“The average pencil is 7 inches long with just a half inch of eraser; in case you thought optimism was dead.” Robert Brault.
One of my appointments as a member of the Kansas Legislature is to serve as the Vice-Chairman of the Legislative Post Audit Committee. This past week we received some audit reviews that included an audit of two school districts, USD 333 Concordia and USD 224 Clifton-Clyde.
Both schools volunteered to have the efficiency audits conducted by the Legislative Division of Post Audit. The Concordia school district is located in far north central Kansas and includes portions of Cloud, Republic, and Jewell counties. The school district had 1,069 full-time-equivalent students for the 2009-10 school year and employed 186 staff, including 94 full time equivalent certified teachers; for a ratio of 1 staff member per 6 students.
Due to many cooperative agreements for special education services that exist between some districts, including special education expenditures and staff would create a distortion in efficiency measures. Therefore all special Ed expenses were excluded from analysis.
Concordia reported total expenditures per student for instruction were $4,983 or 57 percent of total expenditures. You add other expenditures for Student Support, Instruction support, District administration, school administration, operations and maintenance, transportation costs and food services and the total expenditures is $9,281,109 or $8,748.00 per pupil.
The school administration reported 167 staff members that included 95 teachers for an average of 167 staff per 1,000 students. Salaries made up 61% of the budget, benefits took another 18%, purchased services was 6%, supplies 14% which again averages out to $8,748.00 per pupil.
The Concordia school district has taken some positive steps to become more efficient, but like other districts we have reviewed, it lacks a systematic approach for evaluating and managing efficiency.
If the district chose to fill high school classes closer to capacity, it could save at least $190,000 each year. Overall the district’s non-instructional spending per pupil is higher than its peers. $3,755 vs. $3,446.
According to the district officials, they will need to cut between $400,000 and $600,000 from the 2010-11 budget. They have considered cost savings measures that include, competitive bidding for bus and vehicle maintenance, using business procurement cards, competitive purchase of workman’s comp insurance, review the bus routes, stopping the staff from driving school vehicles home daily, and competitive bid for fuel purchases.
The Clifton-Clyde school district is located in north-central Kansas and includes parts of Clay, Cloud, Republic and Washington Counties. This school has 281 full-time-equivalent students and employed 57 staff including 28 full time equivalent certified teachers.
They reported a total budget of $2,796,543 for a cost per student of $9,561. They reported total staff of 48 FTE for a ratio of 5 students per staff member
The Clifton-Clyde school; district has taken some positive steps to become more efficient and control costs, but like other districts we’ve reviewed it lacks a systematic approach to evaluating and managing efficiency.
The district could potentially save $225,000 per year in salary costs if it filled high school classes closer to capacity and eliminated some departments where classes have very low enrollment. To achieve the savings, the school board and community would have to work through the issues related to having fewer teaching staff.
The food services could potentially generate $7,700 if it charged for breakfasts served to pre-k and kindergarten students. Finally they could potentially save $4,300 annually if they hired an additional employee to reduce custodial time.
There is no doubt about it, most all of the school districts in our smaller rural areas are experiencing some difficult budget shortages that will require tough decisions to be made to meet the impact of the reduced revenue.
Some school districts have decided to return to regular scheduled classes and move away from block scheduling. Many are looking at virtual schools and online courses. The use of laptops will allow the schools to not purchase expensive books that soon become outdated. The consolidation of their school buildings to bring in grade schools to middle school buildings and move middle school into high school facilities has been used quite successfully in some areas.
Whatever the adjustments that need to be made consist of, I think we can all agree it should be made at the local level wherever possible. I would recommend we all become pro-active and think through the different options are available. The school boards and community members need to have open and honest discussions on what the best options for their school are available. “Think outside the box”
If I can assist you in any way please do not hesitate to call on me. I consider it an honor and privilege to be your Representative in Topeka and I want to know what you think.
Back to Updates
