hard deadlines

Alert reader davidc (THANKS!) pointed out that RIDE has posted backup documents to a new education funding formula page here, and I'm happy to report that we now have enough information to calculate the state share (I've updated the GoogleDocs spreadsheet with this info, and will be using references to that worksheet as I go through the explanation below.

But first, a couple of comments. Although I had sent an e-mail to Deputy Commissioner David Abbott (cc'ing Commissioner GIst) asking for the information, they did not have the courtesy of replying to let me know this had been posted. And while I don't know when the page went live, forensic examination of the supporting data PDF shows that it was created Thursday morning. (Line 1513 for those geeks playing along at home: /CreationDate(D:20100304155512Z)/Author(Beardsley, Andrew)/Creator(MicrosoftÆ Office Word 2007)/Producer(MicrosoftÆ Office Word 2007)/ModDate(D:20100304113952-05'00')

Second, I can't help but point out the glaring error in their document. On page 2, the total adjusted assessed value state-wide is this:

But on the following page, this is the number given:

Now I know that a single digit off on a hundred-billion-dollar number is insignificant. But if my son handed that in to his math teacher, Mrs. Warner, she'd circle it, and with good reason. If you want people to trust your math, getting the little things right — like having the same number on two successive pages — is kind of important. I mean, really. What would Arne Duncan say.

Third, and this is a subtle methodological point, but I question the amount of rounding that occurs in the RIDE calculations. Because both the percentage of students on Free and Reduced-Price Lunch (FRPL) and the Student Share Ratio for the Community (SSRC) get squared in the formula, small changes get magnified. They also appear to have rounded the final State Share number. I've included columns in the spreadsheet indicating the differences between calculated values and RIDE's rounding. It's mostly in the tenths-of-a-percent, but when we're talking about allocating taxpayer dollars, it doesn't cost RIDE any extra to use a couple of decimal places.

At a high level, the formula is fairly straightforward. RIDE's consultant at Brown developed a "core instructional amount" based on an average of four New England states (RI, MA, CT, and NH). This value, $8,295, includes instructional costs designated by the Basic Education Program (BEP). It does NOT, however, represent the cost of actually educating students, since RIDE acknowledges that it does not include teacher retirement, group home aid, food service, transportation, safety, building upkeep, utilities, maintenance, debt service, capital projects, out of district tuition and transportation, and non-public textbooks.

In other words, this number represents only some theoretical ideal, not the actual cost of opening the doors of a school building. Let's just be very clear on that.

Now, let's see how much of this number RIDE considers the state should be providing. To get there, we need to multiply $8,295 by the number of students in the district, which is referred to as the Resident Average Daily Membership (RADM). To that number, we need to add an adjustment for the number of students in the district who are receiving Free or Reduced-Price Lunch (FRPL) which RIDE is using as a proxy for the percentage of the population who are economically challenged. RIDE assumes that these students will need extra help, so they add a factor of 40% of the core $8295 for each FRPL student.

So the total amount the district "should" be spending is RADM * 8,295 + (FRPL * (8,295 *.4))

If we put in the numbers for Portsmouth, with a RADM of 2,657, we get a result of $22,879,269. The obvious question — how to reconcile this with our current school budget of $35,746,286 — does not seem to enter into RIDE's calculations. They are not talking about the cost of putting the teacher in front of a room that has heat, light, and buses to get the kid there. But wait, it gets better.

The heart of the state funding formula is a quadratic mean, which weights the community's ability to pay (the State Share Ratio for the Community, or SSRC) and the percentage of students on FRPL.

To get the value to plug into SSRC, we need to do some further math with a number called the Equalized Weighted Assessed Valuation, or EWAV, divided by the number of students in the district.

So for Portsmouth, SSRC = 1-(0.5 * ($4,549,808,726/2,657)/(141,599,970,284/139,934) or 15.39% (That's cell S40 in the spreadsheet, RIDE rounds this.) Now, we plug that into the quadratic mean. Since Portsmouth has 1,270 K-6 students of which 122 receive FRPL, our percentage is 9.61 (another one of the things that RIDE rounds).

Therefore, state share equals the square root of (15.39^2 + 9.61^2 / 2) or 12.98% (cell U40).

Now, we can use that percentage, with the "core" cost and we'll find that the state would contribute $2,968,986. I won't make you do the math: that means local taxpayers need to pony up $32,777,300.

So you take a hypothetical number (which acknowledges that it does not represent the full cost of educating a child) and then jump through a series of mathematical hoops, rounding here and there, and come up with a percentage that bears no relationship with the actual per-pupil costs in a district. I hope that RIDE can forgive me if I seem unconvinced of the "fairness" of this.

Note: A reader suggested calculating the percentage of the total cost the state would be picking up: 9.06%.

PSD IT Director Rose Muller (r) presents to finance subcommittee

The Portsmouth School Committee is developing its budget for 2011, and at the finance subcommittee meeting this week, members heard an encouraging report from the IT department: a request that features no increase in budget while allocating more spending for technology to support instruction. How did they do it?

According to the presentation by IT Director Rose Muller, (available on the PSD web site) through smarter software choices and staff training.

The proposed budget shaves more than $6K off licensing fees in the operational budget. "We're making use of open source," said Muller. For those not familiar, "open source" is software made freely available and supported by a community of developers. The name refers to the raw code for the application (what programmers call the "source") being freely available and modifiable.

In addition, the budget reduces the allocation for purchased services — outside IT consulting — by $20K. Muller said this was accomplished through targeted professional development for the IT staff which allowed them to handle a wider range of support without calling on outside help.

That's $26K that can go to things like projectors, interactive whiteboards, document cameras, and communications. "As teachers work to differentiate instruction, they need more technology in the classroom," said Muller in an e-mail.

Muller also reviewed the IT department's operations for the finance subcommittee. The four-person staff (Muller, a network administrator, a systems administrator, and a computer support specialist, assisted by two college interns) deal with an average of 320 tech requests a month, and support a network of 1,100 workstations and 75 printers, used by 3,800 students, faculty, and staff. The total yearly outlay, fully loaded (including benefits) is $295K.

Even counting the part-time interns, that's a workstation support ratio of around 250:1, which would be considered very lean in private-sector IT. Kudos to Muller and the team — not only are they a providing efficient, cost-effective services, they have shown a commitment to continuous improvement that will pay off for our kids. Job well done.

There were not a lot of citizens at the finance meeting — it was just this reporter and Town Councilor Keith Hamilton. If you want to hear the nitty-gritty on the school budget, these meetings are a great opportunity. I'll try to cover as many as I can.

Future Finance Subcommittee meetings (5-7pm unless noted)
Mon, Feb. 22 – Elementary Schools (Town Hall – Planning Board Room) 5-6PM
Wed, Feb. 24 – Middle School/High School/Strategic Plan/BEP (PHS Library)
Wed, March 3 – Teaching-Learning/Student Support/Other Budget Lines (PHS Library)
Wed, March 10 – Salary/Benefits  (PHS Library)
Tue, March 16 – Full Budget/Projections (Town Hall)
Mon, March 22 – If needed  (PHS Library)

Full disclosure: I am a volunteer member of the district technology committee, and I yammer incessantly about open source.

NEA President Cynthia Perry talks with School Committee Chair Dick Carpender

In a brief session with only 13 community members in attendance, the Portsmouth School Commmittee approved a new one-year contract with teachers represented by the National Education Association (NEA). The 4 votes to approve came from a coalition of Democrats (Dick Carpender, Sylvia Wedge, and Marge Levesque) joined by Republican Mike Buddemeyer. Democrat Marilyn King and unaffiliated Cynthia Perrotti cast votes against, with Democrat Angela Volpicelli abstaining.

(I can understand someone voting against the contract on principle. But why on earth would anyone abstain?)

The contract offered no Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) increases for any of the teachers at step 1 through 9 (step increases only), with teachers on step 10 receiving a nominal $500 increase (which largely offsets the increase in health care co-pay from 10% to 13%.) Long-term sub pay was reduced, and several administrative changes clarified and added greater flexibility in the areas of house leaders, scheduling professional development, and how long a laid-off teacher stays on the recall list (down from 7 to 5 years.) My personal favorite is the "go-green" clause, Article X Section J which says that any required communication can be done through electronic notice.

"Our goal was to get a zero-cost-to-the-school-committee, and we ended up with a cost of $65K," said negotiating team member Sylvia Wedge,"Which is very low." (Indeed, on a budget of around $25M for salary and benefits, that's a remarkably small number, to my mind.)

There were a few specific questions from the bean counter on the Committee, and PCC, Inc. President Larry Fitzmorris asked a couple of fairly restrained, information-seeking questions, but overall, comment was civil and brief.

"I want to thank the union," said Committee Chair Dick Carpender. "This is the second year in a row that the union has agreed, for steps 1-9 at least to accept no COLA. That is a significant amount of money." Carpender praised the members of the NEA negotiating team, "These significant concessions that show that the union here is willing to work with us to get things done."

Negotiating team member Marge Levesque said, "I'd like to thank union president for her cooperation and profesional attitude and helping come up with an agreement that really benefitted the kids."

"These 6-7-month-long negotiations were always very cordial and with a lot of respect," said Carpender. "Sometimes it was fun, sometimes not so fun. I thought that no matter what happened in there, everyone treated each other with respect."

On behalf of the kids and parents who weren't able to be there tonight, I want to add a note of thanks to the negotiating teams, the committee, Dr. Lusi, and the NEA rank and file who ratified the contract. It is a huge relief to live in a town where things get worked out; we only have to look around the state to see some real (ongoing) horror stories. I'd say we're lucky, except that it is clearly not luck but the product of a lot of hard work, for which we say "job well done."

New RI Dept. of Education (RIDE) Commissioner Deborah Gist has drawn a line in the sand for school committees that fail to execute RI education laws, according to an article in today's Providence Journal. In a situation involving the Woonsocket school district, Gist reportedly threatened both committee members and the superintendent with sanctions for failing to meet staffing requirements.

The significance of this for Portsmouth should be obvious, given the extended back-and-forth at last week's school committee meeting around teacher tenure, also a state-controlled process. There can be legitimate differences of opinion about the specifics of the case which occasioned the discussion — the non-renewal and subsequent re-hiring, with tenure, of a popular high school teacher — but there were some who questioned whether the school committee and their attorney were overstating arguments about the "sanctity" of tenure and the possibility of repercussions for hiring uncertified teachers.

Seems that the new commissioner takes state law pretty seriously, and I'm glad that the committee was able to find a way to both execute their legal responsibilities and, at the end of the day, return a respected teacher to the classroom.

But you can't please everybody. And one of the voices complaining about how the process was handled was new school committee member Cynthia Perrotti. She questioned how there could be confusion about tenure and argued that a request for RIDE to clarify their policy on emergency certification and tenure should have been discussed at a late-June meeting. "We have failed in that regard," said Perrotti, "We purposely did not describe this pending advisory."

"But it wasn't on the posted agenda," said Supt. Susan Lusi.

Perrotti responded, "I would like to remind the school committee members of law 42-46-6 which says that when something is not on the agenda that the school committee can add items to the agenda during the meeting by majority vote of the members. So because something is specifically not on the agenda for that night, ladies and gentlemen, I would like you to think about adding it."

(If you want to go play cellblock lawyer before reading the rest of the post, here's a link to RIGL 42-46-6.)

School Committee Chair Dick Carpender differed with Perrotti's reading, saying that this was not his understanding, and Supt. Lusi asked for the clarification on the law being referred to. Perrotti reiterated the statute number, which Lusi then read out loud:

"Nothing contained herein shall prevent a public body, other than a school committee, from adding additional items to the agenda by majority vote of the members. School committees may, however, add items for informational purposes only, pursuant to a request, submitted in writing, by a member of the public during the public comment session of the school committee's meetings," said Lusi. "So I'm not clear how this section squares with what you said we could do without violating the open meetings law."

Perrotti responded by reading the statute again. "It says that nothing in here can prevent a public body, other than a school committee, from adding items to the agenda by majority vote."

"Other than a school committee," said Lusi.

"Other than," added Carpender.

"Ohhhh," said Perrotti.

Ms. Perrotti has described herself at committee meetings as someone interested in numbers, and she has demonstrated that interest by drilling down into the financial reports and asking questions, which is certainly to be applauded. But we don't just elect the school committee to bird-dog the budget; they are responsible for making our town's education policy and seeing that our schools are run in accordance with state law. And they do it with words.

With a new sheriff at RIDE saying that school committees are going to be held accountable for what those words say, well, we'd probably be best served by reading them.

All of them.

Full Disclosure: I deliberately waited to post about this until I could watch the meeting again on Channel 18. If you question my transcript, I'll happily upload the video.

While the budget on Governor Carcieri's desk may or may not be the final word, Portsmouth's school department is still working to calculate the bottom line impact, according to School Committee Chair Dick Carpender.

"As of noon when I talked with [Finance Director] Chris Tague we still did not have any info from the Rhode Island Department of Education or the Association of School Committees," Carpender said when contacted by e-mail this afternoon.

Last week's meeting of the committee — during which decisions about calling back additional teachers were deferred — will continue tomorrow evening shortly after 5pm at Town Hall (following an executive session).

Town Clerk Kathy Viera-Beaudoin reads the offical tax ordinance as the Council looks on.

After months of wrangling, it all came down to a deceptively short — 70 minute — meeting during which Portsmouth Town Council and School Committee fielded a few questions, heard a couple of rants, and made some law.

There were only about 40 citizens in attendance, and Council President Peter McIntyre tried to run a tight ship at the podium, keeping speakers on task and moving the agenda along.

The usual process is to read through each item in the budget and ask if the public wishes to speak. The school budget is item one, and there were a few folks there to defend arts education. Clearly, there are concerns floating around out there about the possible impact of not recalling the folks still out on non-renewal. These were short, impassioned pleas for maintaining important programs for our students. But there weren't a lot of picky questions, and the agenda moved on.

As soon as we got to the Town side, Larry Fitzmorris from the PCC got up to repeat many of the same critiques he's been voicing at sessions all spring: unfunded retirement benefits, insufficient fund balance, unidentified cuts to close gaps in both the school and town budgets. "I recognize that you find yourself in a difficult year. But every year can be difficult if you can't find the courage to deal with these problems," said Fitzmorris. "This thing will eat us alive."

Mark Katzman rose to object that he thought the Council was doing a good job, and that "there's only so much we can predict." Then, he wandered off into a critique of Tailgunner Gleason's claim that she could find ten places to save money in the school budget. Now you know me. There ain't nobody in this town who thinks I'm too soft on Gleason, but this was just not the right time or place.

But while I might have thought Mark Katzman was a bit over the top, the main attraction this evening was Joe Lorenz, who launched into a diatribe about America. "Our country is in serious decline, in my opinion," said Lorenz, who admitted he had only lived in town "three or four years." Then he focused his ire at the Council. "The state has opted for short-term solutions, and I have a concern that may be creeping into the mentality of those who sit in front of me." Since unemployment in RI was 9.3 percent, he wondered, had 9.3 percent of the Town staff been cut? Of the school staff?

Superintendent Susan Lusi responded quite reasonably that since there was only an enrollment decline of 27 students across all grade levels that staffing had to be essentially flat.

"I'm standing here as a taxpayer," said Lorenz. "What if both sides had to eliminate 9.3% of staff. People are being laid off." He recited numbers about GDP and 401K and "big time hits" to the value of people's houses. "If you are aware of all these things, it becomes difficult to see why you would heap upon us another 4%. [...] Mr. President, where are the people in Portsmouth going to get the money to pay the taxes that you are forcing them to have to pay?"

"You sent me these ideas, I'd like to take action on some of those." McIntyre tried to talk him down, but Lorenz was having none of it, asking why McIntyre wanted to shut him up.

"Am I harmful to you? What is it that's causing you problems. I pay my taxes. I'm grousing for a lot of other people. A lot of poor people, A lot of young people. Were all of you aware of all the things I've just related?" (Nobody answered) "Yet you feel fit to raise taxes on the people of Portsmouth?"

Apparently, they did.

With a couple of minor text changes, the ordinance was officially read by the Town Clerk, Kathy Viera-Beaudoin, and then Huck Little made the motion, and it passed 6-0 with 1 abstention.

Yes, that's right.

Tailgunner Gleason abstained. And here's what she said: "I feel personally that more information is needed due to the negotiation with unions still going on. I feel that existing contracts should be honored as is. We find ourselves today in a real struggle, and because we don't have all the answers tonight, I'm going to abstain. I wish that we didn't take that vote, and maybe come back tomorrow night." She did say that she does respect her fellow Councilors for their votes and "hope they respect my abstention."

Then Council President McIntyre thanked the citizens who came, the people on the Council and School Committee who had worked so hard on the budget process, and the department heads who put it all together. And the budget for this year was done at 8:11pm.

I'm too exhausted to even comprehend some of these positions, much less comment. Maybe some other day I can get my head around why it makes sense to cut 9.3% of your staff to match the ambient rate. I just can't see why anyone would pick that needle to chase. And as to abstaining on a budget vote? WTF do we elect people to the Council for if not to display their best judgement under conditions of imperfect information.

Update: Minor typo correx throughout.

Portsmouth Town Councilor Keith Hamilton took issue with a story in today's Newport Daily News, which said he planned to ask the Council to reconsider taking $217K from the schools. In an interview this afternoon, Hamilton said that the item he placed on the agenda for tomorrow's meeting refers to any surplus from the current 2008-2009 school year.

The $217K figure — which the Council considered reducing the school appropriation by, but rejected — is the amount of the surplus from 2007-08, said Hamilton. He said he did not know how much, if any, surplus there would be this year.

The text of the agenda item, available on the Secretary of State web site clearly states that the action refers to the current year: "1. Request Discussion and Action on Request to return any School Dept. Surplus from FY 08-09 Operating Budget to the Town’s General Reserve Fund."

At the School Committee meeting on June 9, where Finance Director Chris Tague reviewed the financial reports through the month of April, the current year's budget was described as "getting tighter and tighter." While there were some positive variances in impact aid, said Tague, there were offsetting shortfalls in utilities and other areas. "It will be a moving target right up till June 30th," Tague said.

If you're concerned about the school budget, probably wouldn't hurt to show up tomorrow night, but this does not appear to be the cut previously discussed.