] to run a Starbucks,” Peter Baston, a consultant who has worked with school districts around the state and whose educational cost-saving models have won national recognition, tells SFR.
Even though at least half of the work involved in running a school district—such as managing SFPS’ $244 million budget—is akin to running a business, Baston says, New Mexico law places no business aptitude requirements on district superintendents.
As a result, he says, “Santa Fe Public Schools throws away 35 cents on every dollar they get, just through poor management capabilities.”
Fred Nathan, the executive director of the Santa Fe think tank Think New Mexico, which advocates for smaller schools, echoes Baston’s district leadership concerns.
“If you look at the successful, high-performing school districts, they’re run by people with MBAs,” Nathan says.
In New Mexico, Public Education Department spokeswoman Beverly Friedman says, superintendents are required to have teaching and administrative degrees—but not MBAs.
In Santa Fe, where most top administrators earn more than teachers, Nathan says it’s tempting for ambitious teachers to move into administration.
As a result, he says, “We lose really good teachers in the classroom to get a subpar administrator because of the perverse incentives.”
Baston says better accountability would provide an appropriate check for the district’s financial management practices—but, he notes, “Most of the people working there have graduated from a school system where transparency is not the name of the game.”
SFR encountered SFPS’ resistance to transparency in attempts to inspect the district’s budget. Per its own policy, the district does not provide electronic copies—which makes the nearly 5,000 pages of budget, payroll and purchasing documents provided in response to SFR’s public records request somewhat cumbersome and wholly un-searchable.
The district also tried to charge SFR a fee for taking photographs of the records, following which the Foundation for Open Government and New Mexico Attorney General’s Office issued a statement barring agencies from charging for copies made at no cost to them.
Other evidence of accountability problems is more easily unearthed, such as state audit documents, which, in 2009, cited SFPS for repeated overspending and problems in the use of athletic booster club funds, among other issues.
But SFPS Board Vice President Mary Ellen Gonzales says she’s impressed with the district’s budget team.
“They manage it pretty well,” Gonzales says. “With as many employees as we have and as many details, frankly, I think it’s amazing.”
Questions of financial management also relate to student achievement. In 2010, only three of Santa Fe’s 30 schools met No Child Left Behind’s Adequate Yearly Progress standards.
And while the George W Bush-era standards are admittedly flawed, Nathan says New Mexico also ranks near the bottom of the list for the percentage of education dollars that actually reach the classroom.
“Of all the rankings where we’re at the bottom, this is the most pitiful because it’s a matter of political will,” Nathan says. “It shows how the system is run for the benefits and needs of adults, not for children.”
Morgan, however, keeps bringing the budget conversation back to the kids. He says he has “no opinion” on whether, despite the new shortfall numbers, Gov.-elect Susana Martinez will keep her campaign promise not to cut education. He’s more worried about the recession’s ongoing impact on the district’s low-income families.
“It’s fine to talk about numbers,” Morgan says, “but you have to talk about the reality of the impact. And the reality of the impact is on human beings.”
I think that SFPS has a long way to go to recover credibility with the general public that they are willing to spend money more wisely. We have seen countless examples of questionable construction spending of bond money, and equally questionable but often overlooked or hidden expenditures of operational funds. Just this year there was a huge effort to fully re-register ALL SFPS students with complete sets of paperwork; costing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of paper, staff, and parent time for little reason. Another example was the printing/distribution of the 28 page glossy color 'Parents Guide' which repeated information we all had from registration and added un-needed things like athletic calenders for ALL schools, which can be obtained online, or thru the individual schools, or sold as fund-raisers at athletic events as needed. All this was done at the same time classroom Music budgets were cut to $100 per Elementary school?! Beginning Band was eliminated with no cost savings?! Current Administration may be trying hard, but they seem to be saving pennies and blowing dollars.
I think most parents who are paying attention to this issue would agree with this article and Dan's comment. To find even more evidence that the current SFPS administration are wasting dollars that could be reaching our children would not surprise many. I hear exasperation when discussing this with other parents so I hope "The Reporter" gives this issue more articles as it is greatly needed.
The Administration's current plan is to close all of the smaller K-6 elementary schools and construct large K-8 schools. They say it will save money when they haven't properly assessed the long term operational costs of the large K-8 as compared to keeping the small schools as is. And because Starbuck's was already mentioned I'll use it as a far fetched analogy again. Question; would it make sense for Starbuck's to close all of their small coffee shops and build one big huge coffee shop? How would each person be better served this way? So- how would each child be better served at a large school? It seems like a no-brainer! And it is further backed up with research showing smaller schools better serve lower income children.
The Administration and the board seem to have a plan that only benefits the construction companies. Operational funds are separate from construction/bond funds but this is hardly ever explained to the public. And this year, as we have witnessed construction costs quadruple with no-bid contracts, I would like to see more articles in "The Reporter" explaining both funding issues as the current BOE is blowing it in both arenas. The construction spending might not take from operational funds immediately but down the road will it cost even more to operate these large schools then if we left the smaller schools intact? I have no faith that there will be savings because for one, I know that Teachers, Secretaries, Janitors, Cafeteria staff are all needed per student numbers not per building, yet, the BOE always have these positions listed on their saving analysis in closing small schools.
Bottom line is; We need change on the board to turn this disaster around and I hope more people find the time to participate in the coming school board elections to make this happen.
Thanks Alexa for the great article. I too, hope The Reporter continues to cover these very important issues.
I'd like to point out that the School Board is at the helm of this crisis. Our school board has a voting majority that does not follow a systematic or sound decision making process, and soon these board members will be facing an operating budget deficit approaching 10 million dollars. If left to their own devices, I fear the quality of education for all our students will suffer terribly.
Those who have followed recent events such as the consolidation of Kaune, Alvord and Larragoite and the fiasco of this costing more than one million dollars over budget can easily understand this serious problem. Continued irresponsibility will result in even more waste, worse schools, lower property values, increased crime rates, and an overall weaker economy. We’ve got to do something, and soon.
David Feith at the WSJ wrote a really interesting article called "The Radical School Reform You've Never Heard Of". I think this is worth discussing.
Here is the link:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704462704575609781273579228.html
Bravo to Alexa Schirtzinger for her in-depth report on the SF Public Schools budget woes.
The issue of accountability in the schools has been something that we have heard about for years, since the enactment of “Every Child Left Behind,” but only in regards to the accountability of teachers, principals and schools. Rarely do we hear of accountability for administrations, their salaries or their budgets.
The closing of three neighborhood elementary schools and a possible fourth can be added to the list of lack of transparency and inaccurate budget numbers. The parents and communities of these schools along with many other organizations, including Think New Mexico, have disputed the numbers the district used to justify the closing of these schools. However, at every juncture of this year’s budget meetings, the numbers changed.
The cost of renovating the facility for the new Aspen [Community Magnet] School grew throughout the renovation, and the estimated costs for renovating Atalaya to consolidate Acequia Madre dwarf the savings in relation to the operating costs. SFPS Board Vice President Mary Ellen Gonzales has been the primary school board member who has led the charge for consolidation. She says she is “impressed with the district’s budget team” and thinks their management of the budget is “amazing.”
Ms. Gonzales’ legacy to the district and the city can be seen at the depressing sight of three landmark neighborhood schools sitting empty and dark (except for the heating and lighting that needs to be left on throughout the year). If a teacher were to use the mathematical formulas or “transparency” in their grading that the district uses for the budget (and that Ms. Gonzales praises) their accountability would surely be brought into question.