We have had some good discussions in the last week on school finances. To some extent these discussions have paralleled discussions that Alan Fernandes and Joe DiNunzio had over the previous year as they attempted to see what alternatives they might have to simply raising the parcel tax to shrink the teacher compensation gap.
The most difficult part of the discussion is explaining why you really can’t reduce your way to savings here.
One idea that has been put forth is reducing the size of the district through limiting out-of-boundary students (inter-district transfers). One problem is that it’s hard to limit those numbers because (a) once they are in the district, they become like resident-students, and (b) under state law if their parents live here and the district has space, they are required by state to accept them.
The district would have to be able to demonstrate to the county office of education that they do not have space – this becomes tricky and I want to focus on the finances of reduction rather than the law on out-of-boundary students in this column.
According to Associate Superintendent Bruce Colby, when you shrink the number of students, whether through attrition or by design, you are fortunate if you save 40 cents for every dollar you lose from the loss in ADA (average daily attendance).
This is likely where all of the analysis and discussions, which we have had, have gone awry.
There are several problems that prevent the ability to gain savings on a one to one basis for a school district. The biggest has to do with economies of scale. Economies of scale means you get “a proportionate saving in costs gained by an increased level of production.”
As you expand, the cost of providing things shrink on a per unit basis. Declining enrollment is basically the inverse of this. As you contract, the proportionate savings goes down and it actually becomes less efficient.
One way to think about this is if we assume about $9000 per student and a class size of 28, the average teacher gets $70,000 in total compensation. That means that every classroom generates around $250,000 in ADA. If you remove 28 students from the school district, you can save $70,000 on the teacher but that doesn’t account for the other $180,000 that those students generate. Some of that is covered by the school – principal, custodian, aids and safety staff, and utilities. But a lot of that goes districtwide and some of that really can’t be proportionately reduced.
Bruce Colby and Matt Best, for instance, walked me through an example of what would happen if the district was able to simply close a school and eliminate 500 students.
Those 500 students generate $4.5 million in ADA for the district.
At 28 students per classroom, you can therefore eliminate 18 teachers. To make it simple, we simply took the average total compensation, but Bruce Colby reminded us that you actually eliminate teachers at the bottom of the pay scale, not the top – but perhaps they get lucky and get some veterans to take early retirement.
Eliminating 18 teachers at $70,000 average total compensation saves about $1.3 million.
By closing the school, you save another $500,000 by their estimates. Again this is the cost of the principal ($120,000), custodian, aids and other staff, as well as things like utilities.
But guess what, that means that the district saved about $1.8 million but cost themselves about $4.5 million in ADA money. That’s right at the 40 percent that Bruce Colby estimated.
The result is that what you think will save you money actually ends up leaving you worse off.
Why? It’s very simple – we could account for the money directly spent on the school and in the classroom when the school was closed and the need for the students was eliminated. But the district may not be able to shed enough other costs on a districtwide basis to make up for the lost revenue.
Bruce Colby explained that is what is happening to districts like Oakland which are losing students perpetually. They can shed costs, but they are always chasing that lost revenue.
That’s why he believes that their best strategy is enrollment stabilization, which maintains a more or less steady revenue and costs.
The above scenario actually is a best-case scenario. Out-of-boundary students are distributed relatively evenly throughout the district. That means with 740 currently, dividing by 16 schools you end up with 46.25 per school. They are also relatively evenly divided by grade. That means at an elementary that’s about 6.6 per grade and about 2 students per section. It is not even clear you would be able to close a school without massive disruption of forced boundary changes.
As I pointed out earlier, having lived through the reality of closing Valley Oak and the discussions the following year about closing Emerson, the district put forth Measure W as the community’s preference over closing a school.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
“(b) under state law if their parents live here and the district has space, they are required by state to accept them.”
Should be: if the parents work here
That would be factually incorrect, regarding current law.
Please cite actual, current language… like Thomas, will not believe until I see…
It was already cited, by Hiram. Look it up yourself.
There is no state requirement (as in “NONE”) for school districts to accept students whose families live outside the district. Even if they work within the boundaries of the school district.
Don wrote a complete article regarding this, as well. (During the period in which the district actually tried to “kick out” current out-of-district students.) Are you saying you didn’t see that article from a day or two ago?
In fact, approval is required from both the “sending” AND “receiving” districts.
I find the following citation particularly “amusing”:
Here’s a link to Hiram’s comment, citing the law:
https://davisvanguard.org/2020/01/measure-g-campaign-explains-why-we-need-another-parcel-tax-part-ii/#comment-418728
Again, each student is creating a $2,200 deficit.
$2,200 X 700 out-of-district students = $1,540,000 annual deficit. Davis property owners are already making up that difference. An additional burden would be created, as a result of a teacher raise.
There is no math which shows that maintaining a student population that is creating a deficit “saves money”.
One cannot depend upon objective financial claims written on a blog written by someone who has the same advocacy interests as the school district itself.
“Bruce Colby and Matt Best, for instance, walked me through an example….”
So basically, you didn’t read the article.
Perfectly correct. No kids, no students, no deficits. No district.
Given your previous concerns about procreating… logical conclusion appears to be (in your view) is…
. . . 1) to not deceive regarding costs, 2) to not “adjust the city” to meet the needs of a school district in denial, and 3) to provide an opportunity to address actual city needs.
K… as you frame it, today…
Why is the district in denial? It’s pretty clear that unless the district enrollment goes into freefall, that stopping outside enrollments, or even closing a school in the current state, will lead to a WORSE fiscal situation for both the district and the city. Please make a logical case backed by facts and analysis that support your contention that the district is in “denial.” Assertions are worthless at this point without support.
Who said anything about a “freefall”? Regardless, your claim regarding impact is not backed up by any evidence.
It’s so funny to read your concern for other towns when we bring up how stopping development here will just simply shift it to another town, which will then suffer the consequences of that development instead, you completely dismiss that concern. Your hypocrisy is quite blatant.
Ron O
I’m pointing that your scenario only works if the enrollment is in freefall. I don’t know what “impact” your referencing in my comment, unless it’s the fiscal situation. And I’ve provided all sorts of evidence here, both in the math supporting David’s article and with the reference to the District budget. Where’s your evidence?
No supported evidence has been presented here. Other than the fact that ADA is not fully covering the cost of students, and that the difference is paid by those responsible for DJUSD parcel taxes. (Of which there are essentially a limited number, regardless of the number of students.)
Here are some of the “suspect” (unsupported) numbers in David’s “analysis”:
In fact, a number isn’t even included in the analysis, above. Is this where a major portion of the deficit is created? Let’s see a breakdown.
Also, has there been any consideration of combining districts with others in Yolo county, as has occurred in other counties?
Let’s see a breakdown of this.
Also, let’s see what the possible (broader) ramifications are by selling a school site, itself.
And by “breakdown”, I mean the complete annual cost of running a school. (Not just selected figures.)
Also, let’s see a complete breakdown of the money that is going to the district, itself. (In other words, not assigned to a particular school.) And from there, we can start exploring reductions based upon excessive costs, possible elimination of a school, and/or combining with other districts.
The deficit Is created two fold. First by the district getting less money per student than other districts and second The district and voters made a decision starting in 2008 to maintain the current programs that other districts do not fund. By doing so however, they had to hold teacher compensation where it was in 2008 which took a gap and grew it larger. To fill that gap, they have now asked the voters to pass an additional parcel tax. The solution you are proposing – as I demonstrated with math – will make things worse, not better.
Your analysis is incomplete, is likely inaccurate, and includes no analysis whatsoever (over time), as noted elsewhere on this page (and in your ongoing series of articles).
In fact, your arguments make no logical sense, to begin with.
Ron O
Even with the complete breakdown, we still won’t get to saving 100% of the ADA monies for at least one simple reason–the district still needs to pay off bonds for current facilities. Those are unavoidable fixed ongoing costs and they are significant.
You can look here at the district budget and make your own assessment: https://www.djusd.net/departments/business_services/budget
The facilities management cost about $9M a year and cannot be reduced unless a school is closed AND the site sold or transferred. The annual debt payments are about $5M and cannot be reduced in any case short of bankruptcy. And this doesn’t include the additional bonds approved but yet to be issued to upgrade the current facilities that are degrading.
I’m not sure if ADA is used to pay-off facilities, but operating at a loss (as a result of maintaining an oversized district) isn’t going to change this. Doing so would simply incur more costs.
It may be that a school closure is ultimately needed. In the long run, I suspect that there’s no way around this.
Again, it goes back to a comparison of what’s actually needed, vs. what actually exists.
Richard… point of fact… no ADA monies are paying off the bonds… zero… nada…
separate issues, entirely…
Thank you. (That’s what I suspected, as well.)
If attrition is allowed to occur gradually, over time (e.g., via retirements and voluntary departures), it is likely that the $70,000 figure (which isn’t supported in the first place) would be higher.