與 Devyn Dayley 一起享受理財樂趣，第四集：加薪障礙

In this new series, Superintendent Dau will discuss PCSD’s finances with the Business Administrator, Devyn Dayley. Tune in for their latest video update to stay informed on some of the key discussions concerning the financial side of Provo City School District.

Wendy Dau: The question I get a lot is how come some districts, it feels like, they can put more money towards a salary increase than say Provo can. Tell us where some of those differences are existing.

Devyn Dayley: So some of the differences and, and a lot of people hate the discussion of admin costs, but the issue that we have is we have a lot of legislatively required positions or required just for the sake of all of the reporting that’s required by the state and the federal government.

So you have yours and my positions are, are required legislatively. Then we have to have our staff that cuts checks, you know, pays people in payroll, deals with HR issues deals with all the student issues, special education. So there’s a lot of things that, that we have to have at every district. But a larger district may have to have less or they can spread that over more students.

Our district can actually develop relationships really closely with a lot of our principals, where in other districts they may see their supervisor wants every two or three months. That’s true. And it’s difficult to do any, any mentoring or any things that need to change because they’re not able to get to as many people.

So it’s a positive and a negative on ours just because it does look like our admin costs are higher and they probably are per student because we do have to have all of these positions in place.

Wendy Dau: All positions.

Devyn Dayley: And there’s less students to spread that over.

Wendy Dau: Yeah. I was trying to explain to somebody, like just the school safety bill alone and the, and the requirements of doing needs assessments and for school safety and doing the armed guardian training and coordinating all of those pieces, that doesn’t just fall to one person.

And so there’s different individuals in all of the different reporting requirements. You’re gonna have to have that no matter what. And so that isn’t a cost that we can save as a result. And the reason we put that in the district is because really, really small districts actually shove that onto the school.

And it’s the principal that actually is often helping with that, or different principals are picking up those duties. We don’t want our schools to be burdened with those things. We want somebody in the district office to be supporting all of the schools in that process. So that they can really take care of instruction.

Devyn Dayley: Well, and we really wanna make sure that it’s kind of equitable across the district. If one principal’s in charge of it at one school and then they another school passes it off to another person ’cause they don’t have the time, It does make a difference in the ability to have equal positions and be able for those principals to do what we really want them to do and what we need them to do.

And so a lot of that, I mean, you have the School Guardian Program and you know, very specific requirements that it can’t be a teacher or a principal and, and so there has to be someone in that school building all day, every day. From first bell to last bell. And so that, that is, that’s a cost to the district.

Unless they go and, and, contract it out. A lot of the smaller school districts are going with their sheriff’s department or with their police department. And while we love our relationship with our police department, just to have the six officers that we have, six or seven is, is almost half a million dollars.

And to be able to have someone whose first priority is not the city, ’cause they still have to respond to any city emergency’s beyond what anything in the school district is that would be a challenge. So that’s an expense that. We have to pick up this year to be able to make sure we are following that mandate and making sure that it’s all taken care of.

Yeah, so we don’t have a finding from the state. Then their first recourse is always to withhold funding if we don’t do what they say. We really try hard, not just because the state says ’cause we do really wanna have a safe place for the school, the students to be and to be able to, to have it recognized that we’re really working on safety in our schools.

But it is a requirement and so it does add a little bit of burden and putting that on someone at the district that can kind of oversee and make sure that every school is doing it is really important.

Wendy Dau: One of the things that happens is we can’t just keep going into a fund balance or continue to raise taxes all the time to close this salary gap. So what are some other things that we have to look at when you have a finite level of resources? Because some of the things that we start looking at are some of these programs and we have to say, is this an, is this a want or is this a need? And what are the benefits that are coming from that?

What are some of the things that we’re looking at as part of that?

Devyn Dayley: That’s a great comment because that is something that we need to look at. One of the first things I get from people, if we’re doing any kind of tax increases, what are you getting rid of?

Wendy Dau: Yes. They will always ask that.

Devyn Dayley: And you know, when we did the restructure a couple years ago, a lot of people said, well, you, you added a bunch of people. And we said, no, we took a lot of admin. Our admin costs have gone down over the last couple years. ’cause we took the pieces that were at the district and put ’em out at the schools where they could get that support.

Now a lot of those positions at the schools, some people say, is that necessary? We look at everything and make sure that it’s necessary. But we do recognize that a lot of those positions are actually moving a needle that we’ve needed moved in in the district for a while, but we’ll look at every program we have comments about people saying we don’t need social workers at all of the schools.

Yeah. You know, and the cost of social workers at each of the schools is a little over $2 million.

温迪-道没错

Devyn Dayley: But that’s also something as you go around to the schools and find out what’s working in the school.

Wendy Dau: I know they keep telling me how awesome it is, yes.

Devyn Dayley: We’re so grateful to have the social workers who can help us with some of the behavior issues and some of the family issues that they’re having. So we take a step back and say, okay, is this program really working and is it necessary? But then when we hear about all of the anecdotal stories about how it is working, it is something that’s difficult to say that’s the first thing on our chopping block.

You know, we’ve got the music teachers. Yeah, we’ve got dual immersion. Yeah. You know, dual language immersion costs the district a lot of money just because of the requirements to have the number of teachers we need at each of the schools. That’s right. Plus to be able to continue the regular ed at each of those schools.

So it is a challenge when we’re working with those programs and I, I mean, there is. We look at everything. You know, you look at athletics, you’ve got coaches for all of the sports. I mean, there’s always talk about, well, you don’t need sports in school. And, and-

Wendy Dau: Oh, I would love for them to tell that to the, the community too. That would, that would be an awesome, fun conversation.

Devyn Dayley: That would be something that I think the community would not really like to have the sports taken off the off, but that just for the coaches, it’s about a million dollars every year that we’re paying to make sure that the kids have appropriate supervision.

That they have people to help ’em teach the skills and to be able to help those kids develop their into really good athletes. And so my kids, were all athletes in school, so I understand what the benefits of ed, of the athletic part is, is, but I, I just wanna make sure when we’re doing that, that it’s not the only, the only focus that we make sure that that is, that is primarily in the instruction.

Wendy Dau: Well, and we have individuals who talk about, you know, why do we pay for an athletic director, for example, at each school? And when you think about the number of events that they’re coordinating in terms of transportation officials making sure coaches are certified, setting up, taking down, like I think once we counted it’s, it’s something like probably over 250 events in a given year that they’re, that they’re handling. And I wanna sometimes say to people, when was the last time you managed 6,000 per, you know, spectators on your campus for an event like that is a big deal. Yeah. I mean, that’s your, that is your athletic director that is coordinating all of those different pieces.

Devyn Dayley: Yeah. And they’re, they’re super important to be able to make sure that we are following the rules.

Wendy Dau: Yeah, no kidding.

Devyn Dayley: With USHAA they’re, they’re definitely our liaison with that and making sure that parents are, have questions answered. They, they have a lot of responsibility to make sure that those athletic programs are running smoothly.

Wendy Dau: Yeah, I agree. I think about things like maybe Camp Big Springs, people don’t realize, as, you know, probably over $300,000 and is a very popular program and is a huge tradition in Provo City School District. There’s just pieces like that that have to be examined at some point to say is, is this really something that we need?

When we go to the public and say, we need some more money to help payer teachers, they’re saying, they ask me two questions. One is what are you cutting? Like what are you willing to give up? And two is where’s your data that shows that when we put in this extra money, it’s actually leading to higher student performance?

That’s the one that creates the greatest anxiety for me because I know our people are working really hard. I don’t always have those numbers that really are as reflective as I want them to be in terms of the work that our employees are doing.

Devyn Dayley: Right. And when you look at tradition outside of singing from Fiddler on the Roof, I would say that traditional activities are some of the hardest things to get rid of.

Oh yeah. ’cause you have people that are generational and Provo who they went to Camp Big Springs when they were young. Yeah. And so the idea of losing that for their kids, that’s. That’s a big deal. Yeah. They want their kids to be able to experience that because that is part of the initiation into sixth grade. You know, and I get those kinds of programs, but again, you know, it is a few hundred thousand dollars and while that does seem like a small amount, that still is almost a percent in in our salary schedule. You know, when you’re looking at that.

Wendy Dau: Well, and I try to explain to people too, the cost of a teacher with benefits and salary average is just under a hundred. Just under a hundred thousand dollars. Right. So when you’re looking at that $300,000, that’s. Three teachers. So think about if you’re adding three fifth grade teachers, granted there’s 13 elementary school, but if I’m adding those three, you know, there might be some fifth grade teachers out there that are like, oh my gosh, I had a class of 32 and it would’ve been, and all of us did.

It would’ve been really great to have another teacher. That’s just something to keep in mind, right. As we think about that.

Devyn Dayley: And when you look at the class sizes and when we were talking about what we were different. Than other districts. That is one thing. I mean, our, our class sizes in our, in our K-6 are, well, especially in our 4-6, are much smaller than our districts.

Wendy Dau: Yeah, I have noticed that.

Devyn Dayley: Yeah. And so when you look at the graph showing, you know, these are the class sizes and is there a way to, to create data and see what that looks like if a large class has higher growth than a smaller class? That’s a really difficult thing to look because there are so many different data points that you’d have to look at.

You know, what, how long the teacher’s been there, what kinds of kids are there, what is the highly impacted total in the classroom? So that I, I don’t know that you’d get a really accurate number, even across districts of what that would look like because it’s, there’s so many other things than just the instruction that you’re, that you’re dealing with when trying to find the data.

Wendy Dau: Well, and I think and granted I’m speaking purely from my experience as a high school teacher. But I often had class sizes of 42 or 44. And if you were gonna tell me, oh, I can lower your class sizes by four and then, and then that’s gonna eat up this percent of your salary, be like. No, whether I have 42 or 44, just gimme the money.

I would rather have more students in my class. I get that. That’s not true when we’re talking about kindergarten or something like that. First off, we’re not talking about a number of 44, but at the same time, I do understand that 27 5 year olds are a very different situation.

Devyn Dayley: I don’t know that I would want to deal with 27 5 year olds.

So the kindergarten teachers in Provo School District deserve a medal. Yeah, but I, I also have to. Take into consideration that the kindergarten change would only impact kindergarten teachers and a lot of the, the teachers across the district are feeling a pinch about something.

Wendy Dau是的，沒錯。

Devyn Dayley: You know, whether it’s the behavior in their classroom, the number of kids in their classroom, the number of, of sections of different classes they have to teach.

You know, everybody feels the, the pressure about something.

Wendy Dau: Well, and and just to be clear, there are very few schools that have kindergarten class sizes of that size.

德文-戴利正確。

Wendy Dau: So I think our actual class size average is under 22.

Devyn Dayley: It is.

Wendy Dau: For our kindergarten classes, and we have some that are as small as 15. And, and some of that comes down to the principle and how they’re using Trust Lands funds, TSSA funds their discretionary budgets. And, and sometimes they make those choices because I know I have a teacher who can handle 27 kids, and I might have an intern or a brand new teacher that’s sitting in this grade level, and so I do need to make a conscious choice to maybe make their class sizes smaller, whereas this person who has 15 years of experience, those are choices that principals are also wrestling with.

I think it’s important that they’re helping their teachers understand why they’re arriving at the decisions that they are, including them in that process goes a long ways too. So it doesn’t just feel like it was just arbitrary or they’re not understanding that. Right? I think that becomes important.

Is there anything that you wish that, you know, our employees would understand or know or that sometimes you feel like we’re not good at communicating with ’em about?

Devyn Dayley: I think that we do a pretty good job communicating, but what I wish that they’d understand is we really do care about employee salaries.

This is not an issue of, you know, we’re hoarding money or we’re trying to keep it from, from employees. I know there’s some people on a different level, not in our district who say that districts just hold onto money and don’t care about increasing teacher salaries.

Wendy Dau: I have no idea who you’re talking about, Devyn.

Devyn Dayley: Across the state. There are, when I talk to BAs, that is one of the first things that they wanna do is increase teacher salaries. Yeah. And make sure that that is competitive and enough to raise a family. Yeah. Because the, that cost to raise a family in the state of Utah has increased quite a bit over the last few years, especially in the, the more urban areas like Provo, Orem, and Salt Lake.

Yeah. So it’s a lot harder to do it on one income and so you end up with a lot of people who leave the teaching profession because they can make more outside of the teaching profession.

Wendy Dau是的，沒錯。

Devyn Dayley: And to be able to make it something that’s more viable and to have some really good people who I’ve seen awesome teachers have to leave because they need to take care of a family.

That is something that I would love for them to understand is really important for us.

Wendy Dau: Yeah. I also think it’s important to note, I don’t feel like that this happens in Provo, but I feel like outsiders talk about principal salaries or administrators in schools and how much money they make. And I just wanna assure people that our administrators are not making as much as they are in other districts, and that when you start looking at.

Because of the number of days that they work and the amount of supervision that they’re doing outside of that that, that our teachers actually are making probably technically a higher hourly rate than some of our administrators.

And I loved what Christie Giblon said when she said, we actually want our administrators to be paid well, ’cause we want to keep our good administrators because it makes the lives of our teachers and our kids better. And I think, I think if I could say something that I want everybody to know, it’s that I want everybody to feel like you’re seen, you’re valued. We can pay you. And, and it feels like it’s worth it to be here at work for, you know, at least for the money, but also just ’cause it’s awesome and, and there are so many benefits of being in a small district there.

Devyn Dayley: There are. And this is a great district.

Wendy Dau：我同意。