The D.C. Council vented frustration yesterday about crumbling schools and hundreds of potential teacher layoffs by saying the city could find money by eliminating high-paying salaries and jobs in the school system’s central administration office.
“It’s never about that big, humongous central administration office,” said D.C. Council member Kwame Brown, at-large Democrat. “I want to see some additional cost savings there before we start laying off teachers.”
The discussion came before the council narrowly rejected a proposal by council member Kathy Patterson, Ward 3 Democrat, to use $10.7 million from other city agencies to help avoid the layoffs.
Mrs. Patterson, chairman of the council’s Committee on Education, Libraries and Recreation, said in a memo to council members this week that the need for layoffs arose after officials discovered scheduled salary increases were not included in local school budgets.
Each school budget included a 3.07 percent increase for personnel costs, but the average salary increase for teachers is about 4.7 percent, she wrote.
Several council members who voted against Mrs. Patterson’s measure said they needed more time but vowed to avoid the layoffs before sending the city’s budget to Congress this summer. Mrs. Patterson said after the meeting that she is confident money will be found to avert the layoffs, estimated at 300.
Council member Vincent Orange, Ward 5 Democrat, said too little of the more than $1 billion in the school budget reaches classrooms while “central staff continue to have increases in their salary.”
He cited a report in The Washington Times earlier this month stating several central administrators are earning significantly higher salaries in 2005.
For example, former acting Superintendent Robert C. Rice is making $175,000 a year in a position created for him as a special assistant to new Superintendent Clifford B. Janey, records show. Last year, he earned $124,923 as an assistant superintendent for standards and curriculum.
Still, cutting salaries or jobs in the central administration will not cover the nearly $26 million that council members say is needed to avoid the layoffs, said Mary Levy of the Parents United for the D.C. Public Schools advocacy group.
“There’s not much there,” she said, adding that much of the central administration money is earmarked for essential items such as accounting systems.
School board salary schedules show that in 2005, 88.32 percent of the school system’s personnel funding went to employees in instructional jobs, 6.88 percent for support, 2.55 percent for central office and 2.25 percent for state support.
The council approved a proposal by council Chairman Linda W. Cropp to set aside about $11 million for a revolving fund to finance school repairs.
The measure also called for unused school buildings to be shut down or consolidated.
The council also is considering a proposal by council member Adrian Fenty, Ward 4 Democrat, calling for a $1 billion bond package to fix schools.
Mr. Fenty said Mrs. Cropp’s plan was more of a short-term fix while his addresses more long-term needs.
In addition, the school board yesterday passed a proposal to combine or “co-locate” underused schools.
The plan defines such schools as those with 250 empty seats or eight unused classrooms. One page attached to the report lists nine schools that fit into the category, officials said.
This article is based in part of wire service reports.
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