In the past, I haven't really said much about the Cecil County School Board. Mainly because of my personnel connection to the board (my wife is a board member). But I finally figured that it is time to speak up about an issue that is a sore point with most of the tax payers in Cecil County, the annual school budget. For years, we all have screamed that the school board just rubber stamps the budget that is placed in front of them by Dr Roberts, my voice was heard mixed in with the same crowd. I have to say now that my opinion has changed quite a bit.
This is the second year of the budget process for my wife Donna. To most, the board members just meet about the budget 4 or 5 times and vote yes because it is assumed of them. I see a completely different process from my point of view. I can tell that it is budget season because suddenly my workspace in my office becomes cluttered with budget spreadsheets. Through time, this sheets fill up with Donna's scribbles, notes to herself on what questions to ask. Why did this line item go up, this one go down, what impact on not increasing a line item has? Why an increase in FTEs for this department, why a drop in this other department?
Just last night alone, she spent at least 3 hours pouring over details. She shoots off e-mails in attempts to obtain answers before the meetings. This scene gets repeated over and over during the budget process. Some have made comments that she is the quiet one on the board, it is not so, she just doesn't like surprise answers and will try to have her questions answered ahead of time. Donna has a BS in Mathematics/Programming and a BS in Accounting and the numbers speak to her. By the time she gets done, I can assure you, every line has been dissected in detail.
So you won't hear me complaining about the budget being rubber stamped by the board anymore. I can't speak for the other members, but if they spend the same amount of time that Donna does on preparation, you know it is a good budget.
And I am proud of the work that she has done and will continue to do.
Tim
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Cecil County Public Schools - Budget
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Tim, the School Board is at the top of the thankless job list. I commend Donna for her hard work. My review of the budget consists of ratio analysis. If you compare the last several budgets you will see large $ and % increases. The budget presentation to the County Commissioners is almost silly. The hearing room is packed with the several education " unions ". The mantra is " fully fund ". No mention is made of state and federal funding. No mention is made of Thornton funding. The proposed budget, with increases,is presented as "the budget". If not fully funded it will have been "cut", thereby harming "the children". For example, the $300,000.00 under discussion was a piddling amount when compared to the total budget, which includes state and federal funding. The resulting outcry would have had us believe that the whole school system would go down the drain without this money.
When I stated that the budget is "good", I meant that I believed that each line item was reviewed. Is there fat in this budget, I am sure there is. I just don't think that is the type of information that would ever be volunteered to the public. And like any other governmental agency, if cuts are mentioned, their response will be to cut the most sensitive areas. This will generate the public outcry that they hope for.
I think that another problem is that you can't expect the board to make the best choices when there is a limitation in funding. I know last year, when there had to be a choice between junior lacrosse or an additional teacher, Donna was the lone voice in support of the additional teacher. That choice came back to bite them in their back end when the parents raised hell at Thompson Estates for being short one teacher.
I am pretty sure I know who anonymous is and he is one of the very few that even bothers to show up at the budget meetings along with Tom McWilliams and Robert Hodge.
I have not posted here before and do not have a Google account...Gaylord Moody, III
Before 2007, county revenues increased with property assessments and the constant yield adjustment was a dusty footnote that could easily be ignored by the county commissioners. By the time the tax assessments of 2007 were completed, the real estate market had showed marked leveling in price appreciation and the first temors of disruptions were being felt. However, those assessments assumed a steady continuation of property appreciation so that taxes would be levied on unrealized fantasy values. 2008 is billed nationally as a year of property price declines and dramatic increase in home foreclosures. We see some of that happening in Cecil County; notices of foreclosures are dramatically increasing. Property values are falling, taxpayers are overstretched; we need relief from tax increases.
Yet, the school administration ignores the real financial pain of taxpayers and prepares the budget, oblivous to tax revenue shortfalls. The money simply is not available.
The job this year is not only is in the detail; it is also in the big picture.
To continue, we have a failed mathematics program. To examine it, we find there is not just one math program, but many fragments and several assessments of its results. However, professors from UMBC were engaged to study and evaluate the program and wrote a negative report. It appears to me that the administration has created such a complex web of offerings that only highly paid experts can administer it. I would hope that the school board gives the administrators a reality check and terminiates the employment of those people who engineer the math programs that fails to prepare students for college. Hire administrators to streamline and improve the programs to restore math to the math courses.
In the big picture, America falls behind the developed nations of the world because of "fuzzy math" curriculum. That problem has hit Cecil County. Our students, albeit perhaps our average students, are not capable of taking college math courses in Cecil College without paying for remedial math programs. Does that mean that working class parents proudly take out loans to send their children to Cecil College and borrow to pay for remedial high school math? Some financial advisors say that student loans are the crack cocaine of debt. How sad...where is the public watchdog...have we gotten lost in the details and fail to see a big picture?
In yesterday's world, there was a contract between employer and employee that said as long as an employee put in time and did not get fired, there would be automatic wage adjustments. After twenty years of service, a store clerk, for example, starting at minimum wage would make three times that. But the job remained the same. We know that a store clerk with twenty years experience more accurately has one year experience twenty times. A retailer that failed to adjust pay scales fell behind the upstart discounters and speciality stores. In industry, if a personnel director made a survey of twelve adjacent employment markets and then paid the highest wages of them all might risk being fired. The object is to get good employees and NOT be the highest salary scale in twelve competing markets.
Yet, the school administrators continue to trumpet their accomplishment when they can offer the highest starting salary in the surrounding areas. The same administrators seek to double the salary of twenty year employees over the starting salary. That is so out of touch with the competative markets of today. It is not just store clerks - nurses, computer programmers, engineers and mid level managers all know that reality.
The school board and administrators are not supposed to work for the benefit of the union employees and /or their cronies in the administration. They work for the taxpayer. They need to get in touch with big picture issues and trends.
There is healthcare. The big picture has been for employers to increase the cost to employees. The school system is just way out of touch with the real world. The taxpayer now provides more benefit to school administrators than they can afford for themselves. There is not real world contact or grounding in the big picture.
Those are some of the issues I tried to address to the school board this pass week (Feb 26, 2008) when I spoke for the five or ten minutes allocated to me.
We need to focus on big picture items and not allow the school administratiors to drown the public in detail. More importantly, the children are not the issue. Good management is the issue. Good managment that serves the community by offering the best we can afford.
Another year. Budget get any easier? Question for ya. Does your wife go over the curriculum proposals as carefully as you say she does the budget? Does she make sure the curriculum really and truly meets the needs of all students, not just the ones who learn the way the teachers want to teach?
How? Does she ask the educators to explain how they will present print material to students who are reading significantly below grade level? Does she ask how disabled students forced into inclusion classrooms are supported in their specialized education needs? Does she ask if teachers participate in the IEP meetings, or if parents are just asked to sign an already prepared document?
Does she understand special education law? Does she know the difference between inclusion and least restrictive environment, or that, legally, if the inclusion environment cannot meet the student's specialized education needs, it is not the correct environment? Does she know how many lawsuits could be filed if Cecil County's parents knew the ease with which CCPS violates the IDEA law every day? And that they know they are violating it, they just don't expect to be caught? That's not hyperbole. You can read the outcome of complaints on the MSDE website. And those are only the complaints filed by parents who know how to file them and how to document the problems.
Does she know about the links between reading frustration and misbehavior? That studies show students are humiliated to admit they can't read the material, so they misbehave instead? Does she ask why there are behavior specialists, but not reading specialists in the high schools?
Write kudos to your wife all you want, just remember that too many Cecil County students can't access print well enough to comprehend it, and CCPS won't address that until someone(s) makes them.
Funding issue? Nope. No amount of funding can change attitudes. Until the public educators either have a significant change in their approach to children who cannot read easily, OR the public schools have competition, budgets will skyrocket and kids will fail. Does your wife care about these children?
I do. That's why I posted. I also tried writing to the board once, before your wife was on it, but not one of them responded. And later, the MSDE would agree that CCPS had made mistakes. I gave up on the Whig long ago, but I post on blogs and I write elected and appointed officials.
No child CHOOSES not to read.
Post a Comment