How to Close that Pesky Budget Gap?
Opening the floor for suggestions on closing the SPS budget gap.
1. Obviously, for the Legislature to truly fund public education for every child. I'm not sure I believe this will ever happen but I do also understand why there is hesitation to give money to districts that are not doing well. I think any "ask" should be accompanied by "and here's how we will use those new dollars wisely."
2. No raises for anyone for two years. Most people don't get a raise every year anyway and maybe it will stem the hiring at JSCEE.
3. Again, for those in the back, CHARGE THE CITY for pre-k classrooms. Yes, I do keep up and I know the City has its own budget problems. But it's just ridiculous for the district to give over many, many classrooms to the City's pre-k program AND to allow the City to withhold payments to the district for the program operation until certain measures are met.
4. Sell off non-school property like Oak Tree or the professional building off Lake City Way or even the Cleveland Forest.
5. End the district use of consultants for any reason except direct support to classrooms. That includes all SOFG consulting and conference trips.
What are your suggestions?
Comments
CBA Parent
-We’re Broke
Not only would we save on tech costs, but also tech support, the time it takes to give the kids their laptos during the start of the school year, fix them during the year, take them back at the end, refurbish them over the summer. And we would save on all the tech we pay for on the laptops like Amplify, Google classroom, etc.
Broken Record
Which leads me to We're Broke - is that the plan? Blame the teachers and put public pressure on them?
Broken Records, interesting. I should examine the Technology Department budget.
The teachers are what's right about SPS. I don't want to see their pay cut. It shouldn't be too radical that a teacher at SPS should be able to afford to live in Seattle without having to have a much better paid spouse.
Yes, they should be going over the central office staff. And consulting contracts.
Get rid of all of the more than 1-1 aids. Seriously. I have seen kindergartners with 2-1 support. Kindergarteners! Some students even have 3-1 support right now. And the 3 handlers completely dedicated for 1 kid are just high school educated paraprofessionals. Do students get 2-1 or 3-1 support when they get home? Of course not. These students receive no real education from their handlers, just confinement all the way up to age 22. 100s of thousands of dollars per year, per student.
Get rid of all out of district NPA placements. Does Yellowwood Academy or APL really have something so special that the district can’t handle it? No, of course not. More likely, the kids are children who were completely neglected educationally and the parents forced the district to do more than stick the kid in a room. The district has all the “expertise” of Yellowwood or any of these places. The district spends millions on these.
Defund special education maximum support classes. This support is only provided to lure students in. These Distinct classes usually have a 1-1 or even greater for its members, who don’t receive much or any service. These type of expensive classrooms are unique in terms of staffing levels in the state. But the district likes having them to avoid doing anything else. The lack of accountability means the costs are not questioned. These are possibly the most expensive classrooms in the whole state, with nothing to show for it.
Retired SPS
independent contractors or service providers..." with the exception of contracted travel (which falls under its own category.) In the actual 2017-18 budget the "Purchased Services" line item was $94M while in the Adopted Budget for 2023-24, this line has ballooned 36.6% to $128.4M. Presumably some of the increase is due to inflation but I would assume this is the category where all kinds of questionable expenditures are stuck. They don't appear to detailed in the budgets AT ALL. Do you know what's in there? While not enough to eliminate the deficit, it has the potential to make a dent. And the cuts will have to come from all over the budget - not one category. (And there are definitely other areas that need to justify their expansion in the face of falling enrollment.)
At this point, I really think that SPS (Jones, the board, etc.) believes it will get bailed out by the state. The more interesting question is how much of that new funding then gets sucked up into a new teacher's contract come 2025 when the median total salary in 2023-24 for an SPS teacher was ~$105K per 189 contracted days? They did it with the short-term COVID dollars. As of now, there are two members of the board who are actual employees at unions (Mizrahi at UFCW Local 21 & Hersey at Professional & Technical Employees Local 17). I'll speculate that perhaps they will not be the strongest of fiscal advocates for the district in this negotiation.
-Seeing Red
Also, I agree with the comment above, that computers for every elementary student are a boondoggle. Perhaps it was necessary during the pandemic shutdown, but not now. Pre-pandemic, the typical school probably had 24-ish desktop systems in the corner of the library, and a couple of computer carts with 30 laptops that could be rolled to any classroom that needs them for a particular lesson or project. That is plenty.
Re: Real Estate Oak Tree, the entire building for administration, the private home, the parking lots... none of this land has any future that involves classrooms for kids. There are even a handful of buildings which have been handed out to community groups ( some of which I like !). None of this has anything to do with SPS's mission. Sell the properties, help unburden the district of debt. And the sports arena? That should be on the top of the list. Use the money that was going to go to remodel for Ticket Master and upgrade some classrooms.
Take a count of every employee in central office which the state doesn't fund for a full FTE. A full FTE, no cheating by using partial FTE to say that the position is state funded. Cut all of the employees immediately, don't wait for the State to do it ( I know, if the state does it then the board can complain about it, instead of being required to act on it ).
Everyone should write their state legislators, and their neighbors if they don't believe their own will do anything, about SPS twisting state law to enable borrowing that should have never been allowed. The Washington State Supreme Court said in their last ruling that they weren't entirely sold on the idea that districts were unequal when it comes to how funding dollars work for districts in funding buildings/etc. Look no further than how SPS has used its levy dollars to fund non-capitol debt.
The entire state of Washington will be bailing out SPS to the tune of a billion, not just a hundred million, if allowed to credit card this debt into the next levy that is going on the ballot.
If the legislature believes that this bailout in the making is legit, then other districts should be allowed to equally enable themselves to take their fair share.
I think both the board and the district want to deflect to the state. Here's the thing - even if the state did "fully fund" Special Education, there would always more that the district wants.
I think you are being tough and I think that is what is needed. The Board is weak on asking questions and the Superintendent does not want to be honest about district spending. The district probably does need more money but they will not get any if they are not completely honest.
IT was moved to BEX. It was not always there but somehow it got off-loaded. I'm not sure voters would like the idea that one entire department is funded from levies.
"And the sports arena? That should be on the top of the list."
I've explained this before but here goes. The district only "owns" Memorial Stadium as long as the land is being used for educational purposes. The terms I read for its use do not include selling it. I despair that the district will make a good deal with the City and whoever is fronting its rebuilding.
It is somewhat amusing that the district and the board are mad because they can't extract more money from voters. Did they not think that maybe those caps are there for a reason? Half of Seattle's property tax is for SPS' levies.
Do you think students who have MULTIPLE aides assigned to them is weedy? Do you think it doesn’t happen? It absolutely happens more often than you’d ever imagine. I assure you it happens, and it is absurd. Ingraham HS has a student with 3 fulltime dedicated aides and others with fully dedicated 1-1’s or more. Thats never a good thing because IAs have 0 credentials. So, what kind of education is that kid getting? Hint. Not a good one, but surely super expensive… the actual point of your post, where do we save money? Probably less than 2 million could be saved getting rid of the >1-1’s But hey, every little bits counts doesn’t it?
Or maybe you think keeping those expensive Distinct programs around is necessary and eliminating them is “in the weeds”. And here we were all led to believe that inclusion is some priority… or is it a weed? If inclusion matters at all, then the actual weed is the heavily funded Distinct which never offers a second of inclusion. And well, go ask your parent groups? Are they thrilled with that education in Distinct. I’m pretty sure they don’t like them. We don’t have to kill them, we should just not excessively fund them as they are now.
Or. Maybe you think getting rid of NPAs is “in the weeds”. Did you really find a lot of parents loving their placements at NWSoil? Seattle Times did an entire expose on that. It doesn’t matter what other districts do. SPS had almost none of these 10 years ago…. Now, they spend millions and millions on them. “In the weeds” is thinking these are good, useful, or wanted. They aren’t. And obtw. There’s another 5 million or so, ripe for the picking.
Retired in the Weeds
Perhaps you don't understand what "being in the weeds" means. I meant that I had no special knowledge of the issues you bring up with SPS Special Education. And, a good group that WOULD know would be the Special Education Facebook page.
I was actually agreeing with you but you missed that as well.