Pinellas, Pasco school districts polar opposites on administrative costs

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the leanest district of all? As today's St. Petersburg Times story points out, it's not Pinellas, although Pinellas has dropped from No. 1 in top heaviness among the 12 biggest districts to No. 2 or No. 3.

The answer is Pasco.

Among the 12 biggest districts, Pasco spends the least on administration, at least by several ways of slicing and dicing. (We looked at general administration costs in the general fund and general administration costs in the general and special revenue funds combined.) Pasco is also the leanest of the biggest districts according to state calculations that factor in administrative costs at both the district and school level.

Today's story has a chart showing how Pinellas stacks up against the 11 other big districts. But for being loyal Gradebook readers, we give you a bonus: a spreadsheet that includes three other districts - Hernando, Manatee and Sarasota. Next to the big districts and other Tampa Bay districts, Hernando too looks very, very lean.

Comments

[confused]

How is it that the district has money to build new additions, pay for worthless materials that are given at those boring district trainings, and pay for cell phones for the upper end employees but teachers are told to go to Staples for copies (and pay for them out of pocket) when their allotted amount runs out at school. Having to provide constant on going assessments, LFS out the butt, and other reproducable materials needed each day, copies go fast.
This makes no sense to me at all.

[DISTRICT LIES]

If scarf lady can hide ten million dollars in her budget for a new building. Im sure she did not report this correctly either,she is the master of disaster dont believe anything she says its all political for her and not what is best for the district. Look a little closer and you can find the lies.

[Cartman]

nota....LMAO she must be angry because she doesn't have her scarf keeping her neck warm.

[mommy4three]

My two girls are stressed and exhausted with the seven period day! They always say the teachers don't have time to help because there is not enough time with the short periods and around 40 minutes of planning a day. I agree! Put all the administrators and trainers back into the classroom so we can have more sanity! What brainiac came up with this schedule? I'd say all the incompetent ones in Pinellas are the administration not the teachers.

[fran]

Stop Micromanaging PCSB. Let teachers do what they do best, Teach!!!!!

[pcteach]

Now let's add one to two clerical staff members for each one of these administrators, trainers, and consultants. How much money does this rob from the children in the classrooms of Pinellas County? Millions!!!! Let's not forget the recent hiring of a new spinmaster last week.

[pcteach]

The grossly large number of trainers and consultants for useless, mandatory, redundant trainings for teachers is another hidden cost on the upper administrative end of PCSB. A lot of your so- called upper end administrators are shifted to training and consultant positions. And then they force us to sign in and sit through another irrelevant training. It also wastes valuable time I could spend planning instruction and helping to remediate and tutor students. If one more administrator mandates that I sit in at another useless, ridiculous training while a mountain of papers to grade still sit ungraded on my desk, I'm going to scream!!!!

[notascarfatinofan]

HF never has never looked more lovely than she does standing next to the mirror.

[BOHICA]

And in the years of Dear Leader's regime in Scarfistan (aka Pasco) the district's ranking in terms of "leanness" has has become worse. "But," you might argue,"Pasco has grown, so of course administrative costs have increased." True, but administrative cost per pupil should go down as district size increases, and Pasco's administrative cost per pupil has increased.

[Caring Parent]

termie,

70 or 75% should be the goal. 65's too small.

[terminator]

great post JohnM:b
these districts are just a bunch of con artists moving money from pot A to pot B to justify their top heavy bureaucracies.
why do you think they fought the 65% solution so hard? why do you think they are totally opposed to class size?
Why do they always claim they're broke when they aren't when it comes time for employee raises?bbbb
they're merely re-arranging the deck chairs on the titanic.
the noose around their neck is growing tighter and tighter.
if voters stick to their guns on class size they're going to be screwed (unless the great messiah obama decides to squander more of our children's future with more bail out money for these sinking ships)
DOE date shows NO Florida districts spend more than 70% of their overall budgets on the classroom. Most are in the mid to lower 60's and some in the high 50's. This is criminal and needs to be stopped.
Serious downsizing at district offices is necessary. Get rid of all double dippers. Get rid of any non school site level administrators on DROP.
Reduce executive salaries to under $100K.
Eliminate cell phones, beepers, laptaps and cars for district administrators. Let them use their own vehicles and receive mileage and they can use their personal cellphones just like teachers do when they call parents.
Get rid of all out of state travel for board members, supers and district administration.
Eliminate all the wasteful bells and whistles programs and go back to the basics.
There is still PLENTY of FAT to be cut.
Best of all contact your state legislators and tell them NO FLEXIBILITY for wasteful school districts until they clean up their act.

[Money Is The Shell In The Shell Game]

Don't leave out the age old strategy of lateral moves that are a shell for both "position cut" and "administrative discipline", otherwise known as "mess up-move up (or sideways under another title).

[JohnM]

Superintendent, assistant superintendent, assiociate superintendent, CFO, Area directors(at least 5), assistant area directors, Risk management director, human relations director, assistant HR director, general director secondary, curriculum director secondary, general director technology, elementary supervisor for reading, writing, science, social studies, math, ESE, gifted, guidance, general director middle, area survisor langauge arts (middle), science (middle), math(middle), social studies(middle), guidance(middle), supervisor language arts(secondary), science(secondary), math(secondary), social studies(secondary), guidance(secondary) administrators on special assignment elementary, middle secondary, personnel director elementary, middle, secondary, transportation director, principal, assistant principal for curriculum, administration, student affairs, hearing and speech supervisor, ESOL supervisor, trainers for teachers and administrators, special program(magnet) didectors, supervisors, assistants.

I could probably go on and on but, my fingers are getting tired.

Yeah, I would say we need a few more administrators to sort out the administrators and put those bad teachers in line.

The way the administrative "costs" are broken down and reported have a lot to do with the conclusion reached.