Tag Archives: schools

Benchmarking Pittsburgh

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City of Pittsburgh, know thyself. So goes the Socratic admonition.  Here’s some information to help in the self-knowledge. 

 

 

In order to see how the City performs on various measures of local government functions; how much it spends, taxes, how many people it employs, its legacy costs, and its authorities and schools, the Allegheny Institute in 2004 created the concept of the Benchmark City. The Benchmark City allows for an approximation of national norms of city governing by taking four regional hub cities from across the U.S. (Salt Lake, Omaha, Columbus, and Charlotte) and amalgamating them together to form a construct with which to gauge Pittsburgh’s performance.  After undertaking the initial analysis in 2004, we have updated the data in three year intervals and just recently released our 2013 report.

 

What did the 2013 analysis find?  An in-depth analysis can be found in the report, but here is a summary: on a per capita basis Pittsburgh spends more overall, collects more taxes and more non-tax revenue, and spends more on police and fire than the Benchmark City.  On the key measure of general fund spending, the gap between Pittsburgh and the Benchmark City was 46 percent ($1,539 to $1,051). When staffing levels are examined (on a per 1000 person basis), Pittsburgh is higher on total employees, total police, and total fire.  It has higher per capita debt obligations, a lower pension funded ratio, and pays out more in workers’ compensation.  City authorities employ many more people and have much more assets. Meanwhile, school spending and school taxes per person are considerably higher.  Overall, 2013 comparative results were not all that different from those found in the three previous Benchmark City reports as they took snapshots of budget and audited data at specific periods of time.

 

It is fair to say that positive change has occurred since 2004 when we first created the Benchmark City comparing Pittsburgh with cities of similar population size. Remember, that the City had just entered Act 47 recovery status and an oversight board like the one in Philadelphia was being discussed.  Gone are the business privilege and mercantile taxes, the $10 occupational privilege tax, and in their place are the payroll preparation tax and a $52 local services tax.  Act 47 status could be revoked based on the recommendations made by the recovery team in November of last year. 

 

With nearly ten years of benchmarking data on hand it is also possible to look back at 2004 and compare the relative standing of Pittsburgh to the Benchmark City now to see where the gap on certain variables has improved, stayed the same, or gotten worse.  There is good news. Pittsburgh has significantly improved its standing relative to the Benchmark City on pensions and debt.  In 2004, the funded ratio of Pittsburgh’s pensions was 43 percent lower than the Benchmark City.  By 2013, the gap had shrunk to 13 percent. Obviously the 2010 revenue plan crafted locally in response to the mandate by the state under Act 44 had a major impact. In 2004 the funded ratio in Pittsburgh was 51 percent and the Benchmark City 89 percent.  As Pittsburgh’s ratio climbed to 62 percent, the Benchmark City ratio fell to 72 percent, thus the combination of Pittsburgh’s improvement and the Benchmark’s poorer showing worked to close the gap. 

 

Then too, per capita debt, which was 233 percent higher than the Benchmark nearly ten years ago now stands at 64 percent higher.  Pittsburgh’s per capita debt fell by more than $800 while the Benchmark City debt rose by over $300 per person. If there is a strict adherence to reaching the debt to spending goal laid out by City Council (12% of spending taken up by debt by 2020) then improvement will continue in the future. 

 

Total staffing and fire staffing (per 1000 people) have also seen movement in a positive direction. Per capita school spending and per capita school taxes (which are not under the control of City officials in Pittsburgh or any of the cities that comprise the Benchmark, but are critically important) are still higher in Pittsburgh as of 2013, but again the relative standing between Pittsburgh and the Benchmark shrank since 2004.

 

That being said, the City’s per capita spending still remains close to 50 percent higher than the Benchmark,  now as it was did in 2004 and the gap between it and the Benchmark City on taxes is likewise the same (62% higher in 2004, 57% higher in 2013).  There is no noticeable difference in the staffing levels or asset holdings of related authorities which, again, are not directly part of any city’s government but perform services critical to taxpayers and have directors exclusively or partially appointed by city officials.

 

Did anything get worse since 2004?  The student population to city population (students per 1000 people) was 29 percent lower in 2013 compared to 20 percent lower in 2004.  Police staffing was 13 percent higher in Pittsburgh in 2004 and is now 24 percent higher. 

 

In sum, we conclude the Pittsburgh has made progress, but there is still much more work to do.  Whether there is one oversight group or two going forward, they will have to continue pressing the City for more restraint and downsizing of government.

Dilemma for a Small District

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Cut positions in order to save the district. That’s the position taken by the administration of the Northgate School District, a district serving the North Hills communities of Avalon and Bellevue. Population has fallen in the communities, as has public school enrollment, but there are more teachers now (115) than there were in the 1995-96 school year (110). Thus, the proposal to layoff 23 teachers and 10 aides at a meeting this week. As we have written before, Pennsylvania only allows layoffs of public school employees when there is a drop in enrollment or a program is shuttered, not for economic conditions.

Consider: in 95-96 enrollment was 1,644 students and the pupil to teacher ratio was 14.9. In 12-13 enrollment was 1,211 and the resulting ratio was 10.5. Laying off 23 teachers-and assuming enrollment does not change dramatically for next year, say it stands at 1,180-the pupil-teacher ratio would be 12.8, lower than the national average of 15.1 and that of Pennsylvania (13.8) as of 2010. Curiously, a November 2011 article detailing a new four-year contract for teachers recalled three teachers who had been laid off and stated that it had "eliminated the need for additional layoffs".

The superintendent-who was hired last May-went on record saying he would not support merging with another district due to losing the character of neighborhood schools that serve the district. Property tax rates went up 24% in the District from 2001 through 2012 and, at 28.6 mills now, the District has one of the highest millage rates in Allegheny County. Northgate, like all districts in the state, are facing steep increases to pension costs. How does the District work its way out of this situation?

Bethel Park Superintendent Seems Confused About Responsibility

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Lamenting the inability of the Bethel Park School District to get a contract with teachers for the last two and half years, the superintendent says she has been silent until now because she is in a " peculiar position of advising the Board and leading the staff."

Hold the phone. Does the Board not hire superintendents to manage the schools on behalf of the residents and taxpayers of the district? That being the case, the superintendent is honor bound to work for the board and taxpayers. Staff members do not pay her salary, they answer to her as the board’s appointed agent in charge.

Clearly, she has the obligation to advise the board on what it should do vis-à-vis the teachers’ contract but her obligation has to be first and foremost to the board. She can be an advocate for programs that improve education or management procedures that improve cost effectiveness. At the same time, she is not, and should never consider herself, to be a spokesperson for the union’s interests. The union has enough power on its side in the bargaining process including the right to strike and the state’s idiotic no layoffs for financial reasons provisions.

If the talks are at an impasse, and compensation costs cannot be lowered under the terms of the old contract, the superintendent should offer suggestions about programs to cut-one of two criteria the state permits for reducing staff. Alternatively, if teachers will not agree to slight increases in class size to save their jobs, then the onus must be on their union for staff that lose their jobs because of intransigence.

The Bethel Park board should question whether the superintendent understands her role.

An “Act 47” for Schools

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Legislation has passed both houses of the General Assembly that would put in place financial recovery and receivership provisions for the state’s 500 school districts, though it is a safe bet that, like the fiscal distress provisions that could apply to all of the state’s 2,000-plus municipalities, not all will ever encounter any sort of fiscal oversight or guidance.

A side-by-side comparison of Act 47 and the proposed school legislation is instructive:

Act 47

Proposed Legislation

Steering Department

Community and Economic Development

Education

Person Who Determines Status

Secretary of Community and Economic Development

Secretary of Education

Title of Official in Charge of Recovery

Coordinator

Chief Recovery Officer

Key Document

Recovery Plan

Financial Recovery Plan

There are some key differences as well: under Act 47, there are parties besides the state that have standing to make a case that a municipality has qualified for distress. In the proposed legislation, it appears only the Department of Education can make the case. There is no cap on the number of municipalities that can be in Act 47 at one time (right now there are over 20) whereas the legislation for schools says that "no more than nine" can be in financial recovery, or the more drastic receivership, at one time. While Act 47 spells out much of the criteria on what it means to be distressed, the State Board of Education is supposed to determine the criteria for "moderate" or "severe" distress. And what causes the cessation of distress/recovery? For both, it is the determination of the respective Secretary.

Pine Richland Schools to Cut PE

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The lunacy of Pennsylvania school laws strikes again. Faced with a budget deficit that cannot be filled by raising taxes as much as the tax base can bear, Pine Richland schools will eliminate the physical education program and cut 5.5 teaching positions.

Why are they doing this? Because state law does not allow a district to lay off teachers for economic reasons. Teachers can be laid off only when enrollment drops significantly or entire programs are eliminated. Since enrollment is not down and teacher pay and benefits continue to rise, the District finds itself in a dilemma. The money is not there to pay everyone and the teachers’ union will not voluntarily suspend pay increases or agree to concessions during the period of financial difficulty so the District is forced to reduce expenditures by dropping a program. Goodbye PE. It could have been music and art, maybe foreign languages, but apparently the least bad cut was the PE department.

Now all those parents and handwringers who will decry this move can begin their screaming at the Board. But they should be screaming at the state laws and the unions that have created this monstrous situation. Stupid and obnoxious do not begin to describe statutes that protect teachers to the degree Pennsylvania elects to do. Thus, rather than asking some sacrifice by several departments in the form of slightly larger class sizes or schedule changes needed to accommodate one less teacher per department, an entire program has to go, guaranteeing the maximum public outcry and attacks on Board members.

And so it goes. Just one more indication of how down the road to total government chaos Pennsylvania has traveled.

District Confusion Could Cause “Wind-Fails”

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This week’s Brief pointed out the rather complex process under which the County, municipalities, and school districts will have to adjust their millage rates when the 2013 reassessment is made official. The Brief points out that the old days of taking 5% above the revenue collected the year before the reassessment are no more.

So when the business manager of a south hills school district noted that "revenues in the budget were based on the county holding a countywide reassessment this year in which school districts and municipalities would have been permitted to keep a 5 percent windfall" there is going to have to be a major undertaking of school officials, solicitors, and others to ensure that the new legal obligations are being followed. The officials of the District might be wary of budgeting anything given the resistance of County leaders to move forward with a reassessment.

As a result of changes to the law in recent years, there is no ability to take a 5% windfall: the County and municipalities can vote to get 5% after they establish a revenue neutral rate and school districts are limited to the confines of their Act 1 index.

One City in the Institute’s Benchmark Takes a Big Action

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Last week we released our most recent Benchmark City report updating data to reflect 2010 budgets. But the school district in one city in the Benchmark-Charlotte, NC-is showing signs that it is preparing for the economic hardships that are surely ahead in the coming years.

Just this week the district announced that it plans to layoff 600 teachers for the fall term and is cutting pay for 224 assistant principals. According to the Superintendent "performance" will be the guiding factor in determining who gets laid off.

Let’s put the 600 layoffs into perspective: Charlotte-Mecklenberg School District has 10,497 teachers and support staff employees listed in their most recent annual report. Letting 600 teachers go amounts to a 5% downsizing. If Pittsburgh Public Schools were to layoff 5% of the workforce classified as teachers/support staff, it would amount to 115 people (based on 2,303 teachers and academic coaches listed in the most recent school CAFR).

Consider too that enrollment in Pittsburgh is falling while enrollment in Charlotte-Mecklenberg has been on the upswing (since 2004, Pittsburgh is down 26%, Charlotte is up 15%) yet, on a per 1000 student basis, Charlotte has 79 teachers/support staff and Pittsburgh has 88 teachers/coaches, 14% higher in the Steel City (total overall staffing is even more disproportionate with Pittsburgh having 39% more employees per 1000 students).

Imagine what rancor 100 layoffs in the Pittsburgh Public Schools would cause. And if those layoffs were based on performance without regard to seniority the ire among teachers would be off of the charts. Ironically the teachers’ union in Pittsburgh would want to set aside performance for layoff decisions while it tries to define what constitutes good performance to satisfy the requirements of the Gates Foundation grant. Moreover, under the union contract and state law it is unlikely that either spending or layoffs will occur in Pittsburgh no matter how tough the economic environment. Indeed, raises for teachers will have to be paid according to contract terms no matter the hardship for taxpayers in Pittsburgh and across the state. Somehow the state and Federal government will be counted on to fill any gaps.

What a difference in approach in NC, a state that has no recognized public sector unions and where teacher and other public employee strikes are not allowed and would result in serious penalties if they occur.

Pittsburgh’s school board just voted to close two schools because of falling enrollment. Is there a chance a single teacher will be let go as a result of declining numbers of students? Not in Pittsburgh where public sector unions are in firm control.

And Pittsburgh taxpayers have not seen the worst yet. The school board requirement to boost funding sharply for teacher pensions in a couple of years will cause school tax rates to jump. Then too, the 2012 county wide reassessment will undoubtedly cause enormous heartburn for people whose properties are seriously undervalued currently. One must wonder how charitable toward teachers’ unions taxpayers will feel by then. But unless they are willing to vote differently they will just have to grin and bear the higher tax burdens.

Promise Program Not Delivering

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Pittsburgh Public Schools have released their official attendance figures for the 2009-2010 school year. While it continues the downward trend they have been experiencing for the past several years, they seem satisfied that the latest year over year decline is smaller than it had been. We remind them that given the enormous amounts of money placed by various foundations and businesses into the Pittsburgh Promise Scholarship program, the latest enrollment figures are not very promising.

When the Pittsburgh Promise program was launched to great fanfare in 2006, the enrollment stood at 30,969. The program was designed to not only keep students in the schools by promising them college scholarships if they graduated with certain grade point levels, it was also to encourage parents whose children may have attended private schools or home schooled to enroll in the public system. Given that the current figure of 26,123 represents a decline of nearly 16 percent since the program began, it looks as if that plan has failed miserably.

The fact that enrollment from the 2008-2009 school year to the current has only decreased by two percent is not much to cheer about. Considering that the City and the nation have been mired in a recession for more than a year, it could be that parents who have been squeezed by falling incomes might choose public school over a private option. It could also be that many parents who are trying to leave the City are held back by a weak real estate market and are unable to sell their houses.

Tangled Webs Created by Conflicting School Laws

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Children of school age in Pennsylvania are required to be in school-either public, qualified private or home school-during the prescribed academic year. Failure to attend if registered in a public school can lead to truancy charges against the parents. Meanwhile, Allegheny County requires kids to show proof of immunization against several diseases before they are allowed to attend a public school class.

So, if you want to go to school you have to be immunized. If you or your parents either don’t want you to go-or couldn’t care less-and you refuse to be vaccinated, the school can have you declared truant and have your parents face charges.

Quandary. What to do with the recalcitrant who refuses the shots? Hold them down and force the vaccinations? Or lock the parents up until they agree to force you to get immunized?

Either way, the force or threat of physical force by government must be used. Is that what we signed up for in 1776 and 1787? Compulsory attendance laws so violate fundamental liberty that they can only be justified if national security is at risk or there is an imminent threat to public safety. If those circumstances actually exist they beg the question: if students are compelled to attend why aren’t schools compelled to teach? When did the last principal go to jail for failure of his students to learn? The answer to that question puts the whole issue in its proper perspective. Too bad we have lost sight of what is really involved.