LJWorld.com

It doesn't make sense.

Schools districts all across the state scraped together enough cash last year to give their teachers some kind of raise in pay. But in ever-prosperous Lawrence, teachers were told the school district's cupboard was bare.

No money, no raises.

How can that be?

"That's what people want to know," said Sam Rabiola, president of the Lawrence teachers union.

And why is it, he asked, that Johnson County schools can give regular raises and Lawrence can't?

Interviews with more than a dozen local and state officials show that USD 497's budget is, in many ways, worse off than most, despite the community's general prosperity.

Some of the district's troubles are tied to past resistance to cutting popular programs that, in other districts, have freed up money for teacher salaries. Others are due to university-town demographics and quirks in the state's school finance formula.

"There's not one thing that's causing this," said school board member Sue Morgan. "It's a combination of things."

Among the contributing factors:

Teachers' union criticizes legislative 'shell game' (03-01-05) Board offers to increase salaries at a cost of $1 million to district Teacher pay raise negotiations begin Draft of offer made by board team (Word document)

• In the past five years, USD 497's enrollment has fallen from roughly 10,000 full-time students to about 9,700.

Fewer students means less state aid.

School officials have pinned much of this decline on a corresponding rise in home schooling and on more private and parochial schools becoming available.

"We're dealing with a nonpublic school presence that wasn't here six or seven years ago," said Supt. Randy Weseman. "It's had an effect."

For every 100-student drop in enrollment, the district loses about $483,000.

This year's enrollment figures include a 167-student increase attributed to the district launching its Lawrence Virtual School. But Weseman said past declines had denied the district access to at least $4.5 million in state aid and Local Option Budget spending authority.

• On the face of it, the fact that Lawrence is one of the state's fastest-growing communities doesn't jibe with declines in enrollment.

But closer scrutiny of the city's demographics show the declines are typical of many university towns, said Jim Hays, a research specialist at the Kansas Association of School Boards.

"What's going on in Lawrence is going on in university towns all across the country. It's happening in Manhattan (Kan.) and in Columbia (Mo.) and in Champaign, Illinois, and in Madison, Wisconsin," Hays said.

"You're growing," he said, "but a good percentage of your growth is in (university) students and retirees -- baby boomers who loved their college experience and want to move back."

Neither group, Hays said, brings significant increases in public school enrollment.

"They're not of child-bearing age or propensity," he said. "Look at Manhattan (school district). It's lost enrollment every year for the last 11 years. By 2005-06, it will have lost one-third of its students. A lot of it's due to the volatility that comes with being so close to Fort Riley, but a good part of it's because the same things that are going on in Lawrence are going on there."

• Despite the district's budget woes, board members have refused make cuts that, while possible, would violate community standards many consider unique to Lawrence.

"I remind people that when the board looked at cutting sixth-grade band a couple years ago, half the community showed up for what turned out to be a 30-hour filibuster," Weseman said. "The message was pretty clear: There's a community standard here that says don't cut sixth-grade band."

Closures unpopular

The same standard, he said, applies to elementary school art classes and to maintaining small, neighborhood schools.

"We have two schools now -- New York and Cordley -- that are right at or below 150 students," Weseman said. "If you go to Johnson County, you won't find a single (public) school that small. Why? Because to maximize building efficiency you need to be at 500 to 650 students."

But in the aftermath of closing Centennial and East Heights neighborhood schools last year, board members say they're in no hurry to move on Cordley or New York.

"If we closed Cordley or New York, I can guarantee that people would come out of the woodwork to run against all of us, to stop us," said school board President Leni Salkind. "People are attached to their neighbors. I still hear from people who are upset over what happened at Centennial."

The district's special education programs, too, have a reputation for being among the best in the state.

"The bar is set pretty high here," said Bruce Passman, who oversees the district's special education programs.

In Lawrence, each autistic student, for example, has his or her own teaching paraprofessional working alongside.

"In other districts the ratio is closer to three students per paraprofessional," Passman said.

Money spent on these and other above-the-bar services and programs -- more than $3 million a year, Weseman said -- is not available for teacher salaries.

"We can't spend it twice," Weseman said. "I wish we could."

Sales taxes

Over the last three years, six school districts in Johnson County have divided more than $45 million from a three-year, quarter-cent sales tax passed in 2002.

Lawrence and Douglas County are blocked from enacting a similar tax for the Lawrence school district because they've reached the maximum sales tax -- 1 cent each -- allowed by state law. Johnson County in 2002 had not reached the maximum.

State law prohibits school districts from levying a sales tax on their own. Instead, they must go through their county or city, or seek special permission from the Legislature.

Lawrence, Douglas County and the district sought that permission last year.

"It failed," Weseman said. "Basically, the Kansas Association of School Boards came in and testified against it. They said it was disequalizing -- and I agree, it is. But when I'm drowning and somebody throws me a life preserver, I'm grabbing it."

If the proposed half-cent sales tax had passed in Douglas County, it would have added $5.8 million to the school district's $54 million general fund.

Johnson Co. vs. Doniphan

Johnson County school districts, Weseman said, can afford to give pay raises that Lawrence cannot.

But that's not Johnson County's fault, said Bob Vancrum, governmental affairs specialist for the Blue Valley school district.

"All six school districts in Johnson County are in the 15-percent quartile for lowest per-pupil expenditures in the state. We are not the problem," said Vancrum, a former legislator. "The problem is what's going in places like Doniphan County."

Doniphan County (pop. 8,249) includes parts or all of five school districts, each of which, in keeping with the state's school finance formula, receives more state aid per pupil than Blue Valley or Lawrence.

"The Legislature, collectively, needs to find the guts to say 'We're not paying for districts that are small by choice. We'll pay for Wallace County (two school districts, pop. 1,749) because kids shouldn't have to spend four hours on a bus every day, but we're not paying for the Doniphan counties.'"

Local teacher salaries

Last week, Lawrence school board members offered to guarantee the district's 850 teachers a salary "step increase" -- additional pay based on experience and/or postgraduate hours of education -- for both the current and 2005-06 school years.

As proposed, the increase, roughly 1.5 percent to 3 percent' is expected to cost the district almost $1 million -- $470,000 for this year, $507,000 next year.

If the Legislature increases the district's state aid, board members said they would use it to underwrite the increase; if the Legislature fails to act, they'll take the money from current spending.

"We don't have money sitting in a pile someplace," board member Morgan said. "We've already cut all-day kindergarten and intramurals, we've whittled away at the fine arts, and we've cut staff.

"It's all come down to choice and priorities," she said, "and I think we've made clear that teacher salaries are a top priority. But it's not going to be painless."

Teachers have yet to accept the board's offer.

"We have a few more questions," said Rabiola, the union president.

"Unfortunately, from our perspective, we're in a situation where we feel the budget is being balanced on the backs of teachers," he said. "There are no easy answers to this."

No more administrative cuts

Weseman said the district already has made major cuts in administrative costs.

"My first year here, I cut $400,000 in administrative positions," he said. "We had a dozen or so curriculum coordinators; I cut them down to two. Now we have one for math and sciences and one for the humanities -- people still hate me for that."

The district's central-office costs, Weseman said, add up to less than 1 percent of the district's budget.

"If you eliminated everybody in the district office -- me and all the directors -- you'd save about $1.1 million. That's about for a 3 percent raise for teachers for one year," he said. "Of course the problem with that is there wouldn't be anyone to pay them."

Rabiola acknowledged those cuts, but, he said, "There still are some who believe there's still room for improvement."