Wake Superintendent Del Burns is mounting another defense of the school district's decision not to rely too much on federal stimulus dollars.
In this week's journal, Burns says the stimulus dollars are "not a magical solution that will make everything like it was." This comes as outside groups, including NCAE and Gov. Perdue, are saying that Wake should use the stimulus dollars more to save teacher jobs.
Burns stresses that the stimulus dollars are set to expire in two years.
"It's fiscally irresponsible to use short-term funds to pay for recurring expenses, all the while hoping that replacement funds will arrive," Burns said. "To me, that is not an acceptable strategy. That’s digging a hole for our future that we cannot see our way out of. We continue to strive to strike a balance with the use of these funds to preserve positions, add positions while bracing for the inevitable loss of these funds in the future."
At this week's joint meeting, Chief Academic Officer Donna Hargens said they used the stimulus money to maintain 100 jobs and create 99 new ones.
Those 100 jobs account for 911 of the terminating-contract employees who were rehired. That still leave 585 people who haven't been brought back yet although some have found jobs in other districts.
But if you're a teacher who is still out a job, you probably don't care that the stimulus dollars are going to expire. You just want to make sure you're working now and you'll worry about the future later.
Burns also focuses on the arguments made by Perdue's office that the budget flexibility given to school districts will help them deal with the funding cuts. Burns says it won't help Wake much.
Comments
here's some overhead for you
Sun, 08/23/2009 - 18:57 — momsateacherEach of the 9 area superintendents has a "special assistant" to oversee the school improvement planning (SIP) process at each school. The school is responsible for writing the plan, the area superintendant is responsible for reading the plan. I'm still not sure what the special assistant does, besides create redundant meetings for his/her regional SIP chairs. I guess you have to call a meeting to justify your (useless) position. Frankly, I'd rather not go to the meetings, and let the special assistant go back to the classroom.
Here is a question for you.
Sun, 08/23/2009 - 20:18 — klanders65Here is a question for you. How many people's jobs are related to supporting those SIPs? (like trainings and maintaining the electronic forms, etc.) And, what ever changes because of those plans? How many schools ever check to see if they are on track to making their goals? Or do things differently? Or are these plans just a big time-waster, to make it look like we have a plan for changing? If that is what they are, how much could we save by streamlining them or something?
Debra Goldman fans!
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 11:44 — g88ky07If the 1,000's of fans being handed out, and used, at Lazy Daze just this morning was any indication, Debra Goldman will "blow away" her competition!
Wish the other 3 could've got in on that act! That was pure genius!
Wake Teachers: We Need an Advocate
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 07:55 — AngelaWLeadership in the teacher’s union is limited in what they are willing to publicly do for their members. That’s because they are also looking out for their own careers. And no one know that better than a classroom teacher.
http://venitapeyton.com/2009/08/wake-teachers-we-need-advocate.html
Get educated
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 11:39 — supportwcpssWe don't have unions in NC. It's a right to work state. I would suggest Ms. Peyton get educated on this topic before she spouts off on it.
The NCAE has few members and little power.
Wake NCAE is the largest
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 14:11 — AngelaWWake NCAE is the largest local affiliate of the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE), representing 5,000 employees of the Wake County Public Schools
(suggest you try some Metamucil before spouting off??)
Your point?
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 15:40 — supportwcpssThey are still not a union, only represent 1/3 of the WCPSS employees, and have little to no power.
Are you having a bad day?
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 16:48 — CaryCurmudgeonAre you having a bad day? Maybe you should go have a margarita.
Nope
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 16:51 — supportwcpssJust enjoy calling people out who are full of ****. So once again since you keep avoiding the question. How many people showed up for the meeting in Cary Joe? How could that place possibily hold the volume of people who are outraged.
Have you published the minutes of your meetings so we can see them in case we had to miss the meeting.
Wow, you are one angry
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 21:34 — woodstockWow, you are one angry person. Confident people don't lose their cool so easily. It is hard to image you being a pleasant person in real life.
Perhaps you should worry less about the people working for change and academic excellence and spend a little more time supporting the status quo and their failed policies that hurt poor children.
Well, personally I think
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 17:26 — CaryCurmudgeonWell, personally I think you need a margarita. Why is it so important to you to find out how many people showed up for a meeting in Cary. If you're mad because you didn't get invited, give us your real name and we'll be sure to put you on the list next time.
I do find it odd that critics of school policies generally do not skulk behind screen names, but supporters (other than Perry) stay in the shadows. How do you ever expected to get invited to meetings if people don't know who you are?
5,000 is not 1/3 of 9,000 (unless you are still using TB
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 16:42 — AngelaWSat, 08/22/2009 - 00:13 — KeungHui (author)
Wake has about 17,000 employees total, of which around 9,000 are teachers.
Pay attention
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 16:49 — supportwcpssNCAE is NOT just teachers. It's anyone who works for WCPSS. Given the total number of employees is around 16K I think 1/3 is about right.
Obviously your education didn't focus on paying attention.
Wake has about
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 16:55 — AngelaWWake has about 17,000
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 00:13 — KeungHui (author)
Wake has about 17,000 employees total, of which around 9,000 are teachers. The other 8,000 or so people are not all administrators. It's everybody else in the district, such as bus drivers, secretaries, cafeteria workers, custodians, etc.
(not powerful? pretty influential apparently....
Jennifer Lanane, a member of the committee of principals, teachers, administrators and parents who recommended the early dismissals, said the weekly sessions will make Wake "a much better school system."
"I guarantee that students will be better off from doing this," said Lanane, president of the Wake County chapter of the N.C. Association of Educators.
Uh...
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 14:07 — Bob_SconceSo, what is the North Carolina Association of Educators? The summary they provide search engines says "Union representing teachers in the state. Affiliated with the NEA."
Being a "right to work state" doesn't mean that unions are illegal -- it just means that you cannot require employees to join a union as a condition of employment.
Public employees in North Carolina don't have the right to strike, which is why you don't see teachers' strikes here like you do in most northern states.
Venita's point still stands -- teachers need a stronger advocate. I'm not in favor of giving them the right to strike, but their voices are too filtered by the administration to be heard by the school board.
same result
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 15:38 — supportwcpssNOw y'ure not being too literal. The fact that it is a right to work state means unions are worthless. They add no value because they have no power.
If the teachers feel they need an advocate why don't they start a teacher led group. Just like with every injustice that has happened in our history, if enough people are angry then organize and advocate for change.
Well put Bob-Sconce
Fri, 08/21/2009 - 20:11 — HeatherbrookWell put Bob-Sconce
What a load of ....
Fri, 08/21/2009 - 17:31 — Bob_SconceI need to buy food. Luckily, I just found this $20 bill. But, since I don't know that I'll be able to find another $20 tomorrow, if I spend the money on food now, I'll probably just be hungry tomorrow -- I'd only be delaying the inevitable. I'd rather be hungry today and spend the money on movie tickets.
If they hadn't been
Fri, 08/21/2009 - 16:52 — TheLibertineIf they hadn't been mismanaging the supposed "surplus" we've had for the past decade in NC's coffers, perhaps they wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. Government services remind me of a spoiled child -- it's never enough to sate or placate them. They just want more with no accountability or consequences.
Nope, I don't care...
Fri, 08/21/2009 - 16:47 — ccarley"But if you're a teacher who is still out a job, you probably don't care
that the stimulus dollars are going to expire. You just want to make
sure you're working now and you'll worr"
Teacher to Administration ratio
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 17:15 — SDR256Wake County has a huge teacher to administration ratio. While they laid off 1500 teachers the administration was virtually untouched. Consider that Wake County pays for almost two (1.8) administrators for every teacher. They pay for one administrator for every 8.4 children. Not all school systems publish the number of administrators, but here are some initial examples. Compare that to LAUSD (Los Angeles) which pays for less than one administrator (0.8) for every teacher and one administrator for every 18 children. Clark County Nevada (Las Vegas) pays for less than 1/2 an administrator for every teacher (0.4) and has one administrator for every 59.1 children. Wake County has roughly 1/5 the number of students of LAUSD and 1/3 the number of Clark County.
Do you know that 80% of your property tax goes to WCPSS? Are they spending it on education? I guess with a $5M budget for PR they can try to make the public think so.
Mad yet?
Hmm...
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 17:33 — supportwcpssWould this be the property taxes that are one of the lowest in the country relative to the income in this income. 80% means nothing. It's a county with only 20% of the land owned by the county. Your point?
And tell me what goes into the 5M Communications budget? Would you care to share this with others?
Chump change?
Sun, 08/23/2009 - 12:05 — SDR256"80% means nothing"
Lots of people have come here because of the great standard of living. We don't live in California because it would be too expensive. Lots of people are here because they want to be more careful with their money. Many more have only recently started counting pennies. But in this economy the cash represented by 80% of our family's property tax means a lot to us. You may have money to burn but we sure don't. We want to contribute our share to society but I want to make darn sure that they are being responsible with it! I'm not clipping coupons so Chuck can have a cake thank you very much.
Margarita time !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 17:58 — CaryCurmudgeonMargarita time !!!!!!!!!!!!!
'Burns says the stimulus
Fri, 08/21/2009 - 16:12 — woodstock'Burns says the stimulus dollars are "not a magical solution that will make everything like it was."'
True, but it will help. It makes no sense not the take the money. The entire purpose of the money is to help the schools through this time of economic downturn and decreased tax revenue. Does Burns doubt that the economy will turn around and tax revenues increase? That is a pretty pessimistic outlook.
Burns job is to do what he can with the resources he has. Turning them down seems irresponsible.
Wake didn't turn the money
Fri, 08/21/2009 - 16:22 — KeungHui (author)Wake didn't turn the money down. The complaint is that the district isn't using more of the money for job preservation. Wake is using a large chunk for job creation instead based on the idea that they could get by if the funding is gone for those jobs in two years.
Interesting. So instead of
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 08:41 — woodstockInteresting. So instead of using funds to preserve jobs, Burns plan is to create more jobs? Yet, the problem is lack of funds to maintain jobs for those currently employed. I fail to understand the reasoning behind that.
Common Practice
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 11:49 — supportwcpssI don't understand why Burns and the school system need to defend themselves. Sconce's analogy of a $20 bill is not applicable and just plain dumb.
It is a common practice to NOT use temporary funds for recurring expenses throughout all government, and for that matter, also non-profit organizations.
To assume everything in just going to 'bounce' back is irresponsible. We have no idea how long this current econmic crisis will continue. This is just another opportunity for the governor, NCAE, and others to say "It's not my fault".
As they mentioned in the original plan for using the federal money it will have benefit even if it is gone in 2 years. What I would like to see is if we could transition some of the teachers we had to cut to these roles.
Why so?
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 14:25 — Bob_SconcePlease tell me where my analogy falls apart. Education K-12 students is the core business of the school district. It seems to me that if the district isn't doing that, then it shouldn't be spending money on secondary priorities. At worst, using stimulus money to avoid firing teachers means that we need to face the problem in 2 years. At best, it means that we never have to face it, because the economy comes back.
As a general rule, you don't use one-time funds to fund recurring expenses -- instead, you need to reduce those recurring expenses. That's like people who count on occasional bonuses to pay their mortgage. In cases like that, the right thing to do is to use those bonuses to pay down the principal on the mortgage. In this case, the equivalent would be to bank the stimulus money and use the interest to fund recurring expenses -- turning one-time money into recurring money.
I suggest, though, that the general rule doesn't apply in this case -- if you lose your job, you try to cut secondary expenses as much as possible (no cleaning lady, no yard service, etc...). But, you don't immediately sell the house. Instead, you rely on one-time funds like savings to get over the rough patch until you get a new job. If it turns out that the new job isn't coming, then you sell the house down the road. Firing teachers is like selling the house.
Bob, There's nothing
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 15:33 — CaryCurmudgeonBob,
There's nothing wrong with your analogy. While we do not know what next year's funding looks like, we do know that there will be 2,000 new students in class (I took the WCPSS projection and divided by half based on past accuracy). I'm sure there will be even more students the year after. Unless we are going to start double-stacking student desks, we have to hire teachers the next two years, stimulus money or not.
Not shooting at the
Fri, 08/21/2009 - 18:25 — CaryCurmudgeonNot shooting at the messenger here, but the same applies. If the stimulus money dries up in two years then they will have to lay off these "new" positions.
And when we have only 9,000 teachers compared to 16-17,000 administrators, I really have to wonder about our spending priorities. If they really wanted to, WCPSS would have no problem finding 585 reductions in the administrative (overhead) area. Evidently, those jobs are sacrosanct. It must be easy to continue to get reelected to the school board when you have 17,000 people on the dole who will vote to keep you in office and protect their jobs. And in the case of Rita Rakestraw, they are even willing to contribute their own money to keep the gravy train rolling.
Excuse me
Fri, 08/21/2009 - 20:54 — supportwcpssWhere are you getting those numbers. Last I checked there was around 16-17K employees with 9K of those being teachers.
Misleading once again CC. At least only a dozen people were at yuor last meeting so these blatant lies won't go much further.
My bad. Not a lie, an
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 07:48 — CaryCurmudgeonMy bad. Not a lie, an error. But the point still holds -- Overhead has been spared while teachers have been sacrificed.
I admitted my mistake. Now you tell the truth, do you think wcpss has been right to cut all these teachers instead of taking the cost out of overhead? Before you answer, keep in mind that they just added two six-figure executive positions and to my knowledge NO executive positions have been eliminated.
P.S.
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 12:15 — supportwcpssWhile it might not be a lie, it is ignorant post without checking your facts.
But you really don't care about that part. So again, how many people were at that last meeting in Cary? Still waiting on this answer.
Give me some data
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 12:13 — supportwcpssDo I admit a position or two could be cut? Sure. Does that make up 40 million dollars - get real. I ran some quick numbers across 2 ES, 2 MS, and 2 HS. In general (really rough) I came up with 2/3 teachers and 1/3 non teachers.
My numbers actually worked out roughly to 10K teachers (which mean I'm overcounting either specials or something else). My count for non teachers in the schools added up to around 7000 (really rough) without bus drivers.
So where are these thousands of admins you keep preaching about? I believe they just dropped about 10-12 positions in the last 6 months but I would have to look back at Hui's posts to get the correct number.
Hui - Any chance you could give us a breakdown by the following:
And CC, stop throwing your 'we hate big government' rhetoric on every situation you run into.
OK, I'll stop since you say
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 14:06 — CaryCurmudgeonOK, I'll stop since you say so.
Wake has about 17,000
Fri, 08/21/2009 - 23:13 — KeungHui (author)Wake has about 17,000 employees total, of which around 9,000 are teachers. The other 8,000 or so people are not all administrators. It's everybody else in the district, such as bus drivers, secretaries, cafeteria workers, custodians, etc.
Is Del starting to smell a little fear!
Fri, 08/21/2009 - 19:52 — g88ky07I saw him spittering and sputtering on News14 today and thought, didn't we already cover this story earlier this week?
16-17 THOUSAND admins verses 9 thousand teachers????? How does that make teachers feel! If ANY of them vote for even one of the status quo "Stan Norwalk's" they'll be even less of them next year!
They have nine area
Fri, 08/21/2009 - 21:06 — CaryCurmudgeonThey have nine area superintendents, all of whom make well into six-figures. They have thousands of staff workers who never see the inside of a classroom. In private industry, we call that "overhead."
Every company in America has adjusted to the current economy by slashing executive positions and overhead. But not WCPSS. They cut the most important and underpaid part of their work force, teachers. If I were a teacher, I'd be pissed. As a citizen, I'm disgusted.