Benchmarking the Seattle School District’s Administrative Costs

Melissa Westbrook;

I attended 4 hours of the Board Work Session on the 2011-2012 Budget. Unfortunately, the meeting was 5+ hours (maybe longer, Dorothy?) It was taped so I will try to get a link if you care to listen.

I will write up my notes but for your reading pleasure here are the following:

  • staff finally got information to the Board that I know the Board has wanted for a long time. This would be benchmarking comparisons to other districts (both local and out-of-state). This chart is for 2009-2010 expenditures and FTE comparisons in dollars.
  • This chart is for 2009-2010 expenditures and FTE comparisons (as a % of total)

My irritation with these is that this is information that should have been presented LONG ago. It overburdened an already long and heavily detailed meeting.

The Powerpoint and another document – the Strategic Plan Budget Planning Tool for Fiscal Year 2011-2012 – are not yet up at the website. You’ll want to see those as well but for now, the above charts should keep you busy. The Fiscal document really is key because it gets to the heart of the Strategic Plan.