PROP. 223: VOTERS SHOULD CAP SCHOOLS' SPENDING ON ADMINISTRATION.

Byline: Day Higuchi

PROPOSITION 223 is the California Educational Efficiency Act, popularly known as 95/5. It caps nonschool administrative expenditures in California school districts at 5 percent of total expenditures from all revenue sources. This would shift more than $700,000,000 statewide to direct services to students, school-site personnel and school-site facilities, without a tax increase and with guarantees that the bulk of all new increases in school spending will go to direct student services.

If ever there was a need for 95/5, it is now. Unless otherwise indicated, the figures I am about to cite come either from the State Department of Finance or from LAUSD's own reports.

Since 1992, the percentage of the LAUSD's restricted and unrestricted general fund budget that is spent on nonschool management functions has varied from a high of 8.3 percent to the current 7.3 percent, which is actually 6.7 percent if one counts Proposition BB funds spent this year.

But consider what this really means. The LAUSD budget has expanded by 30 percent - from $3.8 billion to $5.6 billion - over that period. Nonsite administrative spending has increased from $280 million in 1994 to $450 million this year.

Therefore, LAUSD is spending $170 million more on nonsite administration today than in 1994. Within those same nonschool administrative functions, there has been a shift toward increased spending on district administration and instructional administration - i.e., downtown and cluster bureaucracies - at the expense of school-site administration, the people who are supposed to help make our schools run more efficiently.

In 1991, for example, the district spent 3.4 percent on district and instructional administration and 6.7 percent on school administration, but in 1996 it spent 4.7 percent on district and instructional administration and only 5.6 percent on school administration. Money was taken away from school sites and shifted downtown.

Besides the usual cluster administrators and their retinues and added positions in the usual places, many of the new expenditures come in the form of consultants. Just to lobby City Hall, the LAUSD hired two different consultants at a cost of $168,500 - this when the district already has a large Office of Government Relations. The district also spent more than $300,000 on Proposition BB polling. The last time the 99/5 campaign did a statewide poll on our initiative, it cost only $40,000.

Statewide the problem is even worse. There has been a net increase in nonschool management expenditures as a percentage of school district budgets. In 1992 the average nonsite administration spending for elementary districts in the state was 9.05 percent. By 1996 that had grown to 9.186 percent. For high school districts nonsite administrative spending had jumped from 9.142 percent in '92 to 9.525 percent in '96. For unified districts the increase was from 8.601 percent to 8.837 percent.

Is the 5 percent cap on nonschool management costs an impossible standard to meet? No. It is actually higher than the national average of 4.8 percent. Every year School Business Affairs, a magazine that reports how lean and mean school districts are, publishes a national survey of school district administrative costs. This annual survey conducted by Educational Research Services showed that the 1996 average for America's public school districts was 4.8 percent for nonschool administration. Other nations and nonpublic systems have no trouble meeting the 5 percent cap.

Is it too difficult for small districts to meet the goal? No. There are scores of districts of all sizes that are already below or within 1 percent of the 5 percent cap. There are 41 school districts with 500 or fewer students that have already been under the 5 percent cap. Besides, the entire initiative will be a waivable addition to the Education Code. Any district can obtain a waiver from the State Board of Education if it makes a case - in public, in the light of day - that it has made a good effort to meet the 5 percent cap, but circumstances beyond its control have made it impossible to meet the 5 percent goal.

The opponents of 95/5, in their ballot argument, claim that because of Proposition BB the LAUSD will be in compliance while the rest of the state's districts will be out of compliance. What nonsense! There are dozens of districts all over the state that are already in compliance. And even with Proposition BB funds, the LAUSD says it will have to shift $74.9 million from nonschool administration to direct services to kids. That's an increase of about $100,000 per school per year in increased services to our students. And all this without a tax increase.

Why will we always need 95/5? Those with the power to spend the money always spend it on themselves and those who report to them. Vote Yes on Proposition 223, because 223 is 95/5.