K-L Spends More to Educate Students Than Comparable Districts, Analysis Finds

The Katonah Lewisboro school district spends $27,197 per student— the highest among a group of six comparable school districts in the area, the finance committee reported this week.

Their data showed that K-L schools expenditures are $1,515, or six percent higher, than the average of the other five districts—due mainly to instruction and benefits and transportation costs.

The committee gathered numbers from the audited financial statements from the Harrison, Byram Hills, Scarsdale, Chappaqua and Bedford school districts, said Howard Averill and David Mallet, committee members who presented their analysis at Wednesday's school board meeting.

"This is a benchmark approach—it's about analytics, simple math, cold hard facts, and looking at the performance metric," said Averill. "The whole point is to see if, as a community, it’s consistent with what we want to do. This is also a template, and we can develop trending data."

Mallet said that the cost drivers are slighly offset by lower-than-average spending in the debt service and general support categories.

"At $1,500 per pupil for instruction and benefits, we are second highest, and it's clearly the biggest driver," he said. "One thing jumps out—for hospital, medical and dental, we spend $3,580 per pupil, or about 33 percent higher than the comparison average. This is a clue that medical benefits are one element driving the $1,500 number." 

The district also spends more on special education—at $2,687 per pupil, it's $463 or 21 percent higher than the average.

Prior to their analysis, the committee made adjustments for differences in the way districts handle their finances or run their programs to make "apples-to-apples" comparisons. For example, three of the districts, including Katonah Lewisboro, handle their transportation in-house, while it's outsourced in others.

The report provides a roadmap for identifying areas in which costs may be more closely studied, said Mallet. For example, Katonah Lewisboro spends $257 more on busing than the average district in the comparison group.

"We have the second-largest physical district in the group; more kids than average get on buses, and travel farther. This is a big enough and complicated enough item and requires some additional work," he said.

The committee's work was lauded by the school board. Warren Schloat called it an "historical step" and Janet Harckham thanked them for making it "so easily understandable."

Board President Michael Gordon said the report would serve as a foundation for future analytical work and help the board make policy decisions and set educational and fiscal goals.

"This will help us make sure we’re not pricing ourselves out of our taxpayers reach," he said, noting that the lower-than-average general support costs, which include administrative costs and the superintendent's office, "punctures the myth" that adminstration drives up per pupil costs.

During public forum, Katonah resident Sara Weale said the district was "leaving a lot of money on the table" on health care costs and asked if the board would be tackling the issue with urgency.

"We have a staff contract with a defined [flat] contribution to [medical benefits] while health care costs continue to rise," she said. "Being self-insured puts the district at greater risk when covering claims. We need to work with the union—and I hope the union sees urgency on this issue—to make benefits more in line with the market right now."

Gordon said it was a collective bargaining issue, and though not publicly discussed, it was "urgently on the minds of the board."