The only way to cut the cost of salaries would be to cut teaching positions.  Many rules initiated at the state and federal levels mandate how
many teachers and aides must be in place to work with students who have
special needs.  A district could cut teaching positions by increasing class
size for regular education students but research indicates that large class
size inhibits teachers’ ability to teach and students’ ability to learn.

Most districts have already cut the numbers of support personnel—
secretaries, food service workers, cleaners, etc.—to keep costs under
control while protecting as much as possible the actual educational
programs for students.
 

Why can’t we cut administrative positions? 

Most administrators wear more than one hat and work extended hours
on a daily basis.  Principals are responsible for all school activities from
early morning to late in the evening on a regular basis.  They deal with
student and parent issues as well as supervise all staff members.  They are
required to evaluate the performance of teachers regularly and to serve as
educational as well as management leaders.  In addition they frequently
must take district-wide responsibilities for preparing the required state
and federal reports on a wide variety of topics, some directly related to
education, others not.  These reports can take weeks of administrator
and support staff time to complete.

Elementary principals manage larger numbers of employees than do
managers in private enterprise or elsewhere in the public sector. 
Secondary principals often have assistants to help deal with specific
issues in subject matter, discipline, and report writing, because secondary
schools are usually much larger with corresponding larger numbers of
staff. 

Central office administrators have clearly defined roles in essential district-
wide areas such as curriculum review and development, staff training programs, labor relations, and finance.  Even with the addition of these
administrative positions, the percentage of administrators to workers does
not exceed the percentage of middle managers in business.

Every district when faced with economic shortfalls cuts administrative positions first to keep cuts as far as possible from services to students.
 

What % of school district budgets goes to busing?

What % of school district spending is related to special education?

How can Catholic schools be run for so much less?

There are three main reasons why public schools appear more expensive to operate than parochial schools.
 

1-       Private and parochial schools can decide which students they can
and will serve, and which they won’t.  They can dismiss disruptive
or uninterested students at will.  Public schools serve any and all students who come through their doors.  The cost for educating
some of these students can be very expensive (see “special
education” above).

2-       Public employees are protected by the NYS Taylor Law which guarantees them fair wages and protects them from actions taken
by their employers to save money.  For example, a more experienced
teacher who is paid more cannot be replaced by a new teacher who
would be paid less.

3-       Parochial school students receive benefits through property taxes such as text books, library books, computer software, transportation,
health care, and special education services, so that the religious institution does not need to include these costs in its budgeting.
 

What is the flack about mandates? 

The state and federal governments mandate all sorts of programs and services, including the necessity to teach about such topics as the Irish potato famine, bicycle safety, and drug and personal safety issues, as well
as to the necessity to sort students into groups of certain size to meet particular identified needs.  Also mandated are hundreds of lengthy
reports that must be filed by each district annually even though the departments receiving these reports do not have the staff to process or
read them.  NOT mandated are programs known to help students the most: kindergarten and pre-kindergarten.

Mandates cost money to implement, money that is not forthcoming from the groups that demand compliance to them.  The recent defibrillator legislation is a case in point.  The law requiring the existence of at least
one in every school building was passed after district voters had approved
the spending plan for the upcoming year, and their cost between $2,000-3,000 apiece had to be taken from other items in existing budgets. 

The state superintendents association has conducted several studies in recent years to list the most expensive and unneeded mandates.  Information about these superfluous and financially draining laws can be found at the group’s website:  www.nyscoss.org.
 

How are public schools supported?

One of the reasons our nation has been so successful in the past 150
years is its system of free public education that prepares whole generations
to assume responsibility as adult citizens in their turn.  Whether or not we have children of our own in school, the students being educated there will be the ones contributing to the social security benefits we use, providing the health care we need when our bodies fail us, keeping the economy we
depend on rolling along, and preserving the American way of life for future
generations.

 Property taxes are one of the most regressive taxes available to governments because they aren't based on the ability to pay.  The rapidly rising costs of education are based mostly on state and federal mandates.  Yet these two levels of government have consistently failed to pay for their
mandated programs through slight increases in the fairer income taxes at their disposal.  Therefore, local institutions responsible for meeting these mandates are left with the need to rely more heavily on the only form of taxation at their disposal, namely property taxes. 

Public education is a state responsibility and function.  Therefore, one would expect that the state would pay the cost of the programs it identifies and requires for students.  In our state as a whole, less than 40% of the costs are supported by state aid to education.  In Monroe County, state support ranges from about 15% in relatively wealthy districts to more than half in some of the poorer districts.

The most expensive programs mandated by federal law are those providing services to students with special educational needs.  When the original legislation was passed, the federal government promised to pay 40% of their costs.  To date, however, the federal government has never paid more than 17% of the cost of this legislation.  Since the poorer districts include more students needing these special services, they are hurt even more by these unfunded  mandated programs.

When the state cuts support for education, as is being proposed by the governor this year, it is the poorer districts that will be most affected, and the poorer students with greater challenges to learning who will be hurt the most.  Wealthier districts are financially more independent from the state anyway, and their taxpayers are willing and able to fill in the gaps—which is not the case in poorer districts.
 

How do our student outcomes compare?

How are vouchers harmful to public schools? 

Taxpayers should not be asked to support private enterprise or any religious institution that is not directly accountable to the general public.  Vouchers direct tax dollars to schools that do not have to meet the same standards and laws as do public schools.

Some argue that vouchers will create competition for students.  Competition exists now.  In our area in particular, districts work together and learn from one another.  The competition offered by private schools that do not have to accept every student who walks through the door, is not fair competition.  And existing charter schools, which are publicly funded but can limit their enrollments, have yet to produce superior results.

No voucher plan offers to pay the full cost of tuition to private schools, so only those families who could afford to send their children to a private school anyway would likely be able to take advantage of vouchers.  As a result, the quality of public education is not improved but less money is available to support education.
 

How does what urban districts receive from the State on a per pupil basis compare with what suburban districts receive?

One of the most accurate measures of state funding for public school students is Operating Expense per TAPU (Total Aidable Pupil Units).   This number is derived by dividing the total state aid received for actual educational program (as opposed to building projects, transportation, or interest on loans) by the number of pupil units.  Pupil units are needed because some students cost more to educate than others.  A half-day kindergarten student is considered 0.5 pupil.  An elementary student requiring no special services is considered one unit.  A secondary student is considered 1.25 student.  Students requiring more services can be identified as 1.5 or higher, depending on the situation.

In the Rochester City District, the 2001-2002 Operating Aid per TAPU was $11,132.  In the surrounding 17 districts the Operating Aid per TAPU ranged from $6,298 to $9541.  The average Operating Aid per TAPU in the suburban districts for that same year (the latest for which
data are available) was approximately $7820.
 

What services do taxpayers provide to private school students through state and local property taxes?

NYS taxpayers pay for text books, computer software, library books, transportation, health services and special education services for students attending private and parochial schools.  To help control these costs, BOCES (boards of cooperative educational services) handle the purchase of learning materials and provide for the special services to students.  Districts work together to provide the required transportation in the most cost effective way possible. 

State law requires this support for non-public students but does not fully fund it.  Therefore costs for these items are partially borne by local property taxpayers.
 

How CAN school districts save money?

School districts in our area work among one another and with their municipal governments to purchase utilities, employee insurance, expensive
machinery and heavily used items at lower costs per unit.  Through BOCES (boards of cooperative educational services) they provide educational programs that they individually could not afford to offer for students in need of special services as well as students pursuing careers involving expensive machinery.  The services required to support the expensive use of technology are provided through BOCES.  The Rochester City district pays to participate in some BOCES programs, but
state aid formulas would penalize large city school districts if they joined BOCES. 

School district business officers are always seeking new partnerships with other school districts and municipalities to provide greater efficiencies and cost effective delivery of services. 

One major reason for rapidly rising costs of education is the every increasing number of state and federal mandates, each of which comes with required lengthy reports to be filed annually or more frequently.  Efforts are under way at the state level to influence our legislators to ease this time consuming and expensive burden.
 

How much money do school board members get each year?