How can Hillsborough save money?

Hillsborough employees: School Board members want to hear from you.

In a budget workshop Tuesday, the Board learned that current budget pain isn't likely to let up soon. Hillsborough schools have taken a $17.6 million budget hit for fiscal year 2007-08, thanks to the legislative cuts in education funding. The economic outlook for the future doesn't look so hot.

So what's a school district with a $3.1-billion annual budget to do?

"I don't see a lot of fat," Board member Candy Olson said.

She suggested reaching out for ideas, an idea embraced by other members of the School Board. They proposed surveying district staff to find out where wasteful spending occurs. The district even could offer financial rewards for good ideas. (The details of doing the survey remained up in the air.)

In this atmosphere of belt-tightening, some are questioning the amount of money flowing to outside consultants through no-bid contracts. Board member April Griffin brought this up at the budget workshop. It later saw heated debate at the Board's business meeting.

Others blasted the increased demands being placed on public schools, even as funding is cut.

"We're going to be dead last again in the state of Florida, because they keep cutting funding," Board member Carol Kurdell said. "The more I think about it, the madder I get."

Comments

[Waste vs. Extra]

There is a huge difference between "wasteful spending" and "extra" programs.

I believe the original discussion started with "wasteful spending".

Cuts can certainly be made, but most WILL impact students in someway. When "extra" programs are eliminated, students lose something. The question to ask is does Rubio really want a World Class System or JUST a very efficient one? With relatively modest funding (around 43rd to 49th in the country) per student, Florida already gets better than average test scores (NAEP). That was delivered by school districts in response to the state's accountability system. If we want more, we can't just tell everyone to work harder. We must either have more resources or R&D and implementation funding needs to be provided to dramatically improve instructional systems.

Termie is right. Eliminate all the administrators, secretaries, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, superintendents, school board members, and especially the teachers who are members of the union but are on special assignment and just let the wonderful professional teachers do everything required by the legislature, DOE, courts, and PARENTS by themselves. I can't wait.

He is such a one note TOOL.

I wonder if Termie will be involved in defending the teacher who was playing footsies with a middle school student or if that will be some other union sludge.

[Mental Blocks to trimming "The Fat"]

I always thought that a good idea to support a concept is that the idea, when carried to it's logical conclusion, supports the concept.

I can see it now at your local weight loss program. "Bonus Incentive to Calorie Reduction. Cut calories and be rewarded with a box of Chocolate!"

So it is ok to take educational money, in the name of wrongly spent educational money, and give it to some one else, but not for performing educational duties.

I would think teachers want to be justly rewarded for teaching. If money is being wasted, just investigate the rumor mill.

My sense is that the culture of the system will not lead to open disclosures of wrong doing. I don't see a lot of accolades going to students, parents or teachers who expose problems.

[Investigative Journalism]

Terminator's comment on administrators with consulting contracts is not the first time I have heard this. I've heard it is somewhat of a routine retirement perk for all principals.

Would a public records request by the St. Pete Times be able to root out these consultation contracts to prove or disprove the rumors?

[William]

Kurdell says she is mad. I have never heard her in the board meetings utter one peep. She sits there saying and doing nothing meeting after meeting. What has she done to help the schools? Instead of getting mad and sitting like a lump on a log, she needs to get up and start doing something and start speaking out all the time, not just when her seat is up for re-election. Her comment made me laugh. She is ridiculous. I am sure there will be a school named after her one day. Most of the schools in Hillsborough are named after mediocre people. It is almost an insult to have a school named after you here.

[terminator]

well they might start by getting rid of all the useless deputy, assistant, associate superintendents, district directors, teachers on special assignment, former over the hill administrators with consulting contracts (all of whom play little to no roll in the education of students).
Believe me, these large school districts have plenty of bacon to be cut.
What's fantastic is, they're caught in a tightening vise which keeps squeezing.
As the state budget continues to tank and the legislature is forced to cut more spending, the class size amendment restrictions keep phasing in.
Add to that the likely passage of the January 29th tax cut referendum and you've got a real problem if you're a school district fatcat.
What's a bloated bureaucracy to do?
The beauty of the situation is the district is forced to cut administration because they can't touch the classroom.
You guys didn't really think they would spend the excess money on the kids did you?

[It's the good intentions that count, not the money]

I see more bad news with this sentence:
"The district even could offer financial rewards for good ideas."

This reminds me of the stereotypical wife after a shopping spree where she spent more than the budget allows on "sales" and then says to her husband "But look how much money I saved". And then she complains that her husband doesn’t bring home enough money and that is why there is a budget problem.

Perhaps the Board could show the way. It appears that some Board members see their role as simply rubberstamping recommendations that are presented to them. Unless a member’s comments are accolades of what a good job the recommender did, any hint of discussion is interpreted as untrusting. It would be great if each member made a comment that demonstrated their comprehension of the money they are spending. If they can’t, then why bother to have approval power. Just let the recommender do it and move on.

What is the purpose of a Board meeting? Is it to discuss the business of the school system? Is it to discuss education? Is it to make a public display of how grand everything is?

[Vincent Michaels]

As a school teacher, I see plenty of waste in the school district, both at the school level and the administrative level. If each school, and the district staff create a committee of teachers and such to see where expenses can be cut. At my school, for instance, we have two non classroom teachers that make in excess of $50,000 that are basically glorified secreteries. Why? Also, why do we need to buy technology and classroom supplies from only a selected group of vender's when their products are so much more expensive. For instance, if we wanted to buy markers for the classroom, we can go to target and buy them much cheaper (50 cents at the start of the school year), but we can't! We must buy them from Office Depot at a much more expensive price!

I can go on for a while on this subject! Don't get me started on the waste of electricity at the schools and downtown offices!

[John]

I am aware of the fact that this space is about Hillsborough County Schools "saving money." But this also seems to be a reasonable place to ask the question; Have ANY of the politicians who make decisions about budgetary items EVER suggested a cut in their own salary? Perhaps the beaurocracy could be cut by 10% and a subsequent cut in paperwork that supports the beaurocracy would save time for Teachers to plan instead of just doing paperwork for the sake of doing paperwork.