+1 Let's make sure we all vote at the next BOE election to ensure change towards transparency. As any change, it doesn't occur without CONSTANT pressure. If you are among those who thought electing Carol Lester was enough, think AGAIN.

Candice, that's the issue. JC BOE is top-heavy not just by business standards, but by school board standards.

The Board's budget figures do not allow you to really figure out which staff costs are truly administrative. That requires some in-depth digging across budget categories to sum up individual positions from within pie chart categories provided by the JC BOE administration.

But nationwide, districts manage an administrative cost of something like 10% of budget. And there's plenty of evidence which suggests that schools which spend more on administration deliver less in terms of education.

There are two obvious reasons why this would be so.

1) Money spent on administration is money not spent in the classroom. Parasitic administrations eat money that could be put to educational use.

2) An administration that is inefficient in managing itself is unlikely to be efficient in delivering education.

Quote: Regarding the admin: 2% of the workforce is getting 4% of the budget. Looking at the numbers taken from NJ.com here is a breakdown of salaries in the admin department. Look at the ratio of highly paid staff to non-highly paid staff. 81% of the expense is for people making 75,000 a year or more... Would like to know what businesses in JC are run with these kind of ratios...VERY top heavy

A tale of two graphs At last Tuesday's budget hearing, the Jersey City Board of Education's administration presented a handout which purported to describe its proposed 2011-2012 budget. While we presume it to be accurate, many have found it to be less than completely informative. It goes to some lengths to un-highlight the fact that it proposes an $11 million deficit and 300+ teacher layoffs, while not significantly cutting administrative positions. This article highlights another way to mislead by telling the truth. Page P-21 of the budget presentation consists of a pie chart labeled "Advertised Staffing," and showing the "slices" each staff area has of the system's total staff. Look how lean and frugal the administrative portions look - only 2% for school and district administration. The only problem is, the budget is a document about dollars. A more informative graph would show you how much is being spent in each staff area. Here you see that, when dollars are considered, the "administration" portion doubles, to 4% of the total budget, for only 110 positions. Administration plus support staff consumes a whopping 22% of the budget. High by any standard, and in line with Jersey City's unenviable position as the second worst district in the state for administrative costs as a proportion of spending. (104th out of 105 K-12 districts over 3500 students, source: NJ Dept. of Education 2010 Comparative Spending Guide, p.546. Page 186 in the online document.) The second graph was not included in the budget presentation, but provided by the Jersey City Board of Education on 3/25, pursuant to my question at the public hearing. You can draw your own conclusions about why a budget presentation would not show the budget impact of staffing. But it seems like another illustration of the old adage that when it comes to spinning data, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Carol, you make us proud that we elected school board members such as yourself and Sterling Waterman,when both of you post with such transparency as to how our school board reallyfunctions.

Everyone should remember to vote on April 27th!

+2

Quote:

+1

some more videos are there in youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/followjcboe#p/u/9/e_C5HC2O2Qk


http://www.youtube.com/user/followjcboe#p/u/10/Wl_BG_hwUtM

Carol - thanks for taking the time to walk through all that. The process is arcane and very cloistered, probably by design, so it is very difficult for most people to be able to readily identify with how the board operates. Looking forward to the day when the board is populated by more people who relish transparency and straightforward dealing such as yourself.

Carol Lester, Jersey City Board of Education 2010-2013
Opinions expressed here are mine alone and do
not represent any other member of the Board of Education or the Board as a whole.

People who saw the JCLIST Vimeo yesterday and today asked me to fill them in on some details and break down the "lingo"

OK. The situation is that April of 2010, one week after winning the Board of Education election, I was at a meeting to review the budget I had inherited which showed no significant Educational Theory or Educational Practice changes, but did call for increased local taxes, many raises and over 300 layoffs The simple question "how many of these 300 layoffs were people from the administration building?" never received an answer in the many committees where I asked it since April 2010.

On top of that, instead of laying off Administrative or support positions from the Administration Building on Claremont Avenue, there were an unidentified number of persons "reassigned" back into the schools. The simple questions," how many? what titles? what Salaries?" were not answered and most recently my insistence on wanting to know a cumulative sick day, vacation day and personal day count for these saved and then reassigned persons (without names attached to protect employees' rights) went unanswered.

Now one full year later nearly the exact same budget for 2011 has been submitted with yet another 300 jobs on the line and continued confusion about classroom versus administrative cuts. The Budget does address any issue of substance that Sterling or I or other member of the Board addressed as KEY. (Votech education, alternative education, science labs in every high school class room, pay freezes, best practices roll out, cutting administration, on and on)

In the beginning I was told by most long time Board members "We don't have personnel", as if that implied we were not supposed to ask or expect answers to our questions. I was given Policy this year. Boring and dry, but really key in the working of a governance body like the Board of Education. I am in the end of a year long process to review and overhaul the Policy Manual and to educate all Board members on our rights and responsibilities.

The State hired Dr Epps to run this district over ten years ago and the Board acted as observers. But three years ago partial control (and corresponding increased taxes) came back to the District. However, the pattern of Unilateral Decision making on behalf of the Superintendent with the support of the State (now the State was no longer watching- but the Board did not seem to realize the implications) continued. So, in effect, one person, Our Superintendent holds control over all hiring and firing, every collective contract negotiation (I asked for the Board to a have a seat at the table and was denied by Superintendent, Board President and majority of Board).
Judge, Jury, Executioner, Pardoner, etc. To be clear I actually like and respect the man, but

You know what they say about absolute power....

anyway..... We CAN turn this around in four weeks!!!

If we the people elect three persons who CARE 100% for every child first, (employees second), have no lifelong friends or relatives who are power wielding stakeholders in the system EXCEPT as parents, have experience with corporate and education budgets and either a strong legal background and/or long term massive scale planning.

Register now and vote on April Wednesday, April 27th

Jersey City Board of Education is apprehensive, but passes school budget in 5-2 vote rather than leave it to state tinkering

Wednesday, March 23, 2011
By TERRENCE T. McDONALD
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

The Jersey City Board of Education last night approved a $630.7 million 2011-12 school budget, with a $104.4 million tax levy that will add $32 annually to the tax bill of an average Jersey City taxpayer, officials said.

The board voted 5-2 to approve the spending plan, with members Carol Lester and Sterling Waterman voting against and Patricia Sebron absent. Even board members who voted in favor of the budget expressed some hesitation.

"I don't think this budget is good," said board vice president Suzanne Mack, who is running for re-election in April. "But if we vote this down tonight, we're done."

Mack said that a defeated budget would go to state officials who would cut it, and then board members would "lose our ability to comment."

Mack made an unsuccessful attempt to table the budget until a later date. The body had until April 9 to approve a budget.

Major increases in the budget include $15.6 million in increased costs for salaries, benefits and utilities, and $8.7 million in additional funds for charter schools, according to Business Administrator Melissa Simmons.

Lester and Waterman expressed concern about the speed at which the board made its decision. BOE members had only days to review the 700-plus page budget document, making it nearly impossible for them to understand it all, they said.

"I can't see the state doing any worse than we have with this budget," Waterman said.

About 20 members of the public attended last night's public hearing, nearly all of them urging the board to vote the budget down.

City resident Peter O'Reilly said his main problem was the lack of public input.

"It was almost like a cut-and-paste job from last year's budget," O'Reilly said. "And last year's budget had significant issues."

As a teacher outside JC, I find it very difficult to vote "no" on a school budget. Unfortunately, I cannot assume the best in this budget. If my small district (serving 800 students) can preserve the status quo for two years in a row, even with the loss of state aid last year, certainly the JCBOE can do it, with all the revenue they deal with. The status quo is of course no increase in tax levy and no layoffs. I hope the state rejects this budget so I don't have to.

The soundtrack in the video is a nice touch, though.

The budget included a Dr Epps Salary that was above the Superintendent pay Cap (even though the contract is still in court), no concessions from union contracts, and provided no time for public feedback.

I am disappointed in the Board of Education, in particular Sue Mack. It is not reasonable to judge someone on one vote, but her actions are clear this time and I am disappointed. It seems the board of education continues to operate out of fear instead of with leadership and courage. Afraid because you don't know what will happen if you vote it down is an unacceptable reason to vote in support of a budget. Afraid because the organization needed your vote yesterday to achieve their objective when it flies against the interests of those who are supporting you is cowardly.

Sterling and Carol who are the only ones representing the voices of the community.

riaz,
Let's be perfectly clear. It was mentioned that dr. thompson was fetched and brought in to vote. Apparently, the budget would not have passed if she didnt vote.

Thompson said that Connors text her to "get here". No doubt this puppet did it for Epps.

Can't wait til the election. Too bad Connor's term isn't up.

Webmaster, can't open your video despite downloading latest version of Adobe.

The board approved an yearly tax increase of $32 per property. They blame it on Municipality & State. This is going to add to $80m hole that we already have in the city budget. There is enough room for them to avoid passing this burden this year to the city. Dr. Epps left in between the meeting. Dr. Thompson was sick yet came from the hospital to vote on this. The Board Members all don't agree with the process and have issues but they are afraid that the state or some one will dictate terms. What happens in case voters reject this budget on April 27th?

Jersey City's Board of Education budget 2011 - $2 million increase in local taxes

Tuesday, March 22, 2011
By TERRENCE T. McDONALD
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

The Jersey City Board of Education is scheduled tonight to approve its 2011-12 school budget, which increases the amount of money that has to be raised locally for schools by $2 million, or nearly 2 percent.

The BOE is scheduled to hold a public hearing on the $631 million spending plan at 6 p.m. at School 11, 883 Bergen Ave.

Voters will have their say on the proposed $104 million school tax levy - the portion of the budget raised through local taxes - on April 27 when school board elections are held. BOE President William DeRosa said the board is "caught in a bind" when voting to approve the school budget.

"On one hand, we need the money. On the other hand, I'm a taxpayer," he said.

DeRosa added that if the board votes down the school budget tonight, then the budget is "in the hands of somebody else," namely county or state officials. DeRosa said he'd rather have the decision made by local school officials.