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Trustees aren't paid, but should they be? THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS May 6, 2014 Tuesday
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THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
May 6, 2014 Tuesday
1 EDITION
Trustees aren't paid, but should they be?
BYLINE: TAWNELL D. HOBBS, STAFF WRITER
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. NEWS_A01
LENGTH: 1150 words
Flash back 100 years: The City Council controlled finances for Dallas public schools, which had 12,000 students at 34 campuses. The school board occupied space in City Hall.
Times have changed. The school district is independent of the city, and the board controls a $1.2 billion operating budget. About 160,000 students attend 223 schools.
But one measure remains constant: Dallas ISD trustees are not paid for their service - for the hours spent researching initiatives, studying reports, responding to constituents, talking to parents and sitting in meetings that can stretch past midnight.
Board President Eric Cowan says trustees should be paid. He believes carrying that load with no pay deters people from seeking a seat on the school board.
"It's hard to do it right and have a 40-hour-a-week job," Cowan said. "It does take time away from your work and family. We should be paid."
1905 law
A Texas law dating back at least to 1905 says school board members may not be paid. And no one has challenged the law, at least not in recent years.
It's unclear whether the law could be circumvented if residents in Dallas ISD elect to place the district under a home-rule charter, as some are advocating.
School board members are paid in some districts in other states, including Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and California.
And other elected officials in Dallas are paid for their service. City Council members are expected to decide in the coming months whether to ask voters for a raise in the November election.
Council members are paid $37,500 a year, and the mayor gets $60,000. A commission reviewing the city charter proposed a 32 percent raise to pay council members $49,530 and the mayor $79,542. But some council members say the suggested amount is insultingly small and won't do enough to attract more working-class candidates.
The Dallas school board also has trouble attracting working-class candidates, or sometimes any candidates at all. In 2011, trustees canceled elections for three seats because none was contested. Election turnout can be as low as 3 percent.
But there's a new focus on the DISD board. A push by the group Support Our Public Schools wants to bring DISD under a home-rule charter, which could change how the district is governed and free it from some state mandates.
Some home-rule supporters say low voter turnout in DISD elections and perceived dysfunction on the school board are reasons change is needed.
A voter-approved charter could replace the nine-member elected school board with appointed officers, or have a mixture of both. The home-rule law does not explicitly forbid setting up a paid board, but a proposed charter would have to be reviewed by the Texas education commissioner to make sure it adheres to state law.
Some trustees say their job is tougher than the public generally realizes. They say the job requires asking hard questions and making tough decisions. They decide matters concerning academics, finances, personnel and facilities. They also must have an understanding of state and federal accountability standards unheard of a century ago.
Lew Blackburn, the most tenured Dallas trustee, said he puts in an average of 15 to 20 hours per week. The time includes attending meetings and district events, studying pending items and responding to constituents.
A typical month includes a board briefing, which can run six-plus hours, and a regular meeting, which runs late into the evening. Trustees attend workshops, committee meetings and employee hearings.
Board members are also a bridge between the community and DISD, and they often bear the brunt of criticism for unpopular decisions.
At a board meeting this year, one speaker questioned the fairness of the district's bid process. Another wanted kids to be kept safer. One mother complained that a teacher was unfairly giving low grades, and she accused someone "up front" of laughing at her. Another speaker quoted a Bible scripture before giving his top 10 priorities for the district - one of which was to get sex out of schools and another was to pay teachers better.
Variable pay
Pay for school board members varies nationwide, with amounts that range from a few thousand dollars to over $40,000 a year.
Board members for Duvall County Public Schools in Jacksonville, Fla., get an annual base pay of $40,161. The Los Angeles Unified School District pays $45,637 to full-time board members who don't work outside jobs and $26,347 to members with outside jobs.
Fifty-three percent of trustees in school districts of 15,000-plus students received a salary in 2010, according to a report released by the National School Boards Association, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the Iowa School Boards Foundation.
The report, "School Boards Circa 2010: Governance in the Accountability Era," was drawn from responses from 900 board members and 120 superintendents from urban, suburban and rural districts.
The report shows that the smaller the district, the less likely board members were to be paid. Overall, 62 percent of board members received no salary.
Board members in larger districts were likely to spend more time on board work, according to the report. In a typical month, 38 percent of board members in large districts reported spending more than 40 hours a month on board work.
The report found that school board members overall tend to be well-educated - nearly 75 percent surveyed hold at least a bachelor's degree - and they report higher annual household incomes than the American adult population as a whole. They're also less likely to be minorities.
DISD trustees in recent years tend to be retired, business owners or upper-level managers with more flexible schedules than hourly workers.
More 'normal people'
Community activist Bill Betzen, a retired DISD teacher, said the trustees should be paid to attract more "normal people" to the board.
"I strongly believe they should all have at least the equivalent starting teacher pay," Betzen said. "We need more people coming out for school board; we need more competition."
Cowan said that if Dallas ISD board members were paid, they should also have term limits to prevent anyone from becoming a career board member.
State Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, has advocated for Dallas schools in Austin. He said he would be open to considering changes in the law that bars paying school board members. That could pave the way for voters to decide locally whether to pay them.
West noted that some big-city school boards, such as DISD's, oversee billion-dollar budgets and work just as hard as city councils.
He said it would take a lobbying effort by school boards working with the Texas Association of School Boards to make it a legislative priority. He said most legislators listen to their superintendents and school board members.
"I wouldn't have a closed mind to it," West said. "I'd be open for discussion."
Follow TawnellD. Hobbs on Twitter at @tawnell.
LOAD-DATE: May 6, 2014
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: CHART(S): (Michael Hogue/Staff Artist) Paid school boards
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
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