Incomplete answers to leftover LWV questions

By Michael Barnes

Here are answers to several, but not all, of the leftover questions from the LWV event.

1. WHAT DO YOU ANTICIPATE THAT THE DEMANDS ON YOUR TIME WILL BE? (FROM SERVING ON THE BOARD)

There's two aspects to this-quantitative and qualitative. I plan to spend between 10 hours per month during a really slow period, up to 10 hours per week in a busy period, with short bouts of more time during critical periods like contract negotiations.

The role of the board is not to run the district day to day, but to establish priorities and values, communicate with the parents, teachers, and other community members, and deal with long-term problems and goals. Like all good managers, the board members must learn to delegate responsibility. There is no shortage of skilled, dedicated parents in Albany who would be happy to serve on committees if they felt they were given real authority and their suggestions were taken seriously. The new board will need to set up a workable committee structure, and then delegate, delegate, delegate.

Questions regarding new supervisors:

14. SIGNIFICANT CHANGES HAVE COME WITH THE NEW SUP, BUSINESS MANAGER, AND INTERNAL ACCOUNTING. PLEASE COMMENT ON HOW YOU WILL CONTINUE THIS WORK.

I'm glad our new Sups. are here. They've inherited quite a mess, as the recent letter from the School Services consultant details. The new superintendents are good, but they are not superhuman. They need our support and appreciation as they try to clean-up years of sloppy accounting. Whether I'm elected to the board or not, I intend to support this work. We need good data to make good decisions.

16. WHAT IS THE JOB OF THE BUSINESS MANAGER AND SUPERINTENDENT VS. THE JOB OF A BOARD MEMBER IN MANAGING A BUDGET? CAN YOU DO THE BUSINESS MNGR'S JOB?

The thing that makes budgets interesting to me is that they are both proscriptive and descriptive-they document both how we think money will be spent, and how we think it ought to be spent. A lot of a school district's fundamental values are embedded in a good budget. Building values into the budget is the responsibility of the board. Tracking expenditures against the budget, and reporting this information to the community either directly or through the board, is the job of the superintendents and staff. The board cannot micro-manage the school district, nor should they try.

During the former administration, we had a hands-off superintendent and a hands-on board. With our new superintendents, we now have hands-on supervisors, and we need a hands-off board to give them room to do their jobs. This is not to say the board shouldn't stay busy or be involved, but the board needs to change it's focus to more complex, long-term issues.

21. WHAT WAS YOUR ROLE IN BRINGING IN NEW DISTRICT PERSONNEL? HOW DO YOU INTEND TO WORK WITH THEM?

I had nothing to do with their arrival in Albany. Wish I did. I tried to get on the hiring committee, but it was already full.

As a candidate, I've had a chance to talk with both new sups., and like many people, I think they have what the district needs. I've watched new sup. interact with the board at several meetings, and I like what I see. He has a good diplomatic way of saying "If this is a technical problem, leave it up to me. If we are going to solve this problem, I need the board to make a judgement call on this particular issue. What do the board members think?" I'd be very happy to work within this framework. Staff makes technical decisions, board makes judgement calls, board consultants with teachers and community on big value decisions.

30. DO YOU FEEL THAT THE ALBANY SCHOOL SYSTEM IS TOP-HEAVY WITH ADMINISTRATION? IF SO, WHAT WOULD YOU DO ABOUT IT?

Nope, not anymore. I did think it was top heavy during the former administration. I think new sup. is running a tight ship, and will continue to do so. The schools services study of our comparable districts showed that our administrative costs are actually a little lower than our comparable groups of school districts.

Questions concerning recall effort of board members:

12. MANY OF US IN THE COMMUNITY WITH GROWN CHILDREN ARE NOT PLEASED WITH THE WAY IN WHICH TEACHERS AND PARENTS CONDUCT THEMSELVES DURING THE NEGOTIATIONS. (1) DID YOU SIGN THE RECALL? (2) WILL YOU REPRESENT THE COMMUNITY OR SIMPLY THE TEACHER'S UNION?

25. LAST SPRING DURING CONTENTIOUS CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN THE ATA AND AUSD A SMALL NUMBER OF PEOPLE TOOK OUT PAPERS TO RECALL TWO CURRENT SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS. ONE OF YOU WAS ONE OF THE PROPONENTS OF THE RECALL. CAN CANDIDATES COMMENT ON THE MERIT OF THE RECALL EFFORT?

26. QUESTION FOR SLATE CANDIDATE: YOU MENTIONED YOUR EFFORTS TO ASSIST TEACHERS IN GAINING A NEW CONTRACT. YOU DID NOT MENTION YOUR CONTEMPORANEOUS ROLE IN ORGANIZING A RECALL OF SITTING BOARD MEMBERS AND A CLASSROOM BOYCOTT. WOULD YOU UNDERTAKE SIMILAR ACTIVITIES WHILE SERVING AS A SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER?

35. IN VIEW OF THE EARLIER (UNSUCCESSFUL) EFFORT TO ORGANIZE A RECALL AGAINST TWO BOARD MEMBERS, WHERE DOES EACH CANDIDATE STAND ON THIS METHOD AS A PROBLEM-SOLVING DEVICE? ALSO, HOW DO YOU SEE THIS METHOD AFFECTING STUDENTS, PARENT, AND COMMUNITY IN THE SHORT AND LONG TERM?

I had completely forgotten about this until someone asked me about it after the LWV event. My recollection is that during the ATA contract dispute, some parents considered trying to recall two board membes. At the time, I looked at some of the documents, and decided it was not a practical idea. A recall effort requires several months, lots of work collecting signatures, and a recall election that is expensive for local governments.

Since one due to term limits, it made no sense to me to attempt to recall her. The other would have been a more logical choice for a recall, since he was the only board member who was not up for election in Nov. 2002. However, the whole idea left a bad taste in my mouth. Since four of the five seats on the board were up for grabs in Nov. 2002, I thought it was better to do something positive instead, and run candidates in the election.

I think someone did decide to go ahead and launch a recall effort. I heard that the papers were served to both board members at board meetings, but I wasn't there. I remember reading in the Albany Journal several months later that the recall effort had failed. That was completely predictable.

As a rule, I'll sign any petition anybody puts in front of me. Since I moved to the Bay Area in 1989, I've signed dozens and dozens of petitions. I think I've only refused to sign one. So if there was some recall petition circulated, my signature might be on it, I really don't remember.

I'm not an expert at election law, but from what I know of it, I have no problem with the laws governing recall elections. I think the public has a right to recall a candidate who is not doing their job.

Questions involving relationship to ATA:

3. WHAT IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO THE ATA? HOW CAN WE BE ASSURED THAT YOU WILL ACT INDEPENDENTLY FOR OUR CHILDREN?

Well, we've been endorsed by the ATA, and they did give us a campaign contribution. I did meet with the new presidents to say hello once, and I often bump into them when we attend board meetings. We did do a meet-the-candidates event at one ATA meeting. The Slate candidates usually work with a group of parents and teachers who are part of our organization. Just what role the teachers in our group play in ATA I don't know. Mostly we deal with election-related issues.

Now for the "ACT INDEPENDENTLY FOR OUR CHILDREN" part of the question. Uh, which children are you referring to? My kids, your kids, high school students, elementary students, kids today, kids a decade from now, special ed. kids, English language learner kids? Some of the most divisive issues in AUSD are about how resources get divided between different groups of children.

Let me give you an example. By a 3-2 vote this earlier this year, the board voted not to eliminate third grade class size reduction in order to free resources that could be used at the high school. To their credit, the incumbent candidates voted the right way on the issue IMO (in my opinion). They voted to keep third grade class size reduction.

When I mentioned this to one HS parent, she stated that she thought classes for her high school students were more important, and that she didn't favor spending money on class size reduction because her kids didn't get it years ago, and they did OK. As a parent of an elementary school child, I thought the smaller classes of 20 were a great idea, and I was sad to see it go when my child entered fourth grade.

Indulge me for a minute here: Let me make one of those reductionist models based on human self-interest that economists are often accused of making. Let's just assume for the sake of argument that families only care about their own well being. Then I'll divide AUSD families into two groups-consumers and investors.

Consumers are families of high school students. They are short-timers. They are worried about getting their children into college, and they have no long-term interest in the school district. They want to cash out, get as many advanced courses for their children as possible and be done with it. These families tend to see teachers more as specialists-like plumbers or electricians. They want a competent practitioner to do a good job in a particular case, but they don't want to pay them any more than necessary.

Investors are families of elementary school students. They are at AUSD for the long haul. They don't care if the HS is great right now, but they want it to be great a decade from now. They tend to see their child's classroom and teacher as an extension of their family, and since typically their child has only one teacher, they develop a bond with that teacher. Investors are more concerned with maintaining a quality teaching staff, including maintaining morale and inflation-adjusted incomes for teachers.

Now like I said, this is a simplistic model, and there are counter-examples, like middle-school families, or families with children in both the high school and the elementary school, or high school parents who love the ATA and elementary school parents who don't.

That's not my point. My point is that I hear a lot of false dichotomies (program vs. salaries, ATA vs. kids) in discussions of AUSD. For me, the most pressing dichotomy that we need to work on is the following: Parents of high school students and parents of elementary school students have very different needs, and want different things from a school district.

One of the long-term tasks I'd like to accomplish is to get high school parents and elementary parents to sit down and talk about what they want from the school district, and how the district and board can balance their needs.

5. IF YOU HAD TO MAKE MAJOR PROGRAM CUTS AND REDUCE THE NUMBER OF TEACHERS, WOULD YOU GIVE THE REMAINING TEACHERS A RAISE IF THAT MEANT TURNING THE DISTRICT OVER TO THE STATE? WOULD YOU SAY NO TO RAISES TO RETAIN LOCAL CONTROL?

I think local control is the primary objective. Why would a board member ever risk that? Once local control is gone, the board has almost no power to control teacher salaries or any other spending.

9. A RECENT LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE JOURNAL CLAIMS THE PARENT GROUP WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR SOLVING THE IMPASSE IN THE CONTRACT. IS THAT TRUE?

As someone who felt the teachers deserved a raise comparable to raises given by surrounding districts, I think the support given to teachers by sympathetic parents was a big help. So yes, I think our group helped, but we didn't do it by ourselves.

29. QUESTION FOR SLATE CANDIDATES: THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF YOUR LISTED SUPPORTERS ARE TEACHERS WHO DO NOT LIVE IN ALBANY.

Nope. I think about half of our endorsers are teachers--the other half are Albany parents. I think the issue is where they teach, not where they live. If they are teaching in Albany schools, I listen to them. Likewise, if we get ADA (average daily attendance) money for a child, I am concerned about that child, regardless of where she lives, or whether or not her parents are U.S. citizens.

HOW WILL YOU RECONCILE YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO REPRESENT ALBANY CITIZENS WITH THE INTEREST OF EMPLOYEES?

I don't necessarily buy the premise-I'm not sure what it is I am supposed to reconcile. Please remember that the parent's committee is a group of parents and teachers who feel that working together to develop trust and understanding is in the best interest of AUSD. I think this is a very natural extension of the way in which a parent and a teacher work together in the best interest of a particular child. I don't assume that the interests of teachers and interests of parents and other Albany citizens are antagonistic (just as I don't assume that the interests of all parents are not antagonistic). I think parents and teachers have each have a set of interests, and I think those sets intersect quite a bit.

31. THE SCHOOL BOARD MANAGES THE COLLECTIVE BARGAINING PROCESS BETWEEN THE DISTRICT AND THE ATA. THE BOARD'S ROLE IS TO ASSURE THA THE EDUCATIONAL PRIORITIES OF THE COMMUNITY ARE REPRESENTED. TO FULFILL THIS ROLE, BOARD MEMBERS, MUST POSSESS A DEGREE OF INDEPENDENCE FROM EITHER PARTY IN THE NEGOTIAION PROCESS. DO THE CANDIDATES BELIEVE THEY POSSESS THE NECESSARY AUTONOMY AND INDEPENDENCE?

Yes I think the board needs to strike a balance between all the players-teachers, administrators, parents. I think mostly what the board need to do in a negotiation process is to listen to all sides and proactively seek areas where all parties can agree. Our role is not to be independent like a judge, but to be engaged and fair, like a mediator.

But let me digress, if I may. I think the subtext of these questions is based on some fear that if board members are too friendly with the teachers, the board will cave-in and grant huge pay raises to teachers that are detrimental to the school district as a whole. This won't happen if I'm on the board. It is also not what the teachers want. Nobody becomes a teacher because they want to make a lot of money. But teachers don't take a vow of poverty when they get certified. They have children and mortgages just like the rest of us, and they need to make a living. They are tired of having to fight and beg just to maintain their standard of living.

Let me give you an example of this: If you look at the inflation statistics for the Bay Area, you can calculate, as I did, that inflation has been running about 3.7% annually in the Bay area during the last 20 years. If you look at the third column of the AUSD teacher's salary schedule, you'll see that for each year of service, a teacher gets an average pay raise of 2.2% annually (a little faster at first, a little slower later). Now let's assume for the sake of argument that on average over their career, an AUSD teacher gets a COLA (cost of living allowance) of 1.5% annually. (That 1.5% just happens to be what UC employees will get next year.)

If you put all this together, what do you get? You get a nominal (not adjusted for inflation) annual pay raise of 2.2% plus 1.5%, or a nominal raise of 3.7%. But inflation is running at 3.7%. That means over the course of her career, this hypothetical AUSD teacher will never improve her standard of living. In inflation-adjusted dollars, this teacher will make the same amount the day she retires as the day she started her career over two decades earlier.

Now, if you were a parent with a child in college considering different careers, would you suggest to them a career during which they would never have an increase in their standard of living? Alternatively, how can we retain good teachers if we can't offer them real increases in their standard of living during their careers?

I think we do need at least to keep up with inflation with COLAs if not every year, then over a short time frame. Typically, salary increases lag for years (as the EdSource publication on teacher's salaries points out), and then suddenly catch-up when the economy and tax revenues are good. The settlement the AUSD teachers got gave them a 19.5% pay raise over three years. But in the years before that, they got much less--even though inflation kept on chugging along. According to EdSource, inflation adjusted salaries for California teachers are about back to where they were in the early 1990s.

Questions involving program vs. salaries:

4. HOW WOULD YOU RESTORE LOST PROGRAM TO ADDRESS THE NEEDS OF ALL OUR STUDENTS?

8. MORE THAN 20 9TH GRADERS DID NOT GET ANY LANGUAGE CLASS THIS FALL. MANY HIGH-SCHOOLERS HAVE AT LEAST ONE "EMPTY" PERIOD, WITH NO CLASSES. GIVEN THE BUDGET RESTRICTIONS, WHAT CAN WE DO NOW AND IN THE COMING YEAR TO INCREASE PROGRAMS IN OUR SCHOOLS?

17. THE CURRENT FINANCIAL SITUATION IN CALIFORNIA INDICATES THAT STATE FUNDING FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS WILL VERY LIKELY NOT INCREASE. HOW DO YOU PROPOSE BALANCING INCREASED PERSONNEL COSTS WITH MAINTAINING PROGRAMS? GIVE EXAMPLES?

22. HOW WILL YOU BALANCE PROGRAM RESTORATION AND SALARY INCREASES?

23. IS IT TRUE THAT SALARY AND BENEFITS NOW TAKES UP MORE THAN 85% OF OUR BUDGET? HOW DO WE PROTECT OUR KIDS' EDUCATION WHILE PAYING OUR TEACHERS FAIRLY?

34. WITH LIMITED DISTRICT BUDGETS, A RESULT OF THE TEACHER SALARY SETTLEMENT WAS MAJOR PROGRAM REDUCTIONS AT THE HIGH SCHOOL. ALBANY HIGH DOES GET GOOD STUDENT TEST SCORES... BUT ARE MUCH LOWER THAN AT THE ELEMENTARY LEVEL. SO... WHAT ARE YOU ALL GOING TO DO TO STRENGTHEN AND RESTORE PROGRAMS AT THE HIGH SCHOOL?

6. 85% OF THE DISTRICT BUDGET IS USED FOR COMPENSATION. HOW CAN YOU RAISE SALARIES WHEN THE BUDGET IS ALREADY SO HEAVILY SLANTED TO SALARIES?

15. LAST FALL, THE BOARD RATIFIED A BARGAINING AGREEMENT THAT PROVIDED AN OVERALL 19.5% SALARY INCREASE FOR THE TEACHERS. WITHIN THREE MONTHS, THE DISTRICT ANNOUNCED THAT IT NEEDED TO CUT UP TO $1.5 MILLION FROM ITS BUDGET. THIS NECESSITATED CUTS IN PROGRAMMING. HOW CAN ALBANY CONTINUE TO PAY ITS VERY HIGH TEACHER SALARY COSTS AND YET MAINTAIN A QUALITY EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM?

First some general comments. The state of California is facing its worst budget crisis since the early 1990s. The governor is waiting until after the election to make $750 million in unallocated cuts. Estimates now say that without a tax increase, a further $8 billion will be cut out of the governor's proposed budget, due in early January. Most likely, K-12 will be protected from further cuts. We may get less, but we will probably not get any more money for fiscal year 2003-2004.

So the first thing I need to tell you is that we won't be getting much new money from the state. To find money to fund new classes for AUSD students, we need to do three things:

1) Increase revenue

2) Eliminate inefficiencies

3) Carefully weigh trade-off between different spending options.

Let's look at these three possibilities.

1) Let's assume we won't get more state money than last year. How about parcel tax revenue? Might get a little more there. As houses turnover and are reassessed at new market value, local property tax revenues should increase. But this might not amount to much.

How about School Care and other fund raising? Last year School Care, music boosters, PTA, Albany Foundation, etc. raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. It was impressive, but keep in mind it amounted to about two to three percent of the AUSD general fund. Let's assume that our fundraisers can do as well this coming year. If so then we will have about as much money to spend as last year. Not good news, but it could be worse.

2) Eliminating inefficiencies. There is good news here. We have been able to lower some wage and salary costs by using what the FCMAT report calls better "position control". Basically, that means making sure you don't hire people (fill positions) unless you really need them and have revenue to pay them. Our new Superindentent Dr. Wong has saved perhaps as much as $200K by reorganizing custodial and maintenance staff. We also saved some money earlier in the year by making sure our classes at the elementary schools were full, reducing the need for some teachers.

Will we be able to find more inefficiencies to eliminate? Hard to say. We know staff will be looking for savings. As many of the questions pointed-out, our costs are so dominated by salaries and benefits that it's hard to imagine squeezing much out of non-salary items. But you never know. Sweaters and lower thermostats at school anyone?

3) So far, this coming year is looking a lot like last year. The final step is to make sure we spend our limited resources on what is really important. As a board member, it would not my job to say what I think is important, but to try to aggregate community preferences and allocate money accordingly. If elected, I'd like the school district to host some budget focus groups to better identify the values and priorities of parents.

One last piece of good news. We should get what is loosely called a COLA from the state to cover cost increases. I think (as you would suspect) that teachers should get a fair share of the COLA. If you are the parent of a senior who needs honors courses to increase the her probability of getting into UC Berkeley or UCLA, then you might prefer to use the COLA to fund more honors courses instead. If your are an elementary school parent worried about maintaining the morale of the teaching staff, you might favor using the COLA for helping maintain living standards for teachers.

So I think if someone was looking for good news, you didn't hear it from me. Please don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger. I think it is the duty of the board to give parents both the good and the bad news. If I'm elected, I won't hesitate to be truthful.

BTW (by the way) School Services reports that our salary costs are out of line with our comparable districts. They spend on average 79% of general fund budget on budget on teacher salaries and benefits, while AUSD spends 81% This jumps up (as I recall from a recent board meeting) to 84% for other districts and 86% for AUSD if we include non-teacher salaries and benefits.

Now 81% doesn't seem like that much more than 79%, but if flip it around and look at what's left over, the difference is bigger-21% as opposed to 19%. These costs are driven by AUSD's relatively high teacher seniority. This will not change in the short run.