As most small school supporters know, the only school consolidation bill, House Bill 1046xx (which would have consolidated superintendents to a county model of schools) has gone up in smoke, as the double overtime special session ended last week. Of course, the bill could still be secreted into a regular session bill, which has not yet ended. Those advocating for school consolidation probably have realized by now that no money is saved or put back in the classroom when schools are consolidated. Several practical examples of administrative costs increasing when schools consolidate have been cited, such as in Arkansas, but we can examine Oklahoma school data, as the Office of Accountability did in 2010. This data and analysis study, The Capacity for Efficiency report to the senate, is now 8 years old and somewhat outdated, so we've taken on the challenge of providing a 2018 examination and analysis of school data. We utilized some of the same methodology used in the 2010 Report, but examined more critical data and compared administrative costs of school districts both before and after hypothetical county consolidation. We have changed the school names and county names to protect the innocent, but have used real school expenditure data, in order to provide valid and reliable results.
School name # students Admin. expend. Superintendent salary Total expend. %
PS #1 2325 $906,340 $296,900 * $19,778,169 4.6%
PS #2 331 $270,313 $99,999 $4,203,890 6.4%
PS #3 221 $127,552 $45,000 $1,945,987 2.8%
PS #4 269 $82,961 $35,941 $1,764,283 4.7%
PS #5 390 $105,556 $48,000 $2,518,341 4.2%
PS #6 577 $222,232 $86,163 $4,785,849 4.6%
PS #7 543 $165,265 $94,242 $4,656,198 3.5%
PS #8 546 $173,302 $88,910 $4,516,242 3.8%
PS #9 1554 $225,000 $100,336 $11,083,719 2.0%
PS #10 1901 $227,227 $110,000 $12,238,328 1.9%
PS #11 264 $82,863 $37,500 $2,339,509 3.5%
PS #12 483 $209,145 $73,500 $4,192,279 5.0%
* The superintendent salary for PS #1 includes two superintendents, as the school probably bought out one contract early, and provided a second contract during the same year.
The above data represent the expenditures belonging to twelve school districts in one rural county. The "county model" for school consolidation pushed by corporate lawmakers in bills such as HB 1046xx, would consolidate superintendents down to "one" per county. In 2010, the Office of Accountability allowed $100,000 per school for "administrative costs" in its Capacity for Efficiency study. In 2018, the companion bill to HB 1046xx - 1045xx provides that superintendents shall be limited to an annual salary of $147,000. We will use this data to hypothetically consolidate the twelve county schools down to one county superintendent, answering to only one twelve member school board, and also consolidate administrative expenditures to only one county school district. The legislature would probably require that the central headquarters be located in both the largest school as well as the county seat town, which may be PS #1. We can re-arrange the expenditures and consolidate superintendents very easily in order to satisfy corporate lawmakers, and provide an analysis of the schools in one rural county - to determine if county consolidation would indeed force efficiency... or not. The existing totals for the public schools in the above county are 9,404 students, $2,797,756 administrative costs, superintendent salaries totaling $1,116,491, and total school expenditures of $65,150,352.
Using Oklahoma Cost Accounting System (OCAS) data for Bold Code 2300, administrative expenditures, these costs would necessarily become the responsibility of one county school district - so the 2300 expenditures would increase to $2,797,756 (almost all administrative expenditures are lawfully required). Since all county school sites were allowed $100,000 for administrative expenditures, the salaries for the "assistant superintendent/principals" could increase for those employees to as much as $1,100,000 for the eleven county sites. The salary for the "county superintendent" PS #1 could be $147,000, raising the expenditures for potentially all central office staff (one at each site) to a total of $1,247,000, which compares to $1,116,491 spent before consolidation. One may argue that district administrative costs have been reduced from $2,797,756 before consolidation, to $1,100,000 after consolidation. The real reason for the reduction, however, is that $1,697,756 in district expenditures (2300) may now be coded to site administration (2400). There is no reduction at all... It's all "smoke and mirrors" by the corporate lawmakers pushing consolidation.
This is but one example of what actually happens when schools consolidate - more administrative expenditures, not less. This is the real reason that HB 1046xx went up in smoke. Corporate lawmakers are aware of these facts, but have managed to convince a few of their "toadies" that school consolidation is the financial answer for our public schools. Those are the ones who scream the loudest for "consolidation"...
Update: One corporate senator had one more trick up his sleeve, as the school consolidation bill was drawing its last breath - he amended a benign education bill, SB 1199, to sneak in the 60% rule of instructional expenditures, which would have eventually forced small and large school consolidation. The amendment also sought to wrest local control of schools away from local boards of education... and provide control of our schools to the federal government and out-of-state corporations. SB 1199 died just as quickly as HB 1046xx did, as our rural lawmakers saw through the corporate efforts...
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