How Within-District Spending Inequities Help Some Schools to Fail

M. Roza, P. Hill
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引用次数: 131

Abstract

School district budgets are in the news. In the past year, super intendents in Seattle, Rochester, and Baltimore have all left their jobs under pressure because of unexpected deficits, and as of summer 2003 Oakland's superintendent was in similar trouble because of a $50 mil lion deficit for the year. The bad economy is partly responsible. These and thousands of other dis tricts have suffered simultaneous declines in local, state, and federal rev enue. But in these cases, district actions made the worst of a tough situation. Instead of adjusting expenditures as revenues declined, these districts con tinued spending, with some plugging their budgets (that is, inventing rev enues to make the books look balanced) in the hope that things would work out in the end.1 Such plugging is neither new nor limited to Seattle, Rochester, Baltimore, and Oakland. As a former superintendent involved in an earlier financial meltdown elsewhere explained to one of us, "You can always find money if you are committed to doing something. You just spend it now and cover it next year when the budget goes up." Another justification for budget plugging is uncertainty. Few districts know precisely how much money they have, and surprise surpluses are also possible. Even in these recent recessionary times, the Philadelphia public schools found $8 million it did not know it had?enough, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, to employ 180 teachers.2
地区内支出不平等是如何导致一些学校失败的
学区预算上了新闻。在过去的一年里,西雅图、罗彻斯特和巴尔的摩的超级督学都因为意想不到的赤字而在压力下辞职,而在2003年夏天,奥克兰的督学也陷入了类似的困境,因为当年的赤字高达5000万美元。糟糕的经济是部分原因。这些地区和其他成千上万的地区同时遭受了地方、州和联邦收入的下降。但在这些情况下,学区的行动使情况变得更糟。这些地区没有在收入下降时调整支出,而是继续支出,其中一些地区堵塞了他们的预算(也就是说,创造收入使账簿看起来平衡),希望事情最终会解决这种堵塞既不新鲜,也不局限于西雅图、罗切斯特、巴尔的摩和奥克兰。正如一位曾参与其他地方金融危机的前主管向我们解释的那样,“如果你致力于做某事,你总能找到钱。”你现在就把钱花了,等到明年预算增加时再补上。”预算堵塞的另一个理由是不确定性。很少有地区确切知道他们有多少钱,而且意外盈余也是可能的。即使在最近的经济衰退时期,费城的公立学校也发现了800万美元,这是他们不知道的。据《费城问询报》报道,足够雇用180名教师
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