Senior Management Speak Out 2 - Board President and Member-at-Large Joe Mizrahi

President Gina Topp and Director Joe Mizrahi have an op-ed in The Stranger which I found, well, a bit strange. 

                     We Avoided a Strike, Now the Real Fight Begins

This Should Be a Wake-Up Call to Fix Our Broken Education Funding System

This is a fairly obvious topic for Board members to take up so it's not a surprise. 

Both of us are lifelong supporters of organized labor. Joe spent 19 years working in the labor movement with UFCW 3000, the largest private sector local union in Washington State. Gina worked alongside unions for years at King County. Both of us were fervently supported by labor when we ran for office. We believe unions make workplaces better, workers deserve strong wages and benefits, and teaching may be the hardest job in any school district.

They go through where SPS is currently:

Seattle started this budget cycle staring at an $87 million hole. We found a way to balance this year’s budget, but the underlying problem did not disappear. We made cuts, relied on one-time money, and dipped into our savings. Unless something fundamentally changes, our reserves are projected to go negative in 2027. 

"Dipped?" More like gutted. What savings? The rainy day fund is gone. Are they talking about the Capital dollars?

Special education tells the story particularly clearly. SPS expects to spend roughly $300 million this year providing services to students with disabilities, while the state provides only about $180 million. Seattle is left to fill a gap of roughly $120 million. 

These are not optional programs. They are legally required, essential services that our students need and deserve. And this is not just a Seattle problem. School districts across Washington are facing the same financial crisis and being forced into the same impossible choices.  

This is what I found different about their take on SPS finances:

Superintendent Ben Shuldiner has been unusually direct about the district’s financial condition: Seattle Public Schools face dire financial instability.

In the labor movement, when we face an employer who pleads poverty at the bargaining table, we rarely accept the premise that the only question is how to divide finite resources. If workers are being asked to settle for too small a slice of the pie, we push the employer to make the pie bigger.

But school boards, which oversee school and district budgets, approve personnel, and ultimately hold fiduciary responsibility, do not have the same power to grow our income. Washington state has systematically underfunded public education and, in particular, special education. But unlike large corporations, we don’t have profits to draw from. Unlike other government entities, we don’t even have the power to independently raise revenue.  

But then, they talk about the levies from both from the district and the City.

The EP&O levy that Seattle voters approved already exceeds the state-imposed levy cap on how much a school district can collect locally. That means that no matter how much wealth grows in Seattle, or how many levies voters approve, we face a hard cap on what Olympia allows us to collect. 

 

Think about that for a minute: Seattle voters overwhelmingly agreed to give our schools more money, and the Legislature will not allow us to collect all of it.

That's correct and my understanding of that issue is that it would hurt smaller districts if Seattle got to take as much as they want. I could be wrong but they do not explain why they think the Legislature won't allow it.

Onto the City levy:

And although the recently renewed FEPP Levy includes millions of dollars for education in Seattle, only a small portion goes directly to the school district—the entity best positioned to direct resources to the classrooms and student services where they are needed most. About a third of the FEPP money goes to pre-K and about a third goes to fund higher education access, both vital programs, but none of that money helps the SPS budget. Even the third of the FEPP Levy designated for K-12 that could go to the district mostly goes to support external community groups rather than the district.

Excuse me but boo hoo. The City gets to decide where the money they raise for public education goes. More kids are getting pre-K and higher education access because of this levy. To boot, the pre-K kids, many of whom go to a City pre-k in a Seattle school, become SPS students.

So a strike was prevented and what's next?

With this bargaining cycle behind us, the real work should now begin. The only way to get out of this cycle of labor unrest and last-minute uncertainty is to permanently fix our broken education funding system.

And they do warn what might be cut if there are not more funds:

Without additional resources, the choices we will be forced to make in the years ahead are grim. Our schools already operate with part-time librarians, nurses stretched across buildings, inadequate behavioral supports, and custodial staffing so thin that classrooms go three days between trash collection. Insolvency would mean even more dramatic cuts to programs and positions that most families would be devastated to lose. Like most austerity measures, the people who are hurt most drastically are the students in poverty who rely on our systems for basic support.  

 

Keep in mind, the biggest cost in the SPS budget is salaries. So yes, I think they will start cutting jobs.

And here's a bit of a throwdown:

Together, we can demand increased funding from Olympia, ensure a larger share of FEPP levy funds directly support the school district, call for bolder leadership from the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and permanently lift the levy lid.

Let’s end the cycle of false choices. Let’s reject the choice between losing nurses, librarians, or basic custodial services so teachers can receive reasonable raises. Let’s reject the choice of which already-inadequate system should become even more inadequate just to survive.

The Board is unhappy with State Superintendent Rykdal? Didn't know that.

But know what they leave out? Putting it all on the table and deciding what ELSE might get a cut. 

It's better to just cut jobs at the school level - librarians, custodial staff, etc OR can you cut high salaries at JSCEE? I would assume senior management has contracts that prevent that but then, do not give them raises except COLA. 

Completely freeze any more hiring there. And quit creating new positions at JSCEE. 

How about travel? Cut that from the budget entirely. The Board and the Superintendent do not have to go to the Council of Great City Schools conferences twice a year. Or you send one director and one senior manager and that's it.

Show your work.