Transparency Isn’t a Talking Point — It’s a Responsibility

Written By Dustin Smith

We all knew a blog on finance was inevitable. The topic is a constant presence, hanging over any discussion about the district like a dark cloud. Of course, we can all agree that this is necessary and both Jon and I have been clear about how we view the situation. I am on the record as saying this is not an expense problem, it is a revenue problem. On the other hand, Jon has said that it is both a revenue and expense problem. To illustrate this point, the image below (hereafter referred to as ‘Comparison Report’) was shared by his campaign.

I’ve repeatedly heard that this job is about being able to ask the tough questions. But that practice doesn’t stop at district leadership, staff, or teachers. These tough questions must also be directed toward our board of directors.

What is listed in the Comparison Report is not ‘transparency’. In my opinion, this is either intentionally misleading voters, or it is a terribly misinformed understanding on the reality of our district’s finances. Either way, I strongly feel that it is disingenuous to cherry-pick information from government reports in an attempt to paint the district’s decision-making in a negative light. I agree with the statement that we should believe in leadership that is grounded in transparency, data, and doing what’s best for our students. At the same time, we must have leaders that act with curiosity, integrity, and trust.

These are the core values I have talked about from the first day I started my campaign. I believe the research and findings I have documented here demonstrate not only evidence of me living those values, but I hope it demonstrates the tremendous commitment and energy I would bring to this role.

Comparison Report:

With the values of transparency and curiosity in mind, I’d like to walk through my findings and give some background information. Because the data sources were helpfully cited, I went to the Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board (PELSB) website and downloaded the spreadsheets used for the Comparison Report. In my job, there is nothing I love more than rolling up my sleeves and looking at employment data. Add to that my enthusiasm for this work, and I was more than eager to take a look.

After running the reports that were used (Staff Assignment & Staff Employment), I first went to work verifying that I had the correct ones by identifying Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) totals. I am used to dealing with FTEs, and it was easy enough to validate that portion. What I could not tie out was the Total Wages that were listed on the Comparison Report.

As you can see from the screenshot below, my total salary figure came out at $53.1 million versus the $52.7 from the Comparison Report, totaling a roughly $400k variance. Additionally, there were variances with the total Instructional and Admin/Non-Instructional amounts as well, $4.4 million and -$3.6 million respectively.

After being unable to replicate the figures from the Comparison Report, I went to the Financial Dashboard on the PLSAS district website to see if this could provide any help. The PLSAS Financial Dashboard is something available for anyone to use. I was quickly presented with a new puzzle piece. The screenshot below shows the Budget-Expenditures by Type for the 24-25 school year and lists salaries as $76.5 million. My first thought was that the PELSB website wouldn’t list every single position, which was in fact correct. Positions like custodians, administrative assistants, marketing professionals, and so on are not listed.

However, exploring the Financial Dashboard led to more questions. For instance, it lists three different areas as Instruction when looking at the Budget-Expenditures by Program screenshot below. Naturally, one has to wonder whether the school is classifying them the same way the PELSB did. If they do, then the district expenses are far more than what the PELSB website and Comparison Report listed as total salary for Instruction alone. Then again, this can be solved by accounting for only 55.15% of the budget being salaries. If the figures listed below represent the total expense, we can easily set aside this particular problem.

But wait…

If I take the total all three of the highlighted Instruction programs in the table above, 55.15% of that is $45.6 million. That’s $5.2 million more than my total wage figures and $9.2 million more than the totals from the Comparison Report. Also, what do I do with programs such as Instructional Support Services? Should this amount be listed as Instruction or is it Administrative/Non-Instructional? Do I count Pupil Support Services as well?

At this point, there was only one thing to do; I contacted Dr. Thomas and Director Rider and asked them to explain this to me. Most people probably don’t realize it, but the district is happy to answer questions to help taxpayers better understand their finances.

According to Dr. Thomas and Director Rider, the way they classify staff and the way PELSB does, are vastly different. Remember, PELSB is a licensing board. This means its primary function is issuing licenses to teachers. With this knowledge, we can understand why they may take a more narrow view on what is defined as instruction versus non-instruction. The way PELSB interprets staff activities means any function that is not direct instruction to a student is considered administrative.

When looking at the district’s budget, the line item for Administration only includes staff that are head principals and up. In other words, this only includes the superintendent, executive directors, directors, and the district’s nine principals. Unlike other programs in the budget, there are not a lot of costs associated with this program code aside from salaries and benefits. When looking at the adopted budget for 2024-2025, the amount listed for this program is $3.2 million for salaries and benefits. Therefore, if we want to be generous and round up to the number listed on the Financial Dashboard of $3.4 million, we would probably be in the neighborhood of what this expense actually looks like in our district’s budget.

To imply that we are spending $12.8 million more than what we actually are, or that Administration is 31% of the budget (it actually amounts to roughly 3%) is not only wrong, it can be harmful. Imagine we continue to find ourselves asking the district to reduce expenses. Are these really the expense figures we want being discussed at the board table? Because in my opinion, if we cut staff based on what PELSB defines as Admin/Non-Instructional, it is going to directly impact the quality of education for students at PLSAS and/or their well-being. There are plenty of roles that are defined as non-instructional that serve a purpose. Counselors, Crossing Guards, Nurses, Safety and Security staff. These are all essential pieces to operating a school district.

There was also the claim that “Admin/Non-Instructional staff [increased] 40%”. That looks like a lot! Although once again, digging into the reports that were used can give that statement much needed context.

The way it is listed on the Comparison Report, a 40% increase in Admin/Non-Instructional staff equates to a net gain of 50. But here is the thing about FTEs: it is not a headcount. Two part-time employees working 20 hours each will equal 1.0 FTE if full-time is 40 hours.

Additionally, FTEs can also be used as a method to track and allocate dollars appropriately to the budget. According to the GWSCPA Non-profit Financial Accountability Task Force, a national collaborative of accounting and non-profit professionals that promote financial accountability through education and discussion, cost allocation distributes shared expenses across programs or departments. Nonprofits use “drivers,” such as labor distribution by FTEs or salary dollars, to reflect how resources are used, hence why I have been so vocal about the fact that corporate finance does not perfectly translate to school finance. Not saying that this practice is foreign to corporate finance, but typically non-profits use this approach to properly account for dollars spent due to reporting requirements.

For instance, at my organization we have one side of the organization that is related to programs and services, and then we have our thrift retail business. Half of my salary is allocated to thrift, while the other half is allocated to programs, meaning that you could look at it as .5 FTE thrift and .5 FTE programs. I’m still one employee, but depending on the report you run it could appear as me being listed twice, as two .5 FTEs. Once again: FTE ≠ Headcount.

So let’s take a look at the Assignment Codes from the 19-20 school year and the 24-25 school.

In the screenshot above, I’ve listed everything between Assignment Codes starting with 96 through 99 from the 19-20 and 24-25 data sets (believe me, you don’t want me to list every line from the report). Aside from some fluctuations in Assignment FTE from year to year, they are mostly the same. The one major difference that I highlighted was the Assignment Code for TEACHER PREP. This code does not appear on the 19-20 list, but accounts for an increase of 40.65 FTEs, or 81.3%, of the total net increase of 50 FTEs between the years.

So what does this mean? Did the district add nearly 41 employees who focus solely on prepping lesson plans for other teachers?

Not quite.

Remember when we talked about the fact that any function that does not include direct instruction to a student is considered administrative by PELSB? It turns out that this includes teacher prep time. If we take a look at the screenshot below, we can see what’s actually happening. This work did not appear out of thin air. The work was always there, the only difference is that in the 2024-2025 school year, it was coded differently.

As you can see in the table, the File Folder Number equals one employee and the Assignment Code allocated to each individual is broken down by FTE. The teachers in our schools do more than merely “instruct”. There is preparation that must happen to adequately ensure their lesson plans and curriculum will be effective. If we use File Number 0418059, we can see how this breaks down. 50% of this teacher’s time is Algebra/Integrated Math – Instructional, 33% is Other Math Classes – Instructional, and 17% is Teacher Prep – Admin/Non-Instructional.

  • Or to list it the way the PELSB data should read:

  • Algebra/Integrated Math – Instructional = .5 FTE

  • Other Math Classes – Instructional = .33 FTE

  • Teacher Prep – Admin/Non-Instructional = .17 FTE

Total FTE = 1

A similar thing happens if we look at the Assignment Code 899999 – RESERVE TEACHER. While the total number of Administrative/Non-Instructional FTEs does increase, this does not necessarily prove that there was an increase in headcount. Instead, there are several reasons this may be the case. Some staff who previously had instructional responsibilities may now be coded as administrative for budgeting or reporting purposes. Another possibility is, as we saw with the TEACHER PREP category, the newer numbers may reflect a more accurate distribution of staff time between instructional and administrative functions. The fact of the matter is we can’t identify why these numbers changed without the additional context from PELSB or the district.

Taking all of this into consideration, we can demonstrably prove that the claim “Admin/Non-Instructional staff [increased] 40%” is false. Did the overall FTE count increase since the 2019-2020 school year? The short answer is yes. The more accurate, and truthful answer is yes, but when we account for the Assignment Codes such as TEACHER PREP, there is no actual real increase in headcount. In fact, there is no actual increase in work. Prep time is always something teachers have needed, the only tangible difference between then and now is that it’s recorded differently on the state’s website. When you account for Assignment Codes TEACHER PREP and the RESERVE TEACHER being the biggest difference in FTEs, the actual increase in Administrative/Non-Instructional staff FTEs is roughly 6%.

And herein lies the problem. A CFO should know the difference between FTE and headcount. I think it is unbelievably concerning that a Comparison Report was posted and disseminated on Jon’s campaign Facebook page claiming that there was a drastic shift in the allocation of resources, resulting in less money going towards classroom instruction and more money being spent on administration. It is alarming that a demand is being made to “put money back in classrooms”, when it would appear from the evidence that it never left the classroom in the first place.

So when I talk about doing the work and preparing for a role on this board, it goes far beyond meeting with stakeholders in the district. I am not playfully making a joke when I say “I do my homework”—I actually do. This job is about making an attempt to understand the issues within our district, not distorting state level data and comparing it to something unrelated. Yes, our community should have trust in how every dollar is spent and our district should be fiscally responsible.

I guess the question is: How can we be responsible if we’re not honest?

Dustin Smith
Previous

No Matter the Path, We Move Forward
Next

Investing Early: How Our Schools Build a Foundation for Every Child to Thrive