Intercepts
A listening post monitoring public education and teachers’ unions.

Apparently Indiana taxpayers are so rotten with cash that they spent almost $94 million last year for 16,315 public school students who are corporally challenged. They have ceased to be. They are ghosts.

Indiana school districts are funded according to enrollment. Each additional student brings additional funding. But when a student leaves the district, the money doesn’t leave. The district continues to receive funding for that student, at a declining rate, for an additional three years.

This is known as the “de-ghoster.”

The money is needed, say supporters like state Sen. Earline Rogers, D-Gary, because school corporations have to pay for programs and fixed expenses that continue even if enrollment drops.

“It’s not money that’s being wasted, it’s money that’s being used by those students that are left,” said Rogers, a former Gary school teacher.

One wonders if, when one of Sen. Rogers’ staffers quits, she divides that staffer’s salary and benefits among her remaining staffers.

Not everyone in the legislature thinks this is a good use of public funds.

“That’s just absolutely horrendous that we’re spending $94 million on students that don’t even exist,” said state Rep. Terry Goodin, D-Crothersville.

The marginal costs of educating students cuts both ways. If fixed costs don’t automatically drop with the loss of one student, then they don’t automatically rise with the addition of one student. I doubt supporters of the de-ghoster would like a system where the state phased in full funding for new students over a period of three years.

One thing’s for sure: If school districts receive an extra $94 million, they find a way to spend it.

Members of the Oklahoma Education Association, through their national union, are financing a ballot measure that could raise the taxes of Oklahomans by as much as $1.7 billion over three years.

At the same time, OEA and its local in Norman are suing the school district on behalf of nine teachers for withholding $355.12 in payroll taxes from their $5,000 national certification bonus from the state. Evidently the union “also has filed similar lawsuits against Moore, Putnam City, Yukon, Muskogee school districts, with others in the works.”

Until 2008, a flat bonus of $5,000 was mailed directly from the state to the teachers. Then the IRS intervened, ruling Social Security and Medicare tax (FICA) needed to be withheld. For the past two years, the state sent the $5,000 bonus to the school district for each nationally certified teacher, plus an additional amount to cover FICA. This year, the state only sent $5,000.

“That’s all I received,” said Brenda Burkett, chief financial officer for the Norman school district. “I just purely received the money and paid out what they gave me — even if I had all the money in the world, it still isn’t my district’s obligation to pay that employer cost for the state department.”

Burkett sent an e-mail to teachers in February explaining the situation.

“It was Sanskrit to me,” said high school teacher Betsy Ballard. ”I have no ability to understand financial vocabulary that way. I’m a fine arts and language person.”

The Norman district has filed a motion to dismiss. The case is scheduled to be heard next month.

Dateline – Springfield, Illinois:

Someone tried to burglarize an office belonging to the Illinois Education Association during the weekend.

Police said a knife was used to cut out a window screen on the south side of the building at 100 E. Edwards St., but the window was locked and the burglar was unable to get inside the building. 

 

The failed burglary happened sometime between Friday evening and about 8 a.m. Monday.

Click here to read:

1) 2010 Census Is Bad News for Unions

2) All District Spending Tables Posted (Finally!)

3) Cutting Out the Middleman

4) Indiana State Teachers Association Loses in Court Again

5) Hire the Misinformed!

6) Last Week’s Intercepts

7) Quotes of the Week

File this one under “Know Your Contract.”

The school district collective bargaining agreement in Saugerties, New York, contains a thirty-year-old provision that puts laid-off teachers on a preferred list for substituting. It also specifies the per-diem salary to be paid – 1/180th of the minimum full-time teacher salary, which last year was $49,113.

It means that any laid-off Saugerties teacher who substitutes in his or her certification area (elementary school for elementary teachers, etc.) will receive $272.85 per day. That’s good for them, but not so good for the district, which normally pays substitutes $85-$95 per day.

The reason the discrepancy hasn’t been an issue before is because the district hasn’t laid off teachers in 30 years. “It’s really uncharted territory,” said school district Superintendent Seth Turner.

This sort of arrangement is not unheard of. In Riverside, California, a laid-off tenured teacher who works consistently as a sub receives the same daily pay as if he or she were still full-time.

The New York Times reports:

More than 100 House Democrats, including leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, have signed a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposing the use of food stamp money to pay for the expansion of child nutrition programs. Labor unions, including the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and the National Education Association, and women’s groups have sent similar letters.

How dare they cut food stamp benefits to pay for child nutrition programs! Don’t they know that money is sacrosanct?

You know, it would have been nice to see this continuing stream of edujobs stories before the bill was passed and signed into law.

Add Wisconsin, Idaho and Montana to the list of states that aren’t really sure what to do with the money. As of September 10, not a single state had distributed the federal funds to school districts for expenditures.