School district consolidation recommended, but idea fails to gain support

Grand jury touts big cost savings



A grand jury report recommends that the 20 public school districts in Ventura County be reduced by almost a third to save millions of dollars in administrative costs at a time when California is insolvent and searching for ways to streamline services.

A May 18 Ventura County grand jury report, “School District Administration: Is the Cost Too High?” investigated the expense of running the county’s public schools and determined that the 20 districts should be consolidated into six.

The cost of administering school districts in the county is $128 million per year, the report said. Some districts, such as the Santa Clara Elementary School District in Santa Paula, consist of just one school.

But regardless of size, each district has a superintendent, at least one assistant superintendent, a school board of three to five members, and directors and support staff who have salaries and benefits. There’s also facilities maintenance, transportation and other expenses.

“Significant savings” could be achieved through consolidation, the report said.

Reluctant superintendents

Oak Park Unified School District Superintendent Tony Knight is against combining his sevencampus school district with the 29 schools of Conejo Valley Unified.

“We have no reason to think about consolidation,” Knight said. “You have to be careful in education. Children are not things. . . . We could end up like Los Angeles Unified School District, and everyone agrees it would not be a good model to replicate.”

Donald Zimring, superintendent of Las Virgenes Unified School District, said sharing costs with Oak Park could produce significant savings without the need for consolidation.

“I think that, especially right now, any time school districts can collaborate, consolidate services, activities and programs, our students are the eventual winners,” Zimring said.

Las Virgenes and Oak Park officials have discussed sharing a variety of services, including purchasing, child nutrition and warehousing and tech support.

Simi Valley Unified comprises 29 schools, compared to Moorpark Unified School District’s 11. If the two districts merged, about $4 million a year in administrative costs would be saved, according to the grand jury report.

But the topic has already fallen upon deaf ears.

“Consolidation with any district . . . is not something we have ever considered before and are not considering now,” Simi Valley superintendent Kathryn Scroggin said.

Scroggin said many school districts attempt to share expenses even without consolidation. She said consolidation might create more problems than it solves.

“Each district’s needs are different, and a merging of services to meet those needs would require careful planning,” Scroggin said. “The sharing of expenses may also require additional staff to monitor and track payment of percentages of expenses. . . . In addition, while many believe some of the benefits of consolidation include money saved by sharing clerical and other support staff, this is not necessarily the case. The size of clerical staffs at district offices corresponds to the size of the workload, which is related to each district’s operations. A merger, then, would not necessarily reduce the need for many of the classified support salaries, as some may believe.”

Moorpark’s Ellen Smith echoed the sentiment of others, that each community is unique and deserves its own school district.

“The school district and the community have grown together during Moorpark’s growth period,” Smith said. “There is an optimum size for districts just as there is an optimum size for schools. We are . . . an optimumsized district.”

Moorpark and Simi share some expenses currently, including “low incidence” special education programs and a jointly operated beginning teacher assessment and support program.

Centralized staff training and a shared payroll system through the Ventura County Office of Education saves money for all the districts in Ventura County, Smith said.

The grand report recommended that the Mesa Union Elementary School District and Somis Union Elementary School District, each with only two schools, join the Pleasant Valley Elementary School District’s 13 schools in Camarillo.

It was also recommended that five districts—Hueneme Elementary School District (11 schools), Ocean View Elementary School District (4 schools), Oxnard Elementary School District (20 schools), Oxnard Union High School District (9 schools) and Rio Elementary School District (8 schools) merge into one district.

By the numbers

The average administrative cost per student in Ventura County is $933 per year. The 20 districts employ more than 240 administrators, whose salaries total $24 million per year. Wages for the 1,400 support staff members cost approximately $57 million, and health benefits and other compensation expenses cost nearly $31.5 million.

Sixty of the 96 school board members and trustees working in the county reported total cost of $760,000 per year, including benefits.

Some districts operate on lean budgets. In Moorpark, the cost of administration per student is $506, or 6.2 percent, compared to Rio Elementary School District, where administration costs are 15.5 percent for each student. Conejo Unified administrative costs were reported at 8 percent, Oak Park Unified at 10.9 percent, and Simi Valley at 13.6 percent.

The economies of scale achieved through a consolidation of districs could save classroom programs and teacher jobs, the report concluded.

To view the report, visit grandjury.countyofventura.org.


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