Sewanhaka School Board Doesn't Want Transparency

Each year communities are asked to vote on a school budget that they really don't understand.  The budget newsletter sent to their homes and presented at local civic organizations and schools revolve around a central theme; this theme is if you don't vote for this budget your child's programs will be cut.  The same excuses are used by school boards each year.  These excuses include: "our state aide was cut", "there are expenses that are out of our control", and "we have too many unfunded state mandates."

The fact of the matter is school boards and the school administration do not provide residents with enough information to make an informed choice.

The biggest expense many school districts have is salaries.  They account for more than 50 percent of all school district expenses in the Sewanhaka district's 2011-12 budget.  Benefit expenses, which are a function of salaries, account for over 20 percent of the district's expenditures for the 2011-12 budget.  It is obvious that the key to controlling expenses requires controlling salaries.

Total employee compensation (salaries + benefits) at the is about 80 percent of the entire budget.

I would like the Sewanhaka school board to make residents aware of negotiated contracts. All I'm asking for is the board to tell residents how they are spending taxpayer money.

To control school costs, it is necessary to control salary increases.  The district approved an increase for the Building Administrators' Association, , of just under two percent in November, 2010. These are some of the most highly compensated employees in the district.  

It was no surprise that the Sewanhaka school board did not make residents aware of this increase in the school budget presentation on May 4, nor did they mention it in their budget newsletter. I even asked them about this contract at the April 27 school board meeting, but they still chose not to mention it in their newsletter.

How could residents make an informed decision about school board members and the school budget vote if they are not given all relevant information?

Here are some budget facts about the Sewanhaka School District you won't find in the budget presentation. 

If you take the salaries in the proposed budget ($92,227,089) and divide by 1193 (the number of employees in the district according to SeeThroughNY), the average employee salary for the Sewanhaka district's employees int he 2011-12 budget is $77,306. Average benefits per employee is about $30,000.

Expenditures increased over 100 percent over the last 13 years.

The total employee compensation (which is $128 million dollars) in this year's proposed budget of $162 million is 59 percent higher than the entire Sewanhaka school budget of 1998, which was $80.7 million dollars.

Average compensation (salary + benefits), according to SeeThroughNY, for each employee category are:

Professional Employees (teachers and administrators):         over $115,057                                                 

 Non-Professional Employees :                     over $49,327

The fact of the matter is, there is no state mandate that requires school boards to increase salary schedules.  Also, there is no state law that prevents school districts from sharing information about negotiated contracts with their residents.

All residents should ask their school boards to make negotiated contracts part of each year's budget presentation.  All residents should ask their legislators to pass a law requiring all school districts to make negotiated contracts part of each year's budget presentation. 

Transparency is the only way to make elected officials, including school board members, accountable to the residents they serve.