Jody Drager

Staffing and Budget

As a member of the Council Leadership Team at Werner Elementary, I was an active

member in reviewing results from the 2017-2018 Werner Budget Survey for staff and parents
through Survey Monkey. The survey asked, “When considering the education of your child(ren),
please rate the importance of each these components. If one of the components does not apply
to you, please mark "N/A or Don't have enough info about this to respond." Please comment or
clarify your thoughts on the different components. The items considered were:
 Class Size
 Intervention Support
 Paraprofessional Support
 Specials (art, music, pe)
 Guidance and Counseling
 Office Administration
 Other
The top two priorities identified by staff AND parents were class size and full time specials. This,
in addition to the Unified Improvement Plan, was the driving force in determining budget
allocations and staffing decisions. Hayden Camp, principal, was very committed to allocating
available funds to the identified priorities.

On March 10th we received a Budget Memo from the district. It outlined the preliminary
student-based budget allocations for the 2017-18 fiscal year. Hayden and John (Assistant
Principal) and I met to review all documents. I believe about 5% of the information sunk in for me
at that time, but over the next three weeks we met numerous times to review the documents and
the process. On March 17th the district sent the finalized budget allocation for Werner. We were
able to see exactly how the amount of dollars allocated to our site was determined by using the
projected enrollment for the 2017-18 school year, the base per pupil funding amount, the factors
used in the current Student-Based Budget model, and the number of students at our school
identified with characteristics meeting those factors. Based on actual October count, our school’s
Student-Based Budget allocation will be updated. The actual allocation may be higher or lower
than the preliminary allocation, and funding will be adjusted accordingly.
I learned that each school in PSD is given a Preliminary Student Based-Budgeting Allocation
(referred to on the form with arrow “A”) and an Averaged Calculation (referred to on the form
with arrow “B”). Each building principal decides which they will utilize. The SBB is subject to True
Up after October count, but the averaged calculation is not. Hayden led us in the decision to go
with the Averaged Calculation allocation. Although the SBB allocation was higher, the Averaged
Calculation does not run the risk of having to pay money back. This was the first time I had been
exposed to this type of work, but this way of thinking made sense to me.
The total allocation will be used to address both “staffing” and “operating” needs at
Werner. The budget must be distributed between budget for “compensation” and budget for
“operating expenditures”, i.e., supplies, materials, printing, repairs and maintenance, etc.
Experience has shown actual school “operating” budgets may vary based on specific site decisions
and historical needs. Allocations will be available on July 1, 2017.
Our next step was to begin working on the School Compensation Plan Template, in Excel
format. It is every school’s primary budget planning tool. The template was pre-populated with
Werner’s Calculations. It includes the 2017-18 SBB budget allocation, 2010 Mill Levy allocation,
special education allocation, operating expenditures, licensed and classified expenditures and
carryover amounts. It was actually a very user friendly tool which allowed us to play around with
numbers. We could change the number of tracks in a grade level, numbers of teachers and
classified staff, etc. and it would automatically calculate the total costs. I compare it a bit to an
unsolvable puzzle. Each time we thought we found the answer, we realized it threw something
else off and put us in the red. We created two staffing plans to present to the staff. Hayden told
me that creating too many options for the staff to decide between has caused problems in his
experience.

Werner Staffing Options 2017-2018

Current Plan Option A

2016-2018 2017-2018
(Class sizes based next school count)

Classroom K- 4 (2 FD, 2 HD) K- 4 (3 FD, 1 HD) (19) Hire .5 for Full or Half
1st- 3 1st- 3 (23)
2nd- 4 2nd- 3 (20)
3rd- 4 3rd- 4 (23)
4th- 4 4th- 4 (24)
5th- 4 5th- 4 (25)

Specialists Art- 100% Art- 100%

Music- 100% Music- 100%
PE- 100% PE- 100%
Media/Library- 100% Media/Library- 100%
Counselor-80% Counselor-80%
 Literacy Intervention- Literacy Intervention- 100%
100%
G/T- 80%
G/T- 80%
AP/TOSA (MTSS/SAC)-100%
AP/TOSA (MTSS/SAC)-
100%

Classified Office Man.- 8 hr. Office Man.- 8 hr.

Secretary/Health Tech- 8 Secretary/Health Tech- 8 hr.
hr.
Instructional Paras
Instructional Paras
 3 @ 6 hr.
 3 @ 6 hr.  Math/Para-6 hr.
 Math/Para-6hr.  Literacy- 6 hr.
 Literacy- 6 hr.  FD Kind. - 6 hr. (FD funds)
 FD Kind. - 6 hr. Media Tech/Para-6.5 hr.
(FD funds)
Media Tech/Para-6.5 hr.
Sped Para 1-3 hr. (READ
Funds)

Operating $65,000 $65,000

Expenses

Grade Sizes
Next School Count (as of 3/10/17) K-76 1st-69 2nd-61 3rd-89 4th-95 5th-98 Total-488
Projected K-68 1st-72 2nd-69 3rd- 86 4th-99 5th-96 Total-490

The next step was where it got even trickier because we were not only talking numbers
but also people. People who have families and rely on their jobs. The staffing meeting for the
staff (certified and classified) was not terribly stressful since there were not big changes being
proposed from this year to next. But, it did leave two probationary teachers without positions at
Werner for the upcoming year. Hayden did meet with those teachers ahead of the staff meeting
to share the plan. I did not attend those individual meetings, as we did not feel that was
professional or appropriate. At the staff meeting there was time for discussion after the plans
were presented. Discussions came up about full day vs. half day kindergarten and how an
additional full day would need another classroom. Obviously, this would cause a domino effect
for other classrooms. We took feedback from all certified and classified staff and no final
decisions were made at the meeting. We met to review all input later and it was decided to
move forward with Option A with a third full day kindergarten. This supported the lower class
sizes and full time specials identified as priority in the staff/parent surveys and UIP.