Meet the Bills: A10 (Reducing School Administrative Costs)

On a local (West Orange) email list, I am looking at bills that our representatives are voting on. It seems to me that we would want, for the most part, to ignore non-controversial bills and focus on bills that are subject to substantial debate. To that end, I'm going to look at places where my Assemblypeople, Assemblyman McKeon and Assemblywoman Jasey, differ from Assemblyman Vincent Polistina (Republican from District 2), since I know he was focused very much on spending reductions.

I've discovered that the legislature's Web site (http://www.njleg.state.nj.us) is a morass of JavaScript and link-unfriendly programming techniques, so I'll post links (at the end of this post) to the PDF documents as I've downloaded them and put them here. You'll need Acrobat Reader (it's free) to read the bills.

I'll start with bill A10: "Requires certain school districts to reduce per pupil administrative expenditures by 10% over three-year period, certain reporting by executive county superintendents of schools, and schedule for appointment of such superintendents."

McKeon and Jasey voted against it, Polistina voted in favor.

My questions about the bill are these:

• Our representatives were outvoted 4 to 1: The bill passed 62-15, with 3 abstentions. What were McKeon's and Jasey's reasons for voting "no" to this bill?
• Is West Orange one of the districts affected by the financial aspects of this bill?
• Is it reasonable to think that these districts can cut administrative costs by 10% without unreasonable degradation of school services?

Here is the Assembly Education Committee's statement to the Assembly about the bill, which I thought was easier to understand and more compact than trying to parse out the changes to the law that the bill entailed. I'll try to summarize each paragraph as we go along -- anyone who knows what it's saying better than I do, please correct me.

The Assembly Education Committee favorably reports Assembly Bill No. 10.

The Assembly Education Committe favorably reported on this bill, so McKeon and Jasey went against the recommendation of the Education Committee. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, of course, but it's worth noting.

This bill provides for a 10% reduction in the per pupil administrative costs of certain school districts below those of the 2008-2009 school year. The reduction will be phased in over a three-year period.

The wording "provides for" really means something more like "requires", as you see in the bill's title. So this bill cuts administrative costs by an average of 10% per pupil over a three-year period in some districts.

Under current law, a school district’s per pupil administrative costs may equal the lower of the district’s prior year per pupil administrative costs or the prior year per pupil administrative cost limits for the district’s region inflated by the cost of living or 2.5 percent, whichever is greater.

Follow that? Right now, before this bill is enacted, a district's administrative costs will be one of the following:

1. The same as last year.
2. The same as the last year's regional cost limits plus the cost of living.
3. The same as the last year's regional cost limits plus 2.5 percent.

If 1 is less than 2 or 3, stick with 1.
Otherwise, pick the bigger of 2 or 3.

I don't know which method West Orange used. If anyone does, please tell us in the comments.

Okay, that's background. Now what about this bill?

The bill provides that in the case of a school district with a 2008-2009 school year per pupil administrative cost limit calculated in accordance with the regional limits, the district must make an annual reduction in its per pupil administrative costs in such amount as to ensure that by the 2011-2012 school year the district’s per pupil administrative costs will be no more than 90% of the 2008-2009 per pupil administrative cost limits for the district’s region.

If your district went with 2 or 3 above, the district needs to cut costs by 10% by 2011.

For the 2012-2013 school year and each school year thereafter, a school district’s per pupil administrative costs may not exceed its prior year per pupil administrative costs. The bill does, however, maintain the authority of the commissioner to permit a school district to exceed its prior year per pupil administrative costs due to certain specified circumstances, such as an increase in nondiscretionary fixed costs.

After that, you can't increase your administrative costs unless the commissioner says you can because of "certain specified circumstances". If you go to the bill itself, you can see those specifics:

## increases in enrollment, administrative positions
## necessary as a result of mandated programs,
## administrative vacancies, nondiscretionary fixed costs,
## and such other items as defined in accordance with
## regulations adopted pursuant to section 43 7 of P.L.2004,
## c.73.

I don't have a copy of P.L. 2004, c.73, but hopefully you get the idea. If you look at the bill, you can see that the commissioner can only authorize increases similar to those that are allowed now -- but can't authorize any increases until the 2012-2013 school year.

The bill also directs each executive county superintendent of schools to file an annual report on the results of efforts to implement the new authorities delegated to him under the CORE legislation which became effective in April of 2007. The report would focus on issues associated with the promotion of administrative and operational efficiencies, the consolidation of school districts through the establishment or enlargement of regional districts, the coordination and regionalization of pupil transportation services, the promotion of in-district and shared services and programs for special education students, and other efforts to improve the operations and efficiencies of school districts within the county.

This appears to be an attempt to hold the county superintendent accountable for efficiencies, consolidation of services, and so on, by requiring an annual report specifically on those items.

Finally, the bill provides that an executive county superintendent of schools must be appointed in any county in which the position is currently vacant. The appointment must be made within 30 days of the bill’s effective date. The bill also stipulates that subsequent vacancies in the position of executive county superintendent must be filled within 120 days of the vacancy.

This apparently is a legal mandate for people to fill vacant positions. I didn't know this was a problem, but I guess it must be if they're adding it to the text of the bill.

Links to the bills are included below.

Here is the Committee's text and the full text of the bill. (Note that most of it is a quoted law, with edits embedded in the quote.)

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