When I wrote last week’s emails, I was fired up. I had come to the last few days of advocacy for the LCPS budget. I had discovered that many PTA leaders were not aware of the Supervisors budget proposals.
Many of you passed my emails along to your membership, which I had hoped you would do and appreciate. Many PTA members were grateful and responded by advocating to the Board of Supervisors. Others were upset about the PTA email lists being used for political purposes. Upon receiving responses from their reps on the Board of Supervisors, many parents became unsure about just who is responsible for the salaries of school employees.
I am concerned that in the desire to raise awareness and do all I could for our schools, I may have overstepped and done more to blur the situation than to clarify it. I am also concerned that I continued the “sky is falling” rhetoric of past budget years. I took the weekend to refocus and find perspective on the situation, and concluded that I need to add more light and less heat today.
- The Board of Supervisors allocates funds; the School Board determines how they are spent. Therefore, within limitations it is the School Board who determines teacher salaries. The School Board may be able to offer staff a modest raise this year by cutting back on programs and staff levels. Doing this will require substantial cuts, and I don’t think it can be done without impacting the quality of our schools, but it is possible.
- There are two kinds of salary increases for LCPS employees. One is a cost of living adjustment (COLA), the other is called a “step increase” and is essentially a raise for gaining another year of experience. The $10M I have been advocating for the past few days is for a “step increase” without a COLA.
- The Board of Supervisors has fallen short of allocating funds equivalent to stable per-student funding plus a step increase for LCPS employees, a standard I had hoped they would meet.
- PTA parents are not uniform in their feelings about school funding, class sizes, teacher salaries or tax rates. They are as politically diverse as our entire community.
- My job as a School Board member is to ensure that Loudoun County has an effective and efficient school system and to advocate for what is best for that system.
John, I'm reminded of the now tired phrase: trying to put the toothpaste back into the tube.
ReplyDeleteYou've spent a lot of energy on the "heat" side of this equation and now you want to step back and claim you are now for "light"?
Sigh.
I used to put you in the category of smart, fair-minded politician that was genuinely interested in looking for new approaches, but my thinking has evolved as I've seen this most recent episode of the annual school budget unfold and your role in it.
In my view, you have shown a reflex to position this argument in the same old ways, pushing the same old buttons. Zero-sum thinking.
I'm not angry. Just disappointed.
I am also now deeply skeptical of either your willingness or your ability to push the administration to think differently about its bureaucracy, methodology, and its relationship to taxpayers.
There is a win-win here. It's hard to find and takes challenging old thinking and entrenched interests.
And it takes some courage. What do you say? Are you up for it next year? Or will we be back here yet again, making the same arguments, pushing the same buttons, creating the same heat and so little light?
Edmund, it is because I think of us as being friendly compatriots that I can say this: your criticism here is unwarranted and I do not accept it.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I have spent five MONTHS shedding light on the LCPS budget. I spent five DAYS bringing heat.
Second, past School Boards have held out for 100% of their budget requests until the bitter end. I am pulling for a $38M cut to that request. You are the one reflexively reacting with the rhetoric of years past. Spare me.
Mr. Stevens, This budget is indeed a 38 m. cut to a request that was bloated and unfair to the taxpayers, but it has not gone far enough. Self congratulation because there was a cut to a hysterical budget is only self serving. This type of rhetoric, along with the deliberate deception over the (COLA vs. step)salarie increase that is going to happen in the current budget, is just plain politics. While I admire your "second glance" at the complaints on this site, your conclusion on the budget is still the same.
ReplyDeleteI am glad you paused on the use of the PTA's - it is social arm twisting and plain irritating to get emails outlining how woefully underfunded our schools.
Crocodile tears aside, the PTA is getting a reputation as the Teacher-School Board Association, with parents being asked to succumb to the will of the intellectual elite on the school board and PTA heirarchy. It is no wonder the same 10 people attend my Elementary PTA meetings every month, the rest of us have been made to feel unwelcome.
You are correct - there are varied views on the budget. Please keep this in mind as you go forward.
If I am using the rhetoric of years past, then I will apologize for it. I'll review my comments here and elsewhere, but I make a strong effort, every time I post, to avoid doing that of which you accuse me, and offer a hand for an alternative way.
ReplyDeleteMy hope was always to encourage broader thinking that will in the end help both taxpayers and children -- and in the end -- our society.
As you may know, five months of light can be lost with ONE DAY of heat -- let alone five -- plus the wildfire effects of leveraging civic groups.
If you are using past school boards as a measure, I would hope you would reconsider. That is part of the problem, not the solution. Think bigger.
You say my criticism is unwarranted. Do you like where we are? Is this the process that is going to get us where we need to be? This is what you want?
I would not be posting here if I didn't think you give a darn, but you have to give a darn about everyone -- even those with whom you disagree.
I will not spare you, because I know what is possible and so do you.
When I see people take a step back especially after some heated rhetoric to raise the school funding. Something most of happened over the weekend far more then just reflection.
ReplyDeleteThat aside Mr Stevens I would be starting right now on how you are going to deal with next years budget and find innovative ways to cut and back and find other sources of money to fund our school system. This year is just the beginning because we are going to go through several more years of homes values going down until they level off. First class companies do not want to move here anymore for the foreseeable future so the commercial tax base is not going to help anytime soon.
You all in the school system need a reality check and live on the budget given to you. You do not have the glory days of past. I have been through six recessions whether in California and Texas or here in the building business and they are not fun. We all need to adjust. Personally I believe the worst may yet to come. We don't have money for roads so how do you get businesses to move here on this horrible and overloaded road grid. The school system is not the only funding problem out here. No one has worked together in a coherent way in the past to build roads and buildings and homes all in sync like has been done in other parts of the country. We have built a hod podge of a county not a well planned one even with zoning.
So get to work on next years budget because it is going to be worse and 70% of the people in this county are all ready screaming about this new tax hike.
When I see people take a step back especially after some heated rhetoric to raise the school funding. Something most of happened over the weekend far more then just reflection.
ReplyDeleteThat aside Mr Stevens I would be starting right now on how you are going to deal with next years budget and find innovative ways to cut and back and find other sources of money to fund our school system. This year is just the beginning because we are going to go through several more years of homes values going down until they level off. First class companies do not want to move here anymore for the foreseeable future so the commercial tax base is not going to help anytime soon.
You all in the school system need a reality check and live on the budget given to you. You do not have the glory days of past. I have been through six recessions whether in California and Texas or here in the building business and they are not fun. We all need to adjust. Personally I believe the worst may yet to come. We don't have money for roads so how do you get businesses to move here on this horrible and overloaded road grid. The school system is not the only funding problem out here. No one has worked together in a coherent way in the past to build roads and buildings and homes all in sync like has been done in other parts of the country. We have built a hod podge of a county not a well planned one even with zoning.
So get to work on next years budget because it is going to be worse and 70% of the people in this county are all ready screaming about this new tax hike.
I will add you should of been fixing the budget perhaps instead of shedding light on the budget for five months. Try that next year.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Lee J., this is the beginning of several years of budget funding in a substantial economic downturn. Mr. Stevens can lead and shape the discussion on the future by fighting for fiscal restraint now, not fighting for salary increases that are not justified or warranted in the current climate.
ReplyDeleteAs far as salary increases not being justified...this is nonsense. The step increase is always justified for a teacher who completes the previous year with satisfactory reviews.
ReplyDeleteI can understand the COSA being controversial in tight years.
By not even allowing a step increase is basically telling us teachers that we are not appreciated for all the 'extra' that we are not required to do. If there is no step, then I for one (and many other teachers) will become the type of teacher that only works what is required of me. I will stick to only contract hours, not help students before/after school on my own time, not do any school work at home, reduce the amount of assignments because I will not have time to grade all of them during contract hours, stop volunteering to help with after school activities, and the list goes on.
I am willing to tighten the belt and look for alternatives. But, the solution is not freezing the step increases.
Freezing increases in salaries, whether it be step or COLA, is completely acceptable in this and several other situations. This measure has been utilized numerous times in other jurisdiction, for several years a stretch no less, due to economic downturns and fiscal emergencies.
ReplyDeleteI think the teacher's beef is with the School Board, not the general public. If they want to allocate nothing or a full 6%, they can do so by cutting other areas, but they don't deserve another penny from the general public.
I have to admit, I am put off by the threat made by the teacher.
Appreciation comes in all forms and I doubt any of us are fully compensated (and appreciated) in our jobs and daily lives for everything we do above and beyond the call of duty, but we do them anyways. There are plenty of good deeds that go without a thank you or compensation, ask any member of the clergy or the military. In addition, there is a long list of other civil servants, private industry and small business owners that don't have that option of simply withholding "extras". I wonder what the citizens of Loudoun would think if the Deputies, Building inspectors and County Legislators threatened to do the same?
Everyone is hyperventilating about how inefficient LCPS is, but according to Forbes Magazine (hardly a liberal "mouthpiece"), it's the 11th most efficient district in the nation.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.forbes.com/2007/07/05/schools-taxes-education-biz-beltway_cz_cs_0705schools_2.html
Sorry about the URL not coming through. Go to www.forbes.com and search for:
ReplyDeletebest and worst school worst school districts for the buck
The methodology Forbes study was a measurement of SAT data and graduation rates -- per dollar spent on education. It focuses on counties with populations greater than 65,000 where more than half of school funds come from property taxes.
ReplyDeleteI question the rigor of the methodology a bit on this study, but it was good news in a narrow slice of data.
Thanks for clarrifying the Forbes study Edmund.
ReplyDeleteI'd like the distinction between COLA and Step elaborated. What is the difference?
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing a yet to be hired employee wants whatever raises the bottom rung. Don't both Step and COLA do that? I'm also guessing a senior level employee wants a COLA since STEP raises stop at some point or are dependent on one-time events like getting a Master's degree which they already have.
If we maintain the same level of teaching experience (because older teachers are replaced by hiring younger less-experiences ones) then a STEP raise shouldn't cost anything. A COLA would apply across the board and require funding, but a STEP only cost money if we are upgrading our teaching staff by hiring more expensive teachers and fewer new ones.
What am I missing?
Think of the pay scale like a ladder. The bottom rung is Step 1, starting salary, no experience. In the second year, you move to step 2, which is about 2.5% above Step 1 (it varies a little depending on a number of factors but averages mid-twos). Currently there are 22 steps, so once you've been around for 22 years you're at the top.
ReplyDeleteCOLA raises every step, including the starting salary for new teachers and the top step. Step raises everybody except new teachers and teachers beyond the 22-step limit.
As for the previous comments about the Forbes study, I don't mind if you want to dismiss the one methodology. I have said repeatedly in the past that any one evaluation has limitations and biases, and should be taken with a big grain of salt. The fact is though, that LCPS repeatedly scores well across many different methodologies. People who dismiss them all out of hand because they have already concluded based on their armchair analysis that LCPS is bloated or wasteful, or because LCPS spent $500K on something they didn't like (though many other parents did) don't make a strong case.
Mr. Stevens,
ReplyDeleteI just don't understand how you think you "may have overstepped." May?!? Does that mean you think there is some appropriate time to use the PTA to pursue a political agenda? A skeptic might say that you are only contrite now because you were called on your breach.
Even so, the attempt at an apology is appreciated. I hope you will remove the caveats when you make a similar acknowledgment in public, preferably at the next school board meeting.
As I said in my e-mail to the chairman, this incident raises serious doubts about the viability of having you continue as the vice-chairman of the school board. I look forward to his response and will raise this question with my reps.
I see in your later post that the school board did not get as large a budget increase as you had wanted.
You have already ruled out a step pay raise at this budget level, so I assume the revised budget reflects that. I will be interested to see if there is any sort of innovation or new thinking evident in the revised budget increase.
I had no idea the LCPS had 22 steps (increases) for teachers - that is unbelievable. You are guaranteed a step increase, plus possible COLA virtually EVERY year you are a teacher just based on years served. I won't get into what an absolute scheme this is, but I'd love to know how this compares to surrounding jurisdictions. Mr. Stevens, do you know what the step/pay scale is for FFX and perhaps Prince Wm Counties?
ReplyDeleteIt is crazy that a teacher in Loudoun County is "guaranteed" a step increase by just working another year, while a Police Officer in FFX County has a step increase that is dependent on an annual review, and is only for the first 8 years on the force. After 8 years there are longevity steps in subsequent 5 years incriments (approx). I know this is mixing apples and oranges, comparing 2 different counties and civil service sectors, but it makes me realize how unfairly weighted this county's budget is to education. I already knew it was astronomical, but this 22 step scale takes the cake.
Perhaps the "guaranteed" steps needs to be renegotiated. I don't know any other occupation where there is is a guarantee to a raise just for showing up.