Payroll cause of schools' budget woes

It's the cost of payroll and not, as some would claim, the overhead cost of running school buildings, that's really the cause of Seattle Public Schools' budget woes. A hiring freeze leading to a smaller, stable work force is the only sure, enduring way off the treadmill.

Consider this example: Using money from Initiative 728, the class size reduction initiative, the district allocated $170 to schools for every student enrolled. In 2001-02, the year the program started, the average cost for an elementary school teacher was a little less than $55,000, including benefits, so for every 325 students, principals got enough money to hire another teacher. Across the district, probably 100 teachers were hired. Thanks largely to I-728, class sizes in grades K-4 have fallen to an average of 22.

Next year (2005-06), we will be budgeting average elementary teacher cost at more than $65,000, including benefits. Most, if not all, of the I-728 teachers or their replacements are still in classrooms, so these 100 teachers will cost us an additional $10,000 each, a total of $1 million more per year.

About 2,300 Seattle teachers are paid through an allocation formula set out in the state's Basic Education Act. Problem is, Seattle employs more than 800 additional teachers not included in the basic education formula. They help us lower class sizes and deliver essential bilingual and special education services mandated but not paid for by the state and federal governments. Those 800 teachers include the 100 or so paid through I-728, other grants and the local levy.

No matter which fund pays their salaries, all teachers qualify for annual pay increases -- "step increases" -- based on experience and additional education. These increases average approximately 3 percent per year. Fortunately, the state pays step increases for the 2,300 Basic Education Act teachers. Grants and the local levy cover the increases for the other 800 teachers working in Seattle, a total of roughly $1.5 million per year. That's more than the savings from closing four elementary schools annually from now on. There could hardly be a clearer demonstration that the school district budget problem is payroll, not the number of school buildings.

The payroll problem is really worse. Teachers' aides and administrators also at times qualify for pay and benefit increases not covered by the state. Plus, there's our recent wage settlement with the Seattle Education Association, the teachers union. Including benefits, step increases, one-time pension costs shifted to local districts by the state and our contracted pay increases, the cost of an elementary school teacher will rise from $60,953 this year to $65,853 next year, about 8 percent. Seattle Public Schools, not the state, will pay the contracted -- and much deserved -- wage increases for all teachers.

For the 800 teachers paid locally from levy and grants, the 8 percent jump will add almost $4 million next year, including the estimated $1.5 million for step increases. For the 2,300 teachers covered by the state, as much as half the 8 percent planned increase remains a local responsibility (the pension costs passed back by the state and the new-contract wage increases), totaling about $5.6 million. Together, added cost is pushing $10 million.

It's clear that the problem is payroll growth and the solution is to freeze hiring of teachers, teachers' aides and administrators. That will let retirements and other attrition reduce the work force to the level that can be sustained.

Yes, under this plan class sizes will rise. But closing schools also means class sizes will rise, something that proponents of school closing have not confronted. There aren't enough empty classrooms for the teachers from closed schools, so the students from closed schools will push up class sizes by a couple kids in the surrounding schools, about what would happen with a hiring freeze.

I oppose closing schools just to balance the budget because, as I have shown, payroll cuts through a hiring freeze can do the same job, actually tackling Seattle Public Schools' real problem, which is unmanaged payroll growth. This along with several other strategies for which there isn't space here, are a real, workable alternative to the administration's ill-conceived plan to close schools. Which would you choose, the loss of your neighborhood school and larger class sizes -- or just larger class sizes? Sure, neither is exactly what we'd like, but closing schools is a lot worse.

Dick Lilly is a member of the Seattle School Board; these views are his own.

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