Shoreline Unified is the only school district in Marin County whose budget was not approved by the county superintendent of schools this year. Out of 1,038 school districts, county offices of education and joint powers agencies statewide, only 30 are in financial jeopardy as of the last count released in June. Shoreline’s administrators blame irregular payments from the federal government for creating irregularities in the district’s budgeting: when huge payments arrived from Washington to compensate for lost property tax from the seashore, trustees said they felt pressure to spend dollars on programs and jobs rather than bulking up the district reserves. Now that the government has caught up on payments owed, funding will be stabilized.
So, just what did all of that unexpected cash actually pay for? Where has Shoreline’s spending become anomalous from the rest of the county? The Light contacted the chief business officials for Marin’s 14 other school districts (not including the Marin County Office of Education and three districts with fewer than 20 students), reviewed their budgets and analyzed data from the California Department of Education and the nonprofit California Policy Center to see where Shoreline’s finances have diverged. From the top down, here are our findings.
Governing board
Shoreline’s school board is lavished with top-dollar health benefits compared to other districts in the county, receiving the largest total compensation among 10 districts that provided the Light with figures. Seven of Marin’s school districts—Bolinas-Stinson Union, Dixie Elementary, Larkspur-Corte Madera, Mill Valley Elementary, Nicasio, Reed Union and Ross Elementary—provide no funds for volunteering to serve on the school board. (The C.B.O.s from Ross Valley Elementary and San Rafael City Schools did not respond to our query.)
The other five districts entitle their school boards to health and welfare benefits equivalent to a full-time employee, but few trustees actually choose to enroll: three of the seven-member board for Novato Unified signed up, two of the five-member board for Tamalpais Union High, one for Lagunitas Elementary and none for Sausalito Marin City. At Shoreline, five of seven board members receive benefits, costing the district a total of between $44,700 and $54,800 annually, Susan Skipp estimated.
The ad hoc budget committee prioritized eliminating benefits for the first round of cuts, but on Aug. 12 the administrative cabinet said the compensation “should not be considered for reduction.” For their part, the trustees have mostly avoided the topic, except for a maudlin speech at the Aug. 28 meeting by board president Jane Healy: “We’ve been scrambling with extra work loads as voluntary board members who don’t get paid,” she said. “Yes, we’ve been deficit spending, but we’re not just drunken sailors.”
Superintendent
“I’m the least paid superintendent—by far—in the county,” Tom Stubbs said in an email. Last year, working half time, Mr. Stubbs received a salary of $93,500. (With 25 extra workdays and benefits, his total compensation came out to $112,400, Ms. Skipp said in May.) That’s barely half of the pay that most Marin superintendents made in 2013: their average base salary was $191,375, plus $47,032 in benefits and other pay. Shoreline once had a full-time superintendent, but the position was combined with the high school principal in 2010.
“During the recession, this board made concerted efforts to cut, including a decision that to best serve our community, we would rather cut administrative than cut instructional staff because that’s where the rubber meets the road for our kids,” Ms. Healy explained at the August meeting. “We did that at the same time that [the board] cut our own throats by reducing our superintendent to 50 percent. That’s our nerve center. If we look stupid, it’s because we cut our brain lines, so that we wouldn’t cut what kids were getting.”
After the trustees ousted Mr. Stubbs in April and later rescinded their decision, they bumped up his hours to three-quarters of full time at an annual salary of $125,956, the lowest in the county by roughly $39,000—behind Larry Enos, the recently retired superintendent who managed Bolinas-Stinson and Lagunitas, and Steven Van Zant, the head of Sausalito Marin City, another comparatively small district with 470 students, a quarter of whom are English language learners—and far below last year’s top earner, Michael Watenpaugh of San Rafael City school districts, whose salary was $98,000 higher.
Principals
Shoreline’s three principals, on the other hand, were paid handsomely relative to the district’s small size of 509 students last year, receiving the second highest amount of money per student compared with other districts. Collectively, administrators received $920 in compensation for each student enrolled in Shoreline, significantly higher than the $602 average across Marin’s 15 school districts and $514 not counting the assistant principals that are common at larger schools.
Former Tomales Elementary School Principal Jane Realon drew Shoreline’s largest paychecks in 2013 with a base salary of $132,086. Including benefits, however, Tomales High School Principal Adam Jennings was Shoreline’s highest compensated employee, taking home a total package worth $161,565. All three principals received salaries that were slightly higher than the county’s average of $116,654. Since then, as dictated by the terms of a settlement with the district, Ms. Realon has been placed on special assignment, drafting grant applications at her regular salary (she has rights to a teaching position next year).
Retired principal James Patterson and music teacher Joe Nokes both stepped in to fill her spot and are receiving stipends of $42,000 and $4,000, respectively.
Chief business official
Ms. Skipp has repeatedly come under fire by staff for an 18 percent salary raise she asked for last summer when other teachers and staff received only a six percent raise. At the time, after his first board meeting on the job, Mr. Stubbs told the Light, “She’s one of the best business officials in Marin County. She was one of the lowest paid.” Mr. Stubbs stood by that proposition this week, noting in an email that the raise “was simply to bring her salary up to a standard that was equal to ONLY some of the lowest paid C.B.O.’s in Marin County.”
In 2013, Ms. Skipp’s salary totaled $122,882, plus $30,607 in benefits and extra pay. That put her about $17,800 below the average salary countywide and $21,500 behind in total compensation. A year after receiving the raise, Ms. Skipp submitted her resignation letter to Mr. Stubbs, meaning she will draw pension payments based on the higher pay when she departs in January.
Certificated and classified staff
Shoreline’s teacher-to-student ratios rank second lowest among Marin’s districts. Last school year, the district employed the equivalent of one full-time classified educator—meaning administrators, teachers and paraprofessionals—for every 12.3 students, less than half the county average of 30.1 students per educator. Bolinas-Stinson had the smallest classes, with 7.8 students for each
teacher.
In advocating for cuts to personnel, administrators pointed to the fact that 83.1 percent of Shoreline’s expenditures go to personnel salaries or benefits. Yet that percentage is not far from the average of 81.1 percent of expenditures across the county’s school districts (dragged down by outlier Sausalito Marin City’s 56.4 percent) and fits in line with the median of 83 percent at Reed Union Elementary.
Shoreline departs from the county norms—56.4 percent for educators, 19.9 percent for support staff and 23.7 percent for benefits—by paying a lower percentage of its total personnel costs to teacher salaries (47.9 percent) in favor of marginally higher support staff salaries (22.2 percent) and much higher benefits (30 percent).