As readers of this column learned last week, QCSD's board and administration have been misleading the public about the true cause of the huge increases in school spending and taxes. New data on the district's own website proves that development in the area is not to blame. Student population has increased only 15.8 percent in the last 14 years, while the number of teachers increased 57.4 percent, and the support staff shot up 65.5 percent.
But that is only part of the deception. The board and administration also have proclaimed loud and long that they are not responsible for the giant budget increases, from less than $46 million in 2000-01 to about $82 million next year. They blame the costs of constructing the new schools. This seemed to make sense, and we believed them, despite the fact that they never actually showed any data to back it up.
Now, thanks to board member Manuel Alfonso, a Certified Internal Auditor, we have those statistics. And the bottom line reads just like the bottom line on development: we have all been deceived. Again. The culprit for the runaway spending, and our skyrocketing taxes, isn't development. It isn't school construction. It is the huge increase in teachers and staff, and equally runaway teacher salaries.
Get ready for lots of upsetting numbers. QCSD is currently paying off over $80 million for four schools: Trumbauersville Elementary, re-opened in 1999; Strayer Middle School in 2004; and Pfaff Elementary and the Freshman Center in 2005. The costs of operating those facilities, such as new teachers, administrators, staff, maintenance, utilities, books, and insurance, have totaled more than $15 million since 1999.
That all sounds like a shipload of money. In fact, the board and administration have always encouraged that assumption. They have residents believing that QCSD had to increase spending - and taxes - by millions every year just to pay for those improvements. It sounded reasonable. But, again, the district's own numbers say that it just isn't so.
Alfonso, a retired Army auditor, analyzed spending from 1999-00 through 2005-06, and separated the costs associated with financing, constructing, and operating the four schools from the total budget. He then did a year-by-year comparison, showing how the board's spending increased without including those new facilities, and how non-construction spending compared to student population growth. Alfonso's calculations show that those ballyhooed construction costs never exceed 4.3 percent of the entire budget until 2004-05, and, even at it's highest, in 2005-06, it was less than 13 percent of the entire district spending.
Put simply, building costs have never taken more than 13 cents of every tax dollar, and in most years took less than five cents. But the increases in non-construction spending totaled a whopping $62 million for the seven-year period. Not a penny of that was used for the new facilities. And your taxes shot up over 58 percent during that time!
So where did those tax dollars go? Decide for yourself, based on the board's own data. Since 1990, our student population increased by 1131, averaging 71 per year. But during that same period, staff grew by 14 per year. For every five new students, we hired one new staff member! For 16 years! The administration has tried to justify this by claiming that they were needed when the new schools were opened. But this deluge of personnel has been going on since 1990, a decade before any construction!!!
In 1994, we had one staff member for every 12.5 students. In 2007 there will be one for every 8.9. Regardless of buildings, we just keep hiring. And paying. Average teacher salary - about $75,000.
During the recent period from 2000-01 through 2005-06, student enrollment increased just four percent. But staff was up 28 percent. And teachers were up 21 percent, at that average salary of about $75,000. We heard stories about how the old facilities were overcrowded, with students taught in hallways and closets. But, presumably, these students were "supervised" by someone. The only thing that should have changed when new classrooms became available was the meeting location, not the teacher/student ratio.
But noooooo. During the years when three new schools opened, 2004 and 2005, QCSD increased the number of teachers by 50. Pupils increased by only 186. That's about one teacher for every four kids. Did I mention that the average teacher salary is about $75,000?
Finally, the administration wants us to believe that the current school directors are real heroes for finally doing something about the overcrowding caused by "previous" school boards skimping on spending. "Skimping" is certainly a matter of perspective. From 1995 through 1998, prior to the construction, our average tax increase was actually about twice the inflation rate. The board certainly wasn't skimping then - it only seems like it when compared to the huge spending that followed! After 2000, the non-construction spending grew by three times the inflation rate.
And who sat on those "previous" boards? Nancy Tirjan has been a director for 16 years. Zane Stauffer 22. Bob Leight 27. Phil Abramson eight. Linda Martin eight. Bill Laboski eight. They are the ones who miscalculated the district's needs, and then had to play catch-up with your tax dollars today, when the burden really should have been shared starting years ago. These folks aren't heroes - they are just poor planners, throwing your tax dollars at the problems they helped create.
Alfonso concluded "The board majority's actions for many years have been to keep all groups' interests in mind, except the taxpayers. The board now has to adjust to the new reality - the money tree is bare. The spending spree is over." But we still face millions of dollars in long-deferred, and badly-needed, renovations to Richland and Haycock elementary schools. Our current board can't blame that on anyone else. Let's hope that the new board next year does a far better job of handling our tax dollars, if only so that we don't have to endure any more lame, false excuses.