Trends in School Budget, Personal Incomes, CPI, etc.
Andrew Crapo
In an attempt to better understand where we are as a district,
I've looked at some of the history of Scotia-Glenville school budgets and tried
to place them in a context.The two primary sources of income for the school district are property taxes and state aid. Except possibly for commercial properties (about 6% of the parcels in the district), property values do not generally reflect the community's ability to pay taxes. The adjusted gross income (AGI) of district residents seems a reasonable measure of the community's available funds. I obtained total AGI and number of state tax returns for 1989 through 2008 from the NYS Department of Taxation. Unfortunately, 2008 is the most recent data currently available. This and other data is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Financial Trends in Scotia-Glenville CSD, 1989 - 2011
Note that 1) I do not have enrolment data before the 1996-1997 school year, and 2) all data is normalized to 1989 to make it easier to compare except enrolment, which is normalized to 1996.
Several things stand out to me. One is that total expenditure (budget) has fairly consistently increased at about twice the rate of inflation (CPI). Another is that spending has increased faster than state aid. And, of course, state aid has dropped rather precipitously in the past couple of years.
The number of tax returns in the district has remained fairly constant, dropping from 8,805 in 1989 to a low of 8,332 in 1997 and rising to 9,234 in 2008. One interesting perspective is obtained by adjusting the dollar values for inflation.
Figure 2 shows that in constant dollars the average adjusted gross income (total AGI divided by number of returns) has decreased slightly. It will be interesting to see what has happened as the economic downturn has continued in 2009 and 2010. At the same time, district spending in constant dollars increased by 50% until the decrease of the current school year.
A final graph shows the school budget as a percentage of the districts total AGI--how much of the community's income is being spent on public education.
Figure 3: District Budget Divided by Total AGI as Percentage
Interpretation of these graphs should take into account that a significant fraction of the district budget (about 33% in 2011-2012) comes from state aid. One could always wish that we get more back from Albany than we send there. Perhaps when Wall Street was doing well that might have been true, although even then the state workforce to collect and distribute the aid was not to be forgotten. It seems less likely going forward that Wall Street bonuses will fund our schools.
Edward Rosenberg
of pay and benefits of the total budget. What also might surprise most
people would be the very high percentage of older, retired persons
that are living on fixed incomes. So although yuhaev heard it before
there are people who aer being forced to sell their home because they
just cant pay the taxes anymore.
On Nov 11, 10:10 am, Andrew Crapo <awcr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> In an attempt to better understand where we are as a district, I've looked
> at some of the history of Scotia-Glenville school budgets and tried to
> place them in a context.The two primary sources of income for the school
> district are property taxes and state aid. Except possibly for commercial
> properties (about 6% of the parcels in the district), property values do
> not generally reflect the community's ability to pay taxes. The adjusted
> gross income (AGI) of district residents seems a reasonable measure of the
> community's available funds. I obtained total AGI and number of state tax
> returns for 1989 through 2008 from the NYS Department of Taxation.
> Unfortunately, 2008 is the most recent data currently available. This and
> other data is shown in Figure 1.
>
> Figure 1: Financial Trends in Scotia-Glenville CSD, 1989 - 2011
>
> Note that 1) I do not have enrolment data before the 1996-1997 school year,
> and 2) all data is normalized to 1989 to make it easier to compare except
> enrolment, which is normalized to 1996.
>
> Several things stand out to me. One is that total expenditure (budget) has
> fairly consistently increased at about twice the rate of inflation (CPI).
> Another is that spending has increased faster than state aid. And, of
> course, state aid has dropped rather precipitously in the past couple of
> years.
>
> The number of tax returns in the district has remained fairly constant,
> dropping from 8,805 in 1989 to a low of 8,332 in 1997 and rising to 9,234
> in 2008. One interesting perspective is obtained by adjusting the dollar
> values for inflation.
>
> Normalized to 1989
>
> Figure 2 shows that in constant dollars the average adjusted gross income
> (total AGI divided by number of returns) has decreased slightly. It will be
> interesting to see what has happened as the economic downturn has continued
> in 2009 and 2010. At the same time, district spending in constant dollars
> increased by 50% until the decrease of the current school year.
>
> A final graph shows the school budget as a percentage of the districts
> total AGI--how much of the community's income is being spent on public
> education.
>
Andrew Crapo
Jerry
believe the STAR portion of the data show up in property taxes, not
state aid. In effect, STAR is state aid packaged as taxpayer relief.
To the extent that STAR has reduced local payments, the burden of
paying school taxes is not as great as an analysis without the data
would show.
Second, the jump in "Figure 3: District Budget Divided by Total AGI as
Percentage" from around 8.5% from 1994 to 1999 to over 10% in 2003 had
one cause -- the wasteful transition from a Junior High School to a
Middle School. The small dip in 1999 -- that was a contingency budget.
Also relevant to the ability to pay school taxes is the percentage of
retired families. I suspect that this percentage has dropped since
2000, meaning that the average age of the population has dropped. So,
there are probably more working families in the community now than 10
years ago, but I can't prove that. Even if true, it's no consolation
to the retired families who are here and paying the taxes.
The primary causes of expenditure increases are not difficult to
understand. They are the transition to the middle school, employee
benefits and employee salary increases. The school board had or has a
substantial say about each of these, which is to say that it was
primarily the choice of the school board to raise education costs. It
wasn't mandates, or changes in state aid, Wicks Law, state testing,
special education or any of the usual poxes condemned by NYSUT, the
school boards association or the superintendents association. It's
not even unions or tenure. Each of these are factors, just not the
biggest ones.
There's no debate that pension contributions are the cost-drivers du
jour, but historically speaking, its a blip. It absolutely needs
fixing, but fixing it will not substantially slow the growth in
education costs.
To take the issue to the next level and leave pragmatism behind, for a
moment, the greatest contributing factor to the rise of education
costs is the relentless clinging to the one-size-fits-all, lock-step,
subject-based, teacher-centered classroom instruction model. It's
hugely expensive compared to the quality and efficiency improvements
that can be made using technology. To blame the middle school,
salaries and benefits for driving higher costs is only accurate within
a realm that accepts, as given, the current model of instruction.
Once classroom instruction is seen as a choice--not a necessity--it
will be readily identified as the biggest driver of costs.
My position on all this is simple. Public schools have more than
enough money to do their jobs and to produce even better outcomes. NY
voters now have the power to freeze school tax levies by voting down
budgets. That's exactly what should happen. When the budget vote
comes up in May, I intend to compare the 2008 salaries of a few S-G
employees to their current salaries and ask the voters if they think
the school board has gotten the message. Do they want to pay higher
taxes for higher salaries or have they had enough?
Jerry
66.8% of its budget on for salaries and benefits. In 2009-10 it was
75.4%. In the 2011-12 budget it is 78.44%. Some would look at these
numbers and praise the district for devoting more resources to the
classroom. But the reality is that other things are being eliminated
or reduced, leaving more money for employees. In 2000-01, the school
board had more money for things like equipment, supplies, field trips,
books, technology, travel, teacher development, bus purchases, special
education, gifted education, etc. So, a smaller percentage of the
budget went to salaries and benefits. But as these costs have risen,
other things had to be dropped. Hence, the percentage of the
district's budget spent on employee salaries and benefits has risen.
Andrew Crapo
Unfortunately the downward trend in real Adjusted Gross Income (AGI adjusted for inflation) has continued, presumably reflecting the impact of the economic downturn on our community.