Testimony Before the K- 12 Performance and Efficiency Commission

Transcription

1 Testimony Before the K- 12 Performance and Efficiency Commission Dr. Marlin Berry, Superintendent of Olathe Public Schools September 3, :15 pm Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the important issues you have been charged to consider. The Olathe district is one of growth having more students each August than we had the previous year for 49 years in a row. As a district of 29,464 students, we have grown approximately 2,000 students in the last four years and our enrollment projections call for us to add almost 3,000 students in the next six years. We are a diverse district with a minority enrollment of approximately 28% but with 82 different languages spoken by our students and in their homes. Our free and reduced percentage of 29% comes with an individual school poverty rate as low as 1.5% poverty and multiple schools over 85% poverty. Commission s Charge Again, I thank you for the opportunity to talk about the five areas in which your commission has been charged to study and will do so from examples from our district in Olathe. It is not my goal to necessarily convince you in a few minutes that we are efficient but to share the manner in which we approach efficiency which I think is representative of the many school districts in Kansas who have very similar, if not better, practices. Charge #1 Opportunities to Operate in a Cost Effective Manner I will share brief overviews in 10 different areas from our district in which we are attempting to be efficient in our efforts. 1

2 1. Energy savings Many districts in Kansas have taken advantage of assistance from outside sources to be more efficient in their use of energy. Olathe started our program back in the early 1990 s and we have years of confirmed cost savings and cost avoidance. This past year we re- visited our efforts with the help of the same company and have already realized additional savings. We utilize software to run our heating and cooling units from a district site. We have added this year the software that schedules events and meetings in our buildings that automatically combines the turning on and off of climate control for those rooms. Our computers district- wide shut off automatically at a designated time. We ve covered our pools, changed out lighting, combined food at our large freezers over school breaks in order to shut down some freezers, found fans and motors running during off hours, and more. It is a district effort to conserve energy and save money inside our budget. 2. Technology Division We use Moodle and Edmoto, which are free, open source software products, for course management and online learning rather than a commercial product such as Black Board, saving about $50k per year. We use Microsoft hosted , free to K- 12 education, instead of in- house hosted which saves approximately $100K annually in hardware, software and staff to manage . We do all hardware repair we possibly can in- house saving out- sourced services which saves us $50- $75k annually. We bid all hardware purchases rather than purchase off the state contract. We have consistently paid 20-25% less than the state contract price, and often it is 50% less. 3. Workers Compensation We are a self- funded district for workers compensation. We perform ergonomic evaluations to catch issues before they become work comp claims. We have instituted a Return To Work Program to put injured employees back to work 2

3 sooner after a work comp claim. Our district holds monthly safety meetings and monitors work loss through a stoplight scorecard that is shared with all buildings. We benefit from a tremendous premium savings by running our own program. 4. School Nurses We are fortunate to still be able to fund school nurses for our school buildings. I often share we run the largest clinic in town in trying to meet the daily school needs of our students, keeping them at school and in class. To be efficient, we have used innovative funding options for school nurses. An example is the recent partnership with a Federally Qualified Health Center to share the costs of a nurse at two of our buildings with the highest SES need. I know that Pittsburg, Kansas is doing this as well. We are capitalizing on manufacturer programs specifically receiving our stock of epinephrine auto- injectors free of charge through a Epi for Schools program offered by Mylan pharmaceuticals. The current cost of stock epinephrine we have received for the current school year is $30, We are utilizing a bid system for health supplies. We estimate that we provide all of the gloves, bandages, cups, etc. at $1.00 per child or less per year across our district utilizing a bid system. For example, looking in a school health supply catalog a box of gloves costs $7.31 per box. Through our bid we pay $2.00 per box. Our method is much more efficient both in time and in cost of materials than just allowing a school nurse to have their own budget and purchase supplies. 5. Facility usage We are believers in the public part of our district name with our schools being owned and supported by our patrons. We therefore believe in letting the public use our school buildings for community events and programs. We don t subsidize any of the public programs rather we charge enough to capture our costs while allowing them to utilize our facilities. The revenue from facility rental is budgeted into our year for on- going costs to educate our students. 3

4 We share our athletic facilities with the college located in Olathe, so we don t duplicate efforts when possible. Our Chamber loves to bring in national events and competitions, hosted in our facilities, which benefit our community economically in many ways. 6. Busing We are a district that out- sources our district transportation needs. We run approximately 260 routes each day with almost 4,000 stops. We not only have radio communication with our buses, we have added a GPS system that allows us to know when, where and how long a bus is idling. Communication to direct and re- direct buses has proved to be efficient. While we outsource our buses, we save money by purchasing the fuel through a cooperative bid with our city, the county, two other neighboring cities and a water company. We have since added a second contract with a transportation provider who will transport students on an hourly basis. This flexibility eliminates the use of some small buses that had been making special education trips. 7. Purchasing This is an important area for a large district that has many needs to keep it running with adequate supplies and resources. We use a limited p card system to allow for some flexibility in our 52 schools. The majority of purchases we like to push back to our central purchasing system, which is a part of our business software. We warehouse the basic items but can buy on demand pretty quickly from contracts we have negotiated by standardizing certain other items. We do utilize a purchasing credit card for our general purchases allowing our district to receive a healthy rebate on our purchases. We buy a number of large items in bulk to maintain our schools and then use our staff to install the items. Examples would be light fixtures and carpet. We also have utilized an online bidding process that has expanded the number of bid responses we receive and has helped to make prices more competitive. 4

5 8. Area Collaboration While we have a large student population to educate, we do collaborate with area high schools from other districts to offer them enrollment slots for some of our special curriculum areas. Our vocational programs of auto collision, auto repair, welding and carpentry enroll students from 18 area schools. The enrollment supplements our ability to offer programs and compensate staff. Our culinary arts program also accepts students from a more limited area. 9. Staffing For a large district we are pretty lean with regard to central support staff. We have purchased business software that enables us to be more efficient, particularly in the personnel area. We have electronic time clocks that dump staff wage information into our system. We have an Employee Online system that captures demographic changes and payroll deduction changes done by employees, saving time and labor costs. We produce payroll documents such as W 2 s and pay stubs only online. Our processes are set up with automated work- flows to speed processes, save paper and labor costs. As a large district we have the ability to hire our own plumbers, carpenters, HVAC staff, etc. which allows us to be more efficient and less costly. By maintaining our buildings, we have fewer facility problems which can impact our classrooms. Our food service division is self- supporting and we have an in- house print shop that saves us greatly. 10. Growth I mentioned the challenge of growth for the Olathe district and our Board and administration work to be efficient with how we handle the increased enrollment each year. Our community has been supportive of our facility needs, passing our most recent bond issue in June of 2013 by 78%. Our district has built and opened 17 schools since To be more efficient we utilize the same floor plan for building elementary schools to save architectural and construction costs. Our 5

6 district makes use of school area boundaries to shift populations into buildings that might have space available. We make limited, strategic transfers to help equalize enrollments. We update and study our room utilization for each school. Our new high school being planned will utilize a schedule to be even more efficient in the use of its spaces. Charge #2: District Differences While we are always interested in taking a look at our practices in order to improve, I am not sure district size should be the only manner in which we compare expenditures. There are reasons for the differences in districts based on what is decided locally to be best for students. If all districts are shooting to be at the median level of spending, what if the student results for that median level are not good? A local board should be able to determine class offerings, class sizes, etc. which would all impact the overall spending. Differences in spending per pupil, both the average and in specific categories, are also influenced by funding formula weightings, other local student needs (which differ from district to district) and by different operating structures, such as the number of school buildings. Our district spends a lot of time analyzing our performance measures to include looking at language acquisition, time in the district, past performance, support levels and more. We, according to some reports, spend more than other large districts our size on instruction and staffing. We have been above the 65% budget level on instruction by KSDE reporting. Our administration costs, according to recent KSDE budget percentages, are at.59%, almost 5 times below the state average. The chart that indicates Olathe spends $11,909 per student is lower than our peers because we spent less per pupil on capital outlay expenditures, which shouldn t necessarily impact overall student performance. The story for each district is different, determined by the local decisions of the school board and administration. One last example of why our instruction spending may be higher is we choose to operate a school program for students who have been suspended from school in our district, both short term and long term. It s 6

7 been important to us to not have a break in learning for these students who have made poor choices with regard to behavior. We keep students working toward credit until they are able to return to their regular school where the transition is much better. We obviously do this at a cost. Charge # 3. Prior Recommendations There are several recommendations from earlier studies that stand out as being of possible interest to the Olathe district. For any district, but especially our growing district, it would be beneficial to establish a 2- year school funding cycle. It would provide some stability to planning and help assist us with growth challenges. The equalization through state aid to school districts is important for our taxpayers and our budget. When you look at assessed valuation on a per pupil basis, our district is about half of that of our neighboring school districts. In our area, neighbors can literally be in two different school districts. Similar valued houses in the same neighborhood can have drastically different taxes when their school district with a lower total assessed valuation goes to levy taxes for a need that is similar to the district with the higher valuation. Statewide the case for equalization can be just as great as it allows some districts to have a fighting chance to provide their students with the necessary resources for the school year. The limiting of transfers to capital outlay has not been a problem for us as we have not had the budget available to make transfers to capital outlay. Our district does look forward to the expanded definition for expenditures through capital outlay as it might provide us with some flexibility in future budgets. Charge #4. Shared Administrative Functions While there is always an interest to see what districts in Kansas can do to reduce administration, it is difficult to totally assess shared administration for several reasons. First, due to a variety of job titles and job categories, it is many times difficult to compare who and how many are doing what jobs in districts of the 7

8 same size. Local decisions are made as to what duties are combined, who might take on added duties when someone leaves or retires, etc. More important would probably be the loss of local responsiveness and service if administrative functions were to be combined in multiple districts. It has been working in some districts where a superintendent is shared between districts and we know some superintendents function as building principal in their own districts. But when someone in the Olathe district wants to have a district administrator respond to their need, they want it to be the local person who they see regularly, live in the same community with, see at local functions, at church, etc. It is the relationships we build in our communities as administrators that would be lost to our parents if certain functions were performed in a neighboring district. The local responsiveness also applies to working with the needs of our individual staff members and their specific needs. Charge #5. Expenditures and New Standards There s a great shift taking place that all of our districts are trying to focus on at this time. The shift in focus is away from only reading and math under NCLB to college and career readiness. We have been working on and need to have time to adjust to the new goals, develop measures to demonstrate achievement of new goals, etc. With local control, every district, through their board of education, makes decisions about what to expend their budget on during a school year. Should a district still offer Latin to its students? How about Japanese? Are technical shop class skills still needed like welding? These are all local decisions. At the same time, districts desire the common definition of student preparedness so that we can ensure our students meet those expectations for being able to compete for jobs in the future at the state, national and international levels. The debate in our state has been over the adequacy of funding to meet the education needs of our students. It now is thought that it should be defined by standards (Rose) and not a dollar amount. But the Rose standards need to be well- defined so that school districts know what they mean and how they are to be 8

9 measured. The work in our state moving forward requires agreement on desired outcomes so effectiveness can be measured. We need to better define the Rose standard capacities. Then we need to allow districts with locally elected leadership to determine the best way to respond to our individual district needs to meet the defined standards. It will be difficult to make one specific management structure work for all districts in Kansas because there are just too many local variables in play, including that of choice. I am most appreciative of the conversation that is going on in our state to better educate the students in our local districts. I thank you for your time in serving on this commission. 9