Next year, districts are projected to receive an average of
about $1,000 per student in additional money under the funding formula. That is
projected to be the biggest one-year funding increase to K-12 schools since the
creation of Proposition 98 in 1988.
Alison Yin for EdSource Today
May 28, 2015 :: In its first statement on a critical issue facing
school boards, the California Department of Education cautioned that under the
state’s new funding formula, only in “some limited circumstances” can school
districts use money that’s supposed to be spent on services for low-income
children and English learners for across-the-board pay raises for teachers.
The “burden” to justify diverting money targeted for these “high-need”
students, who also include foster youths, to pay raises is “very heavy,” since
it should be spent increasing programs and services for those students, wrote
Jeff Breshears, administrator for the education department’s Local Agency
Systems Support Office. Breshears’
carefully
worded, four-page letter ( follows) was sent April 15 to Jim
Yovino, superintendent of the Fresno County Office of Education, in response to
Yovino’s inquiry.
The California Teachers Association partially disagrees with the guidance,
though it appears that many local unions have not challenged the state’s
position in local negotiations.
The letter comes at a critical time. Districts are in the final stages of
drafting their second annual Local Control and Accountability Plans, or LCAPs,
in which they are required to detail goals, actions and spending on eight
priority areas the Legislature mandated in passing the Local Control Funding
Formula. At the same time, school boards and employee unions are negotiating
what in many districts will be the first pay increases in a half-dozen
years.
Next year, districts are projected to receive an average of about $1,000 per
student in additional money under the funding formula. That is projected to be
the biggest one-year funding increase to K-12 schools since the creation of
Proposition 98 in 1988. Districts will face pressure from teachers unions and
children’s advocacy groups in deciding how to divvy up money between pay raises
for staff and restoring and expanding programs in the classroom.
Under the funding formula, all districts receive a uniform base amount of
funding per student. They also receive supplemental funding for every English
learner, low-income and foster youth, plus extra “concentration” dollars when
those students make up at least 55 percent of a district’s students. The
combined extra money produces about 40 percent funding above the base
level per student – and tens of millions of dollars – for a district like San
Bernardino Unified, in which high-needs students make up nearly all of the
students.
Yovino was the one who made the inquiry: Under what conditions can any of the
supplemental and concentration dollars go toward raises for all teachers? But
the question has come up repeatedly this year throughout the state, said Peter
Birdsall, executive director of the
California County Superintendents
Educational Services Association, which represents the state’s 58 county
superintendents.
Narrow exceptions
The short answer, according to Breshears, is that using supplemental and
concentration dollars would not be permitted, because a general raise for all
teachers is “paying more for the same level of service,” not an increase or an
improvement.
“In some limited circumstances,” however, a district could assert that
uncompetitive pay levels harm education for high-needs students by making it
hard to attract and retain teachers, Breshears wrote. In that case, a district’s
LCAP would have to include evidence comparing teacher turnover rates and pay
levels with other nearby districts to show that high-needs students have been
disproportionately affected by low pay, justifying using supplemental and
concentration dollars to augment salaries.
That’s not all. State law and State Board of Education regulations require
districts in which more than 55 percent of students are English learners and
low-income students to verify in their LCAPs that a pay raise would be “an
effective” strategy in improving services for high-needs students. Districts
with fewer than 55 percent high-needs students would face “an extreme if not
impossible” burden of arguing that a pay raise would be the “most effective”
strategy in improving education for the targeted student groups, Breshears
wrote.
In subsequent years, districts would have to update their LCAPs to document,
through supporting data, whether the money for raises helped achieve the
specific goals “within a reasonable time.” If not, then the district should stop
using supplemental and concentration dollars for a pay increase and choose
another use. A county superintendent could withhold approval of the LCAP for
failure to comply, Breshears wrote.
However, the funding law does allow other options involving compensation,
Breshears wrote. Supplemental and concentration money could fund a longer school
day or pay teachers involved in programs specifically for English learners or
low-income children, but these expenses must be aligned to one of the priorities
in the LCAP, such as improving student engagement or raising student
achievement.
CTA: Raises permissible
The California Teachers Association interprets the law differently. The Local
Control Funding Formula was created to give maximum flexibility to school
districts, and that includes creating competitive salaries to reduce teacher
turnover, said Claudia Briggs, communications assistant manager for the CTA.
“We believe the law is clear: The money can be used to attract and retain
quality teachers in the classroom, to lower class sizes and to restore programs
that were cut,” said Briggs. And she said the CTA disagrees with the education
department’s position that districts cannot use supplemental dollars for
across-the-board raises if fewer than 55 percent of the students are English
learners and low-income children.
“All control dollars are sent with no strings attached to suit the best needs
of students. So if the percentage is below 55 percent, districts can absolutely
still use those funds” for pay raises, she said.
But two nonprofit organizations that had argued to the state board that it
should adopt tight restrictions on the use of supplemental and concentration
dollars said Breshears got it right in his interpretation.
This guidance follows what the Legislature and state board intended in
writing the Local Control Funding Formula law and regulations, and provides
counties “direction as they engage in the review and approval process,” wrote
Samantha Tran, senior managing director of education policy for Children Now, in
an email.
“The letter tracks closely
our
analysis of how to analyze supplemental and concentration spending,” said
John Affeldt, managing attorney of Public Advocates, a legal advocacy firm that
is heavily involved in state education policy.
So far, not a point of contention
Two lawyers whose firms together handle contract negotiations for hundreds of
school districts said that for the most part local teachers unions have not
pressed to use supplemental and concentration money for across-the-board raises.
Louis Lozano, principal of the firm Lozano Smith, said he had expected unions to
be more aggressive on the issue. He said he was aware of no districts that were
deadlocked because of disagreements on the use of supplemental and concentration
dollars.
Gregory Dannis, president of the San Francisco law firm Dannis Woliver
Kelley, said, “In the majority of districts, unions are not taking issue, at
least outwardly,” with the position that base dollars are what is available for
pay raises. In contracts he has negotiated, supplemental dollars have paid for
stipends for teachers to work extra time in schools with targeted students, more
professional development days, reduced class sizes beyond the required 24-to-1
student-teacher ratio for K-3 grades and additional counselors to serve
high-needs students. One district, which he declined to name, is at an impasse
because the teachers union wants across-the-board raises without increased or
improved services, he said.
Breshears’ letter has not been widely circulated, although it was discussed
at length last month at a workshop of administrators from county offices of
education, said Kathryn Catania, deputy superintendent of the Fresno County
Office of Education. County offices are responsible for approving districts’
LCAPs and are creating uniform approaches for reviewing them, Catania said.
Birdsall cautioned that Breshears’ letter provides general advice; the
circumstances for using supplemental and concentration dollars will vary among
districts. Noting that most of Fresno County’s districts are poor and rural, a
couple of districts have asked whether they could include the cost of gasoline
in their salary schedules using supplemental dollars, to compete with urban
districts that pay more, Catania said.
Going Deeper
Several studies of first-year LCAPs found that many districts failed to
document how much supplemental and concentration funding they received. They
also didn’t detail how they planned to spend the money and didn’t distinguish
between ongoing programs and improved and expanded services. County offices of
education eventually approved every LCAP, granting leeway for districts that
were creating new plans in a compressed time frame. The State Board of Education
has since then revised the LCAP template and regulations, making it easier to
read and document how supplemental and concentration funds will be used.
Districts are required to state in their LCAPs how much additional
supplemental and concentration funding they are getting and how high-needs
students will benefit from it. If districts use that money for pay raises and
don’t report that in the LCAP, Affleldt said county offices and the public will
be able to spot the discrepancy because the numbers won’t add up.
Both Affeldt and Luzano predicted that the focus of pay negotiations with
teachers in the coming year will be on the $4 billion in discretionary dollars,
outside of funding for the Local Control Funding Formula, that Gov. Jerry Brown
is proposing for K-12 schools next year. Brown is encouraging districts to use
the money to further implement the Common Core and new science standards. But
districts can use the money – technically repayment for past state-mandated
costs – however they want. Because it is one-time funding, vulnerable to cuts if
state revenue drops, Affeldt and Luzano cautioned against using it to make
multi-year salary commitments.
