Quote:
Originally Posted by GGG
My questions really is why is that so high.
The administration side of things should be no more onerous then a private company. Computeres most business will average 1 per employee so that is likely higher in schools.
How many computers are schools running these day 1 per 10 students??
Textbooks are quite costly but really if a textbook is used for 10 years at $100 per book and 10 texts per year it really only is about $2500 per classroom or 1% of the cost of education.
If 70% of funding is going to staff wages an teachers make up only about half of that amount I think you have a pretty large problem there.
Overhead should maybe be 10% of staff. Of course you need to factor in the teaching assistants and put them into the teachers numbers and take a look but at a high level it seems the overhead staff is way too high.
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That 70% might only refer to educational staff, so it'd exclude support staff.
Here are some budget numbers from a BC school district I'm familiar with, I assume the proportions are similar in other places:
The total annual budget is $72M. Teachers take in $33M of that in salary and another $4M or so in benefits, so they're just over 50% of the budget. Administration make about $6M in salary and benefits, Educational Assistants $7M, support staff $9M, and other professionals (counselors, nurses, etc.) about $3M.
So all together, staff take in $62M of the $72M budget, or 86%. If you eliminate support staff and professionals and only look at educational staff, it's about 68% of the total budget. As for the rest, it's mostly made up of school supplies, utilities, transportation, insurance, rentals and leases, various fees, and a few other things.
So I guess it depends on how you look at it. Staff makes up a big portion, but education staff only about 70%.