There are some interesting data to consider when discussing Oklahoma teacher pay raises: There are more state agencies (approximately 615) in Oklahoma government than school districts (527). When lawmakers discuss how to save tax dollars, however, the subject they always talk about is the consolidation of schools or the consolidation of school administration. They never even mention the consolidation of state agencies or agency heads as a way to save taxpayer dollars, and provide teacher pay raises in Oklahoma. Research and anecdotal data reveal that more tax dollars can be saved by consolidating big-spending state agencies than by consolidating public schools.
Consolidating Public Schools - In 2010, Governor Fallin commissioned the Office of Accountability under Robert Buswell, to perform a hypothetical school consolidation study which would consolidate school administrations statewide to one per county. Buswell was charged with developing a model that would measure the "Capacity for Efficiency" if the state of Oklahoma were to consolidate school district administration by counties. He presented the study on creating administrative efficiencies for schools to the Oklahoma Senate in 2012. "First, school districts were aggregated by county based upon the location of their administrative headquarters. The average daily student membership (ADM) of the resulting "County District" was then compared to a list of existing school districts sorted by ADM, and a group of comparable districts were selected based upon the county district's ADM. The average administrative expenditures for these comparable districts was then calculated and compared to the existing administrative expenditures for the new county districts. If the new county districts expenditures are higher, there is capacity to be more efficient. Next , in support of keeping every site open, the Office of Accountability allowed for administrative funding at every site. If the combined total from the original districts was more than $100,000 per school then they were held harmless, but if the original districts had spent less than $100,000 per site they were brought up to that level. Buswell then multiplied the number of school sites in each County District by $100,000 and compared that amount to the combined total for administrative costs of the original districts" (Capacity for Efficiency, 2012).
Utilizing the Capacity for Efficiency formula, McClain County (Blanchard Public Schools and seven others) had no capacity for efficiency in 2011. The seven (now six) McClain County school districts' total administrative costs was compared to the administrative costs for the single school districts Yukon and Enid utilizing the $100,000 administrator allowance per site model. It was determined in utilizing this formula that the total administrative costs for all seven schools in McClain County was less than the average administrative costs for the two individual districts, which resulted in the "No Capacity for Efficiency" for McClain County. As many as nine Oklahoma counties had a zero capacity for efficiency rating in the study. The statewide total capacity was only $36,657,990 if all public schools administrative services was consolidated to the "county model". If the administrative allowance were increased to $120,000 per site, the capacity for efficiency would decrease to $27,925,104 and the number of counties with NO capacity for efficiency would increase to 20. Issues remaining to be addressed in utilizing this method of county consolidation included 1) how to address existing district debt, (which of the seven school districts would shoulder the debt for the other six? 2) how to address existing local school boards, (which of the seven school boards would remain intact and which ones would be dissolved?) and 3) how to address the actual costs of consolidation, (what would it cost the districts or the state to actually implement this model?).
The cost to implement this county consolidation plan may in fact be more than the perceived savings ($36,657,990), which would negate any savings (capacity for efficiency) at all. When asked questions such as "Do you believe our education system in Oklahoma is top heavy?" (Do you believe a county administrative consolidation plan would solve public schools' funding crisis?), the McClain County (District 42 Representative) replied "Yes, as an example we spend $1.5 million in Garvin and McClain Counties just for superintendents." This "House Representative" obviously didn't have access to the Capacity for Efficiency study, or just does not like school superintendents - especially in Garvin and McClain Counties (or maybe doesn't like public schools in general). He might want to steer the public away from real ways to save money, as the motivation for legislative consolidation of school districts.
Consolidating State Agencies - As stated before, there are currently 600+ state agencies, boards, and commissions which are funded with taxpayer dollars. As an example, there are 22 state law enforcement agencies all independently run and all funded by the state. They all receive some sort of state appropriated aid ($ millions), and have CEO's which are well-paid. In 2015, the Attorney General's Office (one agency) spent $40 million in public funds, paying high priced lawyers and leasing plush office space in Tulsa. This figure was double what was spent just 5 years before. As a matter of fact, the AG's Office was audited in 2015 which determined that it wasted $ millions in public funds. One might get the impression that at least a few of the law enforcement agencies could be consolidated with no loss in our safety and security. No one knows exactly how much money could be saved by consolidating only part of the 600+ state agencies, but estimates are into the $ hundreds of millions. The only issue to be resolved would be how to employ all the CEO's that have lost jobs as a result. This is a major issue to resolve, however, as most of those CEO's are actually retired legislators, so no sitting legislator wants to end the job that he may hold someday.
So now you know "the rest of the story" as to why lawmakers always talk about consolidating schools instead of consolidating state agencies. Oh yes, one more state agency that could use some consolidation to save money is the Oklahoma Legislature. Currently Oklahoma has a bi-cameral legislature (senate and house). If we reduced legislators to a county model of consolidation (77 lawmakers instead of the current 152) we could cut its expenditures in half and save $ millions. Again, it won't happen as no highly paid lawmaker wants to cut his own job. As a matter of fact, I bet lawmakers continue to publicize that schools can save $millions by simply "consolidating administrative services" or "eliminating superintendents". I'm also quite sure that no one will ever hear a legislator say that we should reduce the number of state agencies, cut his own job, or reduce his salary.
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