Has PPS Central Administration Really Been Trimmed?
This past fall Superintendent Smith reorganized the Central Office and reported that 10.5 Central Office senior level and support positions had been cut resulting in $1 million savings.
Some of the so-called cuts didn’t make sense at the time. Smith said the organization had been streamlined to reduce the layers between the superintendent and the schools. “In the past, assistant superintendents oversaw area directors who oversaw PK-8 schools or high schools. Now there are four PK-12 regions, each led by a deputy superintendent and supported by a region administrator.”
What that means is that assistant superintendents are now called deputy superintendents and area directors are called region administrators. There’s no change in the number of layers between the superintendent and the schools.
A quick review of Smith’s 2009/10 Central Office Organizational Chart might look lean but keep looking. Smith’s org chart is 15 pages long and doesn’t identify most Central Office administrator positions. One could easily get the impression that the district is being run by 13 the individuals shown on the org chart but there are 37 Central Office senior level administrator positions missing from that org chart. I was generous when reviewing the district’s structure and didn’t include a few PPS Directors located off-site or staff identified as managers. None of the Central Office positions listed below appear on the current org chart:
- Advisor to the Superintendent (2 positions)
- Director – SPED & Interventions
- Chief Information Officer
- Director – Special Projects
- Director – Administrator Hiring/Performance Management
- Administrator – Regional Program (4 positions)
- Director – Leadership Development
- Director – Strategic Partnership
- Director – Procurement & Distribution
- SPED Legal Counselor
- Director – Accounting/Payroll Services
- Director – IT Operations
- Director – Employment Services/Assistant Executive Director
- Director – Workforce Diversity
- Director – Labor Relations
- Director – HR Legal Counsel
- Director – Family Support/School Choice
- Director – Federal/State Grants
- Director – Research and Evaluation
- Broad Fellow – Special Assistant
- Broad Fellow – High School Reform
- Director – Funded Programs
- Director – Nutrition Services
- Director – Comp/Benefits
- Director – Government Relations
- Director – Curriculum
- Director – ESL (Relocated to Roosevelt Campus)
- Director – Facilities and Assets
- Director – Compliance
- Director – Migrant Education
- Director – IT Client Services
- Director – IT Application Services
- Director – Security Services
- Director – School & System Performance
A bad hard copy of a 1999 PPS Central Office Organizational Chart shows 24 senior level Central Office positions including 3 chiefs, general counsel, 6 area directors, 3 assistant superintendents, executive director of human resources, 7 department directors, comptroller, lobbyist, and a system project officer. Even then a performance audit recommended streamlining the Central Office.
Don’t be fooled. PPS at least 50 senior level Central Office positions today compared with 24 in 1999.
The reality is that the PPS Central Office now has almost twice as many administrators managing a system with a declining student population. How has that benefited children?
22 comments
and I still am looking for all those “director’s” salaries. It has to be posted somewhere???
Individual salary information isn’t posted anywhere. You have to make a public record request to obtain the information. From what I’ve seen even doing that has its limitations because the information changes within months. You can figure out some of the salaries from reviewing the 09/10 budget. Zeke’s department has two positions listed (1 administrator and 1 classified employee). You can see the administrator’s salary (before benefits) is $124,067. Ironically, Zeke’s job description which until April 1st was available on the HR website, didn’t list any minimum qualifications. Also, the superintendent noted in the 09/10 budget that departments included accomplishments and goals with their budget summary. Not Zeke’s department. He doesn’t list jack.
PPS doesn’t want to share salary information or job descriptions because they know they can get into legal trouble for their employment practices.
Well, at least we know where the money’s going!
They are trimming paraeducator hours, increasing workloads in special education ,trimming 7 adaptive PE teachers and increasing the workloads of all psychologists. This is what I am hearing from friends who work in these fields.
I am hearing the same thing that teachers are being told they are as of yet “unassigned” and don’t know where or what kind of classroom they will be in next year in special education.
Some of the above positions used to be Assistant Directors then later on promoted to Directors. There was no rhyme nor reason for these promotions. For example, Susan Kosmala used to be Assistant Director for Title I. Judy Brennan used to be Assistant Director for ETC…. Both were promoted during Willie Poinsette’s tenure. Susan could not even run Title I, and then they give her the Title IA which is the ARRA money for her to manage. Robb Cowie’s position was supposed to be Director of Communications. After the reorg. he was promoted to Executive Director with the $15,000+ raise that PAT was complaining about. Now he is running the biggest department in the district besides Special Ed. Special Ed has 17 Program Administrators compared to 4 ESL Program Administrators. Special Ed’s budget is $58 million compared to ESL’s budget of $14 million. Both programs serve approximately the same number of kids (Special Ed’s is slightly higher). So it does not seem like a fair deal for ESL kids even though ESL kids bring in approximately $42 million to the district. Something is very wrong with the formula of how the district distributes monies to programs. Special Ed’s parents are vocal and well-versed in legalities. ESL parents don’t speak English, don’t even know the names of their children’s schools, don’t know the laws, etc… so the district continues to treat this population as if they don’t exist. They attempted to hire a few ESL administrators who are bilingual but these folks are more less for window-dressing and even if they mean to do the right things, the district just eats them alive. Kurt Jun is an example of what happened. They told him that he was not a good fit. That was the end of the story.
I hope Kurt took that as a compliment. I would hate to be a “good fit” at the BESC.
Yes, he left TRIUMPHANTLY. In fact, Kurt had to take time to clear his head after a year and 1/2 of hell at BESC. We gained some grounds, such as some raises for the ESL bilingual staff and a critical analysis of where the most problematic spots are in the district: HR hiring process, Principal accountability in hiring decisions, Courageous Conversation Contract with Glenn Singleton, promotion for a few bilingual staff, Diversity training for HR and for Communications, and the two most troublesome departments: Special Ed and ELL.
Yes, Carrie, you are indeed generous. There are Head Start Program Administrators, Title I managers, ESL Welcome Center Managers, Project Homeless Program Administrator, 17 Special Ed Program Administrators, 4 ELL Program Administrators, Family/Community Engagement Manager, Senior Manager for Volunteers and Partnership and a whole host of Directors and Assistant Directors in HR. None of them makes less than $8O K per year.
Now should we be concerned about the Central office lie that we saved $1 million for the latest reorganization at BESC. The Mayor is being recalled for the lie he made about his questionable relationship but it did not cost the taxpayers’ $1 million. Which is worse?
Teach: They are trimming 13.5 days from 573 Special Ed Para Educators. They will be making approximately $1,500 less per year. With less than decent living wages, this cut is huge for this group of folks. PFTCE union representing them is extremely mad and have called for a Demand to Bargain. In addition, there will be an organized RALLY in front of the BESC on April 26th at the school board meeting when Carole unveils her HS Redesign plan. The cuts were supposed to be made to hire more para educators. It is totally against their contracts which clearly specifies hours cannot be cut to hire new staff. It is really robbing Peter to pay Paul. It is taking money from low-paying jobs to create more low-paying jobs. Watch the news for the RALLY on Monday night. There will be a AFL-CIO speaker to talk about Fair Living Wages then.
Carrie: Is it possible to ask for Zeke’s qualifications and how he got appointed to Chief of Staff. I heard his resume is less than one page long.
Show Me, Yes it is possible to ask for Zeke’s qualifications but it’s probably not worth the time. His resume’ is short but longer than what he lists as accomplishments on his section of the proposed budget.
Special Ed Legal Counsel is on her way out. So that is one position off Carrie’s list. Director for Diversity Workforce is still pending. So, actually, the district might be saving some money after all.
moonbaby here.
with a few solid facts.
#1. the homeless education manager was a TOSA until 2 years ago.
#2. 2 years ago the h.e.m. position was changed to an 03.
#3. the h.e.m. took a 28%cut in pay and increased the work year from 200 to 260
#4.the h.e.m. ‘s salary was $67,000
#5. the h.e.m. position has been eliminated.
simply the facts SHOW ME
moonbaby, was the h.e.m. position a classified position prior to becoming an 03? I’ve seen HR increase the salaries of certain school principals claiming that they worked longer contract years but I’ve never seen a decrease in pay with an increase in days. I don’t know much about the homess program but I know about working with homeless families. How does PPS justify cutting staff in the program during this economy?
Has anyone ever taken at look at the cost of PPS legal services? PPS spends quite a bit on contracting out legal services in addition to the in-house lawyers.
I would love to see some data on the types and frequency of lawsuits. I bet special education is up there if not the top. I think I last heard SpEd was 14% of the entire PPS population and that would be interesting to match against the number of lawsuits.
Moon Baby: You are correct about the Homeless Program Manager position. Had she stayed as a Teacher on Special Assignment instead of Manager (03 position), she would be able to return to the classroom next year when this position was suggested to be eliminated. I guessed she took it very hard when she was given a pink slip and informed that she was qualified for unemployment. She is currently on medical leave. The cut was made to save money but it was not an effective cut because her salary was not as high as some others who could have been cut such as the Director for Migrant Education who makes over $100K/a year and the program only has over 150 students. The district could have laid him off and kept the Homeless Program Manager to run both programs. In this case, it was more about who you know and who kisses up better rather than making a fiscally sound budget reduction. The district just makes a few minor cuts in central to make themselves look good.
They make cuts and then add backs. Look at all the Principal on special assignments. They take lousy principals and put them on special assignment.
Look at the Pioneer principal. They removed her, and added back 2 positions to take her place. Then they placed students out of district and back to the esd all totaling over 500,000 dollars. Is tis a good use of money. Or was she punished for speaking up on behalf of students and safety.
She is a good advocate for kids and exceeds expectations as an assistant principal at Ockley Green. I would have to say she was probably punished for speaking out and this is what Pioneer parents are saying happened.
fyi, Ray DeMarco is taking on the homeless program. Good luck children and families
Who’s Ray DeMarco?
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