Does Our System Make the Grade?
Study Points to Need for More Funding
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Does Our System Make the Grade?
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Oak Park School student
Andy Kieffer, left, watches classmate Jacob Brock edit their
class video in the school's video production
room.
(STAFF PHOTO/AMY SHARPE) |
We're a community that raises money to feed Romaine lettuce to manatees.
When a hospital in Venice was sold three years ago, the proceeds -- more than $100 million -- were donated to charity.
You could attend black-tie fund-raisers every weekend for six months if you had the money, time and energy.
By many standards, Sarasota County, with its legions of wealthy retirees and winter residents, certainly has embraced the concept of philanthropic giving.
Now a study released today says more of that giving should be focused on education. The study was done by SchoolMatch, an independent auditing firm hired to examine the Sarasota County School District four months ago.
Florida, with its historically low property taxes and abundance of part-time residents who pay few taxes here, has long underfunded its schools. The state Legislature uses a complex formula to dole out property tax receipts, trying to keep poor counties afloat while trying to recognize that wealthy districts, like Sarasota, can be more expensive places to live.
The result -- the Florida Education Finance Program -- seems to please no one, especially affluent counties that have to funnel money to poorer ones.
Sarasota County educators say they get frustrated seeing so much money slipping out of the district's hands. In 1997-98, three-quarters of Sarasota County's $167 million school budget -- the 15th-largest in the state -- came from locally generated property taxes. The Ocala-area district, with about the same budget and number of students, contributed only one-quarter of its funding.
SchoolMatch's conclusions echo what local educators have been saying for years: The district should press for more state funding, seek ways to raise its local tax rate and try to tap into more of the community's wealth.
Recognizing the flaws in the statewide funding formula for schools, Sarasota County went to court four years ago to raise its local property taxes and take advantage of the educationally supportive atmosphere here. Through individual school foundations, social service programs and other initiatives, the private sector in Sarasota County has been a willing partner.
But the Florida Supreme Court rebuffed Sarasota County's lawsuit, agreeing that the Legislature has the authority to limit property taxes -- a measure that keeps affluent districts like Sarasota from spending their way to academic excellence.
Nevertheless, Sarasota County has remained one of the best-funded school systems in the state. Its students outperform their peers nationwide and exceed SchoolMatch's rigorous bench marks in many areas, the report says.
The area's property-rich constituency and active and supportive community are among the reasons. And Sarasota County has been able to boost its funding in recent years by reporting high numbers of special-needs students -- gifted or handicapped children. They net the district more money -- $43 million next year -- because they cost more to educate.
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SchoolMatch findings, including report cards on Sarasota County's schools
How Florida funds its schools 1. School districts estimate how many full-time students they have and add extra points for gifted and handicapped students, who cost more to educate. EXAMPLE: Sarasota has 34,190 students, with a "weighted" special-needs addition of 10,932, for a total of 45,122. 2. The Department of Education revises the student estimates and multiplies that total by a standard base student allocation, which is the same for every district, and then by a cost-of-living factor, which varies county-by-county. This is the school district's gross annual budget. EXAMPLE: Sarasota County multiplies 45,122 by a base student allocation of $3,223 and a cost-of-living differential of 1.02 for a total annual allocation of almost $149 million. 3. The state tells the district how much of that the Legislature will fund and how much it must collect through local sources. EXAMPLE: Sarasota County will receive $22 million from the Legislature and will contribute $128 million from local sources, predominantly from property taxes. 4. Extra funding from various sources is added for a net annual budget. EXAMPLE: Sarasota County will get another $11 million from other local sources, such as the county sales tax and individual school fund-raising, and will receive about $14 million from other state funding, such as the lottery, for a net annual budget of $177 million. *Examples are based on budget projections for 1998-99. The Florida Education
This chart shows what percent of these school districts' projected 1998-99 budgets is comprised of local funding.
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But overall, as SchoolMatch concluded, the district still should be spending more money. With an average household income of $46,000, Sarasota County ranks with the wealthiest communities in the nation. The district spends $5,700 perpupil, which is below the national average of $6,100.
"The $9,000 per-pupil range would be more suitable based on Sarasota's wealth," SchoolMatch President and CEO William Bainbridge said. "People will say, 'That's pie-in-the-sky,' but it is possible."
Sharing the wealth
Given Sarasota's position as a wealthy county that helps bolster the poorer ones and the Supreme Court's decision to reject more local taxing authority, the district would be wise, SchoolMatch said, to look even harder at the local community's philanthropic nature. Not just to fill gaps, but to fund everyday needs.
Local taxes account for about half of the Sarasota County School District's annual budget, which last year totaled more than $322 million. The rest came from capital funds carried over from previous years ($60 million), state funding ($49 million), federal sources ($12 million), county sales tax ($8 million), state lottery ($7 million) and about $20 million from what school officials call "other local sources."
This last category includes interest income, revenues from the district's breakfast and lunch programs and about $7.5 million annually from the individual schools, which do their own fund-raising and help support athletic teams and other auxiliary programs. Booster clubs and PTOs, for example, raise money for everything from athletic equipment to field trips.
"We raised more than $15,000 last year," for everything from holiday parties to school jackets, said Stacey Wright, past president of the North Port Glenallen Elementary School PTO. "It's majorly important for the schools."
SchoolMatch agrees this kind of support is crucial, and parents and other boosters are contributing a great deal to the Sarasota school system. But the problem is many of the families with children in school are working-class or low-income. The wealth is concentrated among retirees and seasonal residents who tend not to have children in school, highlighting the importance of actively recruiting their financial support.
"You have great wealth, but it's not necessarily in the homes of children in schools," said Bainbridge, who led the team of SchoolMatch's auditors in scrutinizing Sarasota County schools. "We encourage the school district to go to places like Longboat Key and find some of these folks with a lot of expertise and use some of their bountiful resources to get involved."
From an educator's perspective, local residents can be invaluable resources -- often in unusual ways.
"When schools reach out to a community, that builds trust for what's going on in the schools," said George Pawlas, a professor of educational leadership at the University of Central Florida. If you say, 'I can't do it because I don't have the resources,' the resources will come."
Pawlas literally wrote the book on schools finding ways to get their communities more involved -- "The Administrator's Guide to School-Community Relations."
He said communities such as Sarasota -- surrounded by wealth but not necessarily by wealthy parents with kids in school -- should seek every opportunity to tap into the wealth, whether for tutors, chaperones or volunteer teachers.
"You can't put a price tag on involvement," he said.
Local officials point to numerous signs that such cross-community connections are already taking place. Four community foundations and the Herald-Tribune paid for the SchoolMatch audit, to cite one obvious example.
"Our community has been very supportive," School Board chairwoman Janice Mee said.
Getting more for their money
In addition to tapping community resources, Sarasota for more than a decade has taken advantage of a state funding formula that links aid to students' needs. Based on the number of students in school, it allows districts to pad that number by giving extra weight to "exceptional students" who cost more to educate.
A student in grades 4 through 8, with no special needs or disabilities, who attends school 180 days a year is counted as a full-time student, worth $3,223 apiece. Children in grades K-3 or 9-12 count as more than one student, and special-needs students who get above and beyond standard instruction, such as gifted or handicapped kids, count even more.
In 1997-98, Sarasota had 33,309 students, but received funding as if it had 44,061 students because of the weight of its special-needs students. Sarasota's was among the state's highest special-needs enrollments. In fact, it was so high the state would not pay for 513 students who exceeded the limit.
The $1.7 million shortfall forced the district to implement a hiring freeze, local school officials say.
In the upcoming academic year, district officials again expect to have 460 more special-needs students than the state normally would fund. However, newly enacted legislation that provides partial funding for exceptional students above the cap will cushion the blow of Sarasota's $3.3 million loss in funding.
Meeting the mean
SchoolMatch's suggestion that Sarasota spend 60 percent more money on education belies a larger problem, one that stretches from Pensacola to Jacksonville to Key West.
A 1997 Council of State Governments survey said Florida spends less on education than the national average and ranked it 26th in per-student spending.
The survey's authors concluded that state governments, including Florida's, should make an effort to move away from leaning on the local property tax as the major source of revenue and consider taxing systems that allow local, wealthier communities to impose taxes for additional funds as they see fit.
Delaware and North Carolina, both of which spend more per-student than Florida, for example, guarantee an equal amount of money per student and per teacher. And Kansas enacted a bill in 1996 that cut property taxes, but allowed districts to raise extra money by levying other local taxes.
Florida, with its extremes of wealth and poverty, bolsters its education funding primarily through the Florida Lottery and general revenues. Local property taxes will account for nearly $4 billion of the state's $9.7 billion Florida Education Finance Program. In 1998-99, lottery proceeds will add $810 million to that.
But as more lottery money has been funneled to local districts, other revenues have shriveled. When the lottery started 10 years ago, education spending was nearly 60 percent of the state's general budget. In 1998-99, it represents about 50 percent.
Administrators say that even if they "win" their annual battle for funds, there's still not enough money to fund their education needs.
The Legislature last year agreed to put an extra $2 billion into building or renovating school facilities to ease an overcrowding crunch. Trouble is, Dade County alone needs at least that much to house the students it has now.
In other high-growth areas, like Sarasota, district officials long ago conceded they don't -- and won't -- have enough money for everything they want.
"We should get more money, but every year it's a battle with the Legislature. I've never seen anything like this state. There's not a law on the books that is stable," said Sarasota schools budget director Bruce Monson.
Mee, who tracks legislation for the district, said Sarasota County will suffer as long as the state continues to "legislate everybody down to a mean."
"The state insists on trying to find additional dollars to reduce the discrepancy between high and low districts," Mee said. "That means more for districts at the bottom, which is good, but a compression for the districts on top."
Sarasota and 10 other districts contribute more local funding than they receive from the state, earning them the moniker "donor county." Only Collier and Monroe counties have higher local-state funding gaps.
Easier said than done
Sarasota levied the maximum 8.947 mills in 1997, including the maximum 2 mills allowed for capital spending and the 6.347 mills that all school districts across the state levy. That tax rate was about the same as the previous year, and is about the same as the 1998-99 projection.
But because Sarasota's property tax base continues to grow in value, the amount of money collected will increase. According to state figures, property in Sarasota County in 1997 had a taxable value of $19.1 billion; in 1998, that total is projected to rise to $20.3 billion -- a 6 percent increase.
But to outside observers, like SchoolMatch's Bainbridge, the problem isn't just the districts' inability to control their tax rates. It also matters that some parts of Florida are more expensive places to live.
Florida uses a cost-of-living price index to adjust its education formula. For example, the state multiplies every dollar Sarasota should get based on the number of students it has by 1.023, resulting in a cost-of-living increase of about 2 percent. Seven other counties -- Broward, Collier, Dade, Hillsborough, Martin, Monroe, Palm Beach and Pinellas -- also receive cost-of-living boosts.
But is a 2-percent difference enough to compensate for Sarasota's higher cost of living? Teachers here have the fourth-highest average salaries in the state, at $36,777. Only Broward, Collier, Dade and Palm Beach counties paid their teachers more in 1997, according to the state Education Department.
"The Legislature in Florida doesn't take into account living costs the way other states do. It's obviously more expensive to live and work in Orlando or Sarasota than it does in the hinterlands. Teachers expect higher salaries because they have to find a place to live," Bainbridge said.
The auditor concedes that education finance -- in Sarasota and across the nation -- is a complicated subject that won't be solved overnight. The mixture of property taxes, other local and state funding sources and legislative appropriations leaves local districts -- from the richest to the poorest -- piecing together budgets that meet their needs where they can.
"This is all easy to say," Bainbridge said, "but difficult to do."