Superintendent Claiming Less Money Receives $515 More Per Pupil

Capitol Confidential ^ | 4/22/2014 | Tom Gantert

[MichCapCon]

As the statewide debate over school funding continues, an Oakland County superintendent whose district receives about $515 more per student today than it did in 2010 says the district is getting less money from the state.

West Bloomfield School District Superintendent Gerald Hill made his claim on April 11 in MIRS, a Lansing-based news site.

The district is receiving less in the "state foundation allowance," which has dropped from $9,116 per student in 2009-10 to $8,676 per student in 2013-14. But the state foundation allowance is only a part of the state funding a school district receives.

West Bloomfield received another $7.2 million outside of the state foundation allowance in 2013-14 that was used to pay for such things as special education, adult education and teacher retirement benefits. That financial data comes from the Michigan Department of Education's status funding reports.

Many advocates for more funding for conventional public schools are ignoring the money that districts get in addition to the foundation allowance.

"The West Bloomfield superintendent is repeating the same misinformation that we have seen from the MEA and other school officials," said Audrey Spalding, education policy director at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. "By only considering the foundation allowance, he is ignoring nearly $1,200 per student in funding from state taxpayers."

The MIRS article said there were charter public schools around West Bloomfield that were creating competition. Hill said that made the challenges for his district "really complex."

However, West Bloomfield has enrolled 1,642 students from outside the district, including about 750 students from the Pontiac School District through the state's schools of choice program. West Bloomfield has 6,058 students, meaning about 27 percent of the student body is from outside the district.

"West Bloomfield takes in hundreds of Pontiac students through schools of choice," Spalding said. “Clearly the district understands the power of choice and how providing students with a better educational option can improve a school's bottom line."

The MIRS article stated:

West Bloomfield School District Superintendent Gerald HILL said that after the district posted a $1.7 million deficit in FY 10, it made big changes that included a 10 percent pay cut for staff and outsourcing custodial and transportation services.

Those are big changes, but will they keep the district off future deficit lists?

'Getting off it is one thing. Staying off it could be another with the continuing flatness of support after a decline from the state,' Hill said.

There are private schools around West Bloomfield, and statewide districts are facing competition from charter schools.

'We have fewer students, less money, but we're creating more schools. That makes the challenge really complex,' Hill said.

Although Hill pointed to a 10 percent pay cut that made statewide news in 2011-12, the district's own payroll records show the district never came close to seeing that kind of cost savings. There were 256 people identified as teachers on a payroll spreadsheet provided by the district for 2011-12 when the 10 percent cut was implemented and also the next year. Overall compensation for those teachers dropped by 1 percent.

Teachers could take on additional responsibilities such as a coaching job as one way to increase their salary. Overall gross salaries of all 689 employees on payroll in 2011 and 2012 increased from $27.7 million to $28.1 million. The district's payroll dropped $2.3 million in 2012, but there were 86 fewer employees on payroll in 2012 than in 2011.

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

According to a quick look at the school district’s data, there are 7000 students or so in the district and about 400 teachers. That would be about 17.5 kids per teacher.

So even at his level of complaint, his school district is raking in $151,830 per teacher.

Even if you consider the high average salary of a Michigan teacher (let’s assume 2/3rds of that money is going to teacher salary and benefits), you are left with $50,610 in funding per teacher employed, or around $20,244,000 in general funding.

The district operates 13 schools, from elementary to high schools, and likely employees another 400 people for their operation. Most of those employed, like cafeteria workers and maintenance workers, are not on the high end of the pay scale. The buildings themselves are tax free and already paid for.

So where is $20 million going?

And that isn’t the end of it, as the article points out. The received an additional $515 per student above and beyond the State Foundation Allowance. Now $515 doesn’t sound like a lot of money, but when you have 7000 students, you end up with that $515 totaling $3,605,000.

So that brings us up to over $23 million that is being spent on the district without teachers salaries being involved. I have to ask again, where is the money being spent?

We need a strict financial audit of every school district in the country. I bet our local, State and national debt would plummet if we stopped the vast amount of fraud and waste that goes on there.