Where has all the money gone?
Why does it seem that no matter how much money we spend on education, schools always seem to need more? Pro-tax groups such as Advance 300 would like you to believe that their school district is plagued by a funding problem. Salary data from the Illinois State Board of Education tells a different story. It shows a spending problem, readily visible in our salary analysis.
In conjunction with the Family Taxpayers Network, we analyzed ISBE salary data for District 300 certified staff in the years between 1998/1999 through 2004/2005. We wanted to know what size of salary increase staff received over this period. We excluded staff members who were not full time staff during this entire period. Our sample includes 494 staff members.
Raises out of control
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) between 1998 and 2004 stood at 16%.
Average D-300 staff raise over the same period? - 63%!
These staff members received raises averaging almost FOUR TIMES the rate of inflation. During times of economic stability this would be bad enough, but this includes the bursting of the tech bubble and the post 9/11 period. Tenure guaranteed job security for many when private sector employees were being laid off and taking pay cuts. The distribution of raises is charted below:
Figure 1 - Distribution of raises from 1998/1999 through 2004/2005
During this time, almost 3-in-4 (73.4%) received raises exceeding 50%. 4.9% received raises exceeding 100%!
How many private-sector employees made 63% more in 2004 than in 1998?
How much has it cost?
Handing out taxpayer dollars at this rate has its price. The following chart compares inflation-based raises (blue bars) against the actual raises (green bars).
Figure 2 - Total salary spending: CPI-based raises vs. D-300 raises
With actual raises far exceeding inflation, the excess spending balloons by 2004. Had District 300 used CPI-based raises since 1998, D-300 would have saved $10,315,060 in 2004 alone! This is larger than all of the threatened cuts!
Over the entire period, these raises cost D-300 taxpayers over $35 Million in unnecessary spending! Continuing this trend will cost taxpayers over $13.6 Million over the next three years.
“But aren’t teachers woefully underpaid?”
Something the teachers unions have been telling us for decades. Look at the salary chart and decide for yourself. Remember that most of these people work 9 months per year.
Figure 3 - Number of employees in each salary range, 2004-2005 school year
The average staff member in our group made $75,118 in 2004-2005, many working nine months. Over 9-in-10 (92.9%) received over $50,000. Almost 1-in-6 (15.6) received over $100,000!
Cherry Picking?
Advance 300 and other pro-tax groups would rather you didn’t see this data for reasons that should be obvious. They claim we “cherry picked” staff to include to make the data seem bad. Regrettably, the data didn’t need any help to look bad. Our main exclusion criteria was that staff must have been full time staff continuously employed between 1998 and 2004. It makes no sense to produce a six-year salary analysis by including staff who were not present during the entire period of the study.
Even with the six-year requirement, our study contained 494 certified staff. That’s one heck of a cherry tree. Not even George Washington’s axe could down such a tree. George Washington “could not tell a lie”, and the ISBE salary data does not lie either.