Tavares, FL June 6, 2014
Below is a guest column from Jim Krakowski on the recent June 2 Lake County School Board workshop. I added some comments in italics.
Here is my (Vance Jochim's) overview of the issues, and details are further down in Jim’s column with his opinions:
- The School Board heroically stood up to big government programs and turned down joining a Federal school meals program that would increase spending of Federal and perhaps local tax funds to give free meals to ALL students in many schools. This would be income redistribution and make the kids reliant on Big Government funded free meals, a goal of socialism.
- The County manager of Food services, Gary Dodd, who asked for the Board direction on joining the program, avoided possible losses of millions of local tax dollars by not applying for the program last year when it started. The rules were not clear, and many other school districts joined and found confusing formulas cost their local taxpayers millions. So good analysis by Dodd!
- The School District Administrators used biased statistics to justify wage increases but Jim explains how using a different metric, cost per working day, LCSD wages are still higher than most. The staff was cherry picking the data to justify wage hikes.
- The staff wants to add another position to administer class size reduction reporting rather than add that duty to existing positions. Jim tells you what he thinks about that (he and I both come from big company backgrounds).
You can click HERE to see the agenda and attachments for the June 2 meeting.
Vance Jochim
Guest columnist: Jim Krakowski
My Comments / Observation – School Board Meeting
June 2, 2014
(Jim Krakowski 6/6/14)
I would summarize Monday’s SB workshop meeting as the Good, the Bad and the Non-Accountability (School Board member Bill Mathias was not present and Kyleen Fischer had to leave the latter part of the meeting)
The Good: The district’s Supervisor of Food Services ( Gary Dodd) and the Chief of Operations (John Davis) presented a new federally funded school meals program entitled Community Eligibility Program (CEP). CEP relates to free and/or reduced meals for students whose family are below a certain income level. Currently in order to participate in the existing free and/or reduced meal program, the parent needs to complete an application and show proof of income. Under CEP, if a school has at least 40% of the student population participating in the existing program, the federal government would not require the parent to complete an application and all students at that school would be allowed to receive a free breakfast and lunch … of the 41 schools in the district, 30 fall into this category. Although students would still be allowed to “brown bag”. However, no student would be allowed to purchase these meals even if they choose to do so … the CEP only allows “free”. The program is optional (not a mandated program), and if the district chooses to participate can terminate it’s participation.
So what’s the good news? All four of the SB members present voted not to participate in the CEP. They all voiced the same general concerns that there is a reduction in the amount of parent participation and signing up for CEP would just be one more step to reducing parental involvement. The students who are eligible will still receive the free/reduced meals and a reduction in “paperwork” (parent would not be required to submit an applications) is not a strong argument.
(FiscalRangers comment: This CEP program, if approved, would have been for 16 schools out of the 30 mentioned, and would expand the amount of FEDERAL tax dollars to pay for all the added free meals. This is the problem – it would be income redistribution, socialism and expanding the number of kids reliant on big government and “FREE” tax money. That is the real issue. Fortunately, the four School Board members voted to NOT approve entry into the CEP program. There are already some 2000 schools in the US in this program, and thus they have moved ALL students onto a welfare program for free meals, which should be a parental responsibility. This is another reason why Federal budgets are so high.
Additionally, Kudos to Gary Dodd, who explained at the meeting that he did not apply for approval last year because, like usual, the program did not have enough details to know that school districts might get some Federal funds, but in many cases, they LOST money due to a confusing formula, thus both Federal and added local tax funds were used for these welfare programs. So, Dodd avoided costly approvals made by other School Districts, and then the four Board members avoided Federal taxpayers getting higher food bills for this School District. )
The Bad: The Chief of Administration (Aurelia Cole – who is retiring soon) presented a proposed new administrative salary schedule. The SB who will either approve or disapprove this salary schedule at the June 9th General SB meeting. In an attempt to justify the new (increase) in administrative salary schedules, a comparison was made with some of the surrounding counties. The attempt was meant to show board members that Lake County’s administrative salaries are lower than some of the identified counties. Why Polk county was excluded was not explained.
Here is an example of what was presented:
On the surface it would seem that Lake is not currently competitive with Orange, Seminole, and Marion counties. However, if we divide the current salaries by the number of days an entirely different conclusion can be made. For example on a per day basis:
Elementary Principals : Middle Principals: High School Principals:
Lake $314 $325 $358
Orange $298 $307 $344
Seminole $302 $320 $366
Marion $307 $326 $345
Osceola $322 $322 $344
Based on the above per day compensation, it appears that Lake County is more than competitive with neighboring counties The results and conclusion are the same for the other administrative salaries … assistant principals, coordinators, chiefs, senior directors, etc. (Image added by FiscalRangers.com)
My Comments / Observations: If we add the fact that the LC District ranks as one of the highest counties in the state’s 67 for administrative salaries, it appears that the proposed increases in administrative salaries are not justified.
The Non-Accountability: The final item on the agenda was the Proposed District Staffing Plan. In my May 5th C & O I reported on the audit results relating to the falsification of classroom size reports to the state as reported by the Florida IG Office. There were many reasons why this happened, but from my perspective it all relates to ineffective management at the district and school administrative level … but no one was held at accountable.
My Comments / Observations So what was the solution presented? Add a district staff position to monitor, train and respond to questions relating to Classroom Size reporting. Only in a governmental organization would the solution for Non-Accountability be … Add Staff. In my opinion, the superintendent and several principals should be held accountable, and adding staff is not the solution. The Proposed Staffing Plans should go back for further review and adjustments. The district should be looking for ways to reduce administrative expenses … not add staff
The school board’s position:
Debbie Stivender supports the plan and the addition
Rosanne Brandeburg supports the plan and the addition
Tod Howard opposes the plan and the addition
Kyleen Fischer was not present
Bill Mathias was not present
For Your Information … in order for this staffing plan to pass at Monday’s SB meeting one more SB member must support it.
Jim Krakowski
