Education Committee- Senate and House

Education committee to order and today we have a lot of good information from these lovely lady sitting down here is the table so we will we have to have a motion to approve of february's minutes. Set our representative back on favor post thank you very much so we will move right along and today we're going to be talking about resource allocation according to the matrix so our first on our are agenda is stabbing instead of salaries and of course we have a reinbread elizabeth minimum tasman rate and lorry bowen here to help us out today so ladies please identify yourself and move forward good morning at adrian back with their bureau of legislative research lory bowing. Elizabeth and jasmine ray thank you. Without required and gets started we're going to be starting with the staff in the matrix portion of this but when he had your little context behind that before we dig into all of the data. So before he gets started I want to point to quite you to some documents you have at your desk to help give you some of that contact so first. I am you're going to see as preference today applicable results from our educator surveys the full results of that are available in your binder in tab three. Additionally on your desk or finance updated adequacy tracking sheets and you can see that they have an added to the where we have present applicable reports are to meet for each other requirements stated in the adequacy statute last month we left off with lorry presenting the facilities and partnership program report and july presenting an overview of the k twelve funding so we're gonna pick up their continue with analyzing district spending in these resource allocation reports and these are broken up in a four different report they're going to do three of those today and this is gonna be similar to the structure of the matrix and other funds that you have and your matrix that only refinder is well that will go over its again that's matrix staffing school level resources district global resources and then all other refunding which includes categorical supplemental in nine matrix spending. So duly covered this last month but I want to give it as a quick reminder this is a quick recap of total education funding sources for the this global twenty three fiscal year twenty three and you'll see here that foundation funding account for the largest proportion of k twelve funding making up sixty four percent of the seven point one total billion and education funding there. In before we go into the details of each of these lines I am in spending will start up at in a quick overview of all matrix spending so this truck shows you all other different staff positions and resources provide it for in the matrix the current may tricks with a twenty three twenty five by any arm is also on your desk as a hand out. And. Will go over that shortly again. I'm in more detail but right now we're going to look at the underlined items here indicating if the items include it in the school level staffing group of this for first report. The line are price going going acrise shows you the foundation funding level for twenty twenty three the bar show you that actual am standing broken out by funds source for the percentage of spending in pink shows you coming the source coming from foundation finds and then the bars and blues show you the percentage coming from all other fines so you'll see here that for most items provide it for in the matrix district spending is meeting or exceeding the foundation funding level for most of these items districts are using other fines to meet or exceed those foundation funding levels and therefore two of those items can regard and teachers and supervisory aids. District spending from all plans is not meeting that foundation funding level in each of our resource allocation reports today will be going through each of those lines in more detail. The. Before I do that i'm gonna go back to the matrix that are referenced earlier so you have this hand out for you on your desk if you want a reference that at any point. We're going to start with the school level staffing which is a first section that you see here on the slot as well as in that handle this includes k twelve classroom teachers pupil support personnel and other school level personnel like principles and secretaries without a passed over to jasmine to go begin going over this matrix line item starting with kindergarten. So the first line in the matrix is for kindergarten teachers and here you will see the twenty three third twenty five per people finding amounts and in the total funding amount for twenty twenty three and this accounted for a three point nine percent of the foundation dollars that were funded for inner matrix. So in terms of classized rules and an average can you earn class size of twenty is what the rules caught for but there's actually can go up to twenty two sudans if a half time instruction or at as present and the major expires two core kindergarten teachers for the prototypical k through twelve school of five hundred students. And while the matrix finds the number of kindergarten teachers needed to meet those class as rules this only happens if a score hits that mark exactly so for example if a school ends up with more than forty five king art and teachers and excuse me students three teachers would be needed to meet those class rules. Yeah. Next this slide is showing you foundation funding for kind of art and teachers versus the actual spending for those teachers and twenty twenty three. And schools public schools and our course I spent a little over a hundred and twenty four million on can you garden teachers from off bending sources and that is close to fourteen million hours less than they received and foundation funding. This next slide is showing you per people spending patterns by school type and this is a reminder the definitions for each of these categories can be found behind tab five of your binders if you need a reference those. And so here you can see that schools and public school districts aren't spent more on average then charters did and schools with higher free and reduced like populations and minority populations spent on average more. This side here showed you the same type of per people spending impatterns that was on the previous fied but this is for region and so we depended this on a map for you and here you can see that on average schools in the upper delta region spent the most per people for kidding art and teachers. And the next line is for grades went through three teachers and again you can see the per people finding amounts and the total. Fending for twenty twenty three in this finance for nine point nine percent abandoned dollars. For grades went through three classized rules called for an average class size of twenty three with no more than twenty five students per teacher and the matrix phones five grades went through three teachers in the major exists soons that a total of a hundred and fifteen students and graves went through three which equates to thirty eight point three three students per grade and so based on this assumption two classes in each grade are required to meet class size rules which could result in a need for six teachers. In the next slide is for great four through twelve teachers again you can see that for people finding amounts in the total funding for twenty three and and for visible you're twenty three rather in this account for twenty seven point two percent of foundation dollars. For grades fourth or six the desirables call for an average class as of twenty five with no more than twenty eight students per teacher and with the exception of classes that tend to learn themselves or large group instruction individual classes shall not exc thirty students and grade seven through twelve however an average class size is not specified in the rules and their material spends thirteen point eight cortators for grades for through twelve for the productive goal and five hundred students school which is up to four point two to shore at the number needed to meet those classized rules. The next sign in the major is for physical education are in music teachers also reverting in the mac may tricks as pam teachers in this line accounted per eight point two percent of foundation funding and twenty twenty three. Again according to the class size rules and these types of courses tend to you when themselves a large group instruction so they can actually exceed thirty students and grade seven through twelve and the major expands four point one four of these specialist teachers and which is a little less than twenty percent of the total number of core teachers the matrix indicates is funded so in ar the major expense twenty point eight core teacher so twenty percent of that twenty point eight actually comes out to four point one six rather than four point one four. So here are you see funding versus spending for grades one through twelve teachers and the reason for they're not broken out by great span as the funding shows is because we are not able to report those expenditures using that arkansas public school computer network break it broken down by great levels because they're not covered that way in the system. And here you see that schools and public schools and twenty twenty three spent close to two billion ongoads one third twelve classroom teachers from all fund sources and this is three hundred and eighty million more than they received and foundation funding and almost five hundred million came from other find sources which included the teacher salary equalization money which we will discuss in more detail excuse me detail at a later report. Again you can see that per people spending levels by school type programs went through twelve teachers here and there aren't a lot of patterns that emerge. This. And the lower delta region on average spent the most per people. So here are you see a table that shows the difference between current arkansas policy and the most recent current audit and picus evidence based model recommendations for student to teacher ratios and according to the twenty twenty arkansas school finance study conducted by august black palic and associates which will will be referred to is apa throughout the rest of our reports and they live they showed the literature of you findings recommend lower to student teacher right she has for grades cater three just just like the autonome pakis evidence based model days for rates want catherine three excuse me an evidence based studies and other national adequacy studies suggested a one to fifteen ratio for ca through three so you can see the difference there between what the majorities is doing in terms of to teach recipient ratio and then the evidence base model. And just so note we will reference our impicuous and apay because these are the consultant groups the committee has historically and relied upon and hired in the past. This table here is despite the difference between current argument saw policy and the latest evidence base steady or excuse me model for teaching staff recommendations and so in that first that first line you can see that the evidence based model makes a distinction between elementary metal in high schools and and they make recommendations specifically for those different types of scores. The evidence excuse me the evidence raised violence core teaching staff recommendations are based on the number of teachers needed to meet effective class sizes which were shown on the previous lot. In addition to core classroom teachers elective or specialist teacher recommendations are provided in the evidence based on using your percent of total core teachers and you can see that they recommend twenty percent of course for the elementary in the middle schools but once you get up to the high school level that increases to thirty three a little over thirty three percent and the reason for that is because there is an increase in the number of electives that those students take at the hospital level. The. So this map here is showing based on twenty twenty day there from the national center for educational statistics which is the most recent years of at your available for spending for rights came through twelve regular program instructional salaries which are adjusted for cost of living the per people spending amounts range from one thousand nine hundred twenty two dollars for people and utter to you a little over six thousand dollars in new york and arkansas spent about eight hundred dollars less per people than the national average. So here are you see arkansas educators feedback in the two twenty apa reports and sake holder feedback indicated that the funded ratio being too close to the state class as a maximum requirements is an issue and then below that you can see that there was another example provided on and that's that possible shortfall for kidding or in teachers and then in the twenty twenty m three the excuse me the educator surveys that we conducted sixty nine percent of superintendents reported their districts were and moderate or extreme need a more offending for classroom teachers and then we also am surveyed arkansas teachers and the ones that responded in these these were questioned some of the questions were based on the teaching environment and working conditions and you can see here that forty eight percent of teacher respondents indicated they do not receive two hundred minutes for planning every week and forty nine percent reported the planning time they receive and is not sufficient. The. And without and went to pass it back over to adrian. Yeah. Thank you so next we had the special education teacher line and twenty twenty three funding for these teachers account it for almost six percent of our foundation funding dollars the matrix finds two point nine special education teachers per five hundred students this comes to about four hundred and twenty four dollars for a student so the matrix assumes the districts will have a similar number of students with disabilities or students and special education so this funding is provide it based on total students not the special education population in and twenty twenty three they were approximately seventy thousand students and special education on arkansas since twenty seventeen that number is generally increased between two and four percent annually with the exception of twenty twenty one. Next we have a foundation funding for spare teachers or special occasion teachers compared to expenditure spent on these teachers so and twenty three district spent a little over two hundred and seventy million dollars for special education teachers from all funding sources which has close to seventy million dollars more than what they received and foundation funding. Next we have our school level category data. So when looking at average per pupport spending back category scores and traditional school districts because missing scores and traditional districts spent closer two times more per people than in charter schools in urban school spent more than those in rural and per people spending on average generally increased with higher levels of free reduced price lunch students and minorities. Then and looking at our bike this is own spending day to broken out by different types of regions so on average schools in the southwest region spent the least per people for special education and teachers and their central and schools in the central region spent the most per people. So looking at some research this comes we have some research that comes from am I in a pike is first and in their evidence based model they note that. But the following this is their full recommendation for hell states should find special education services so they recommend a sensors approach to cover students who were considered high incidents and low requires with disabilities and then that's combined with the high cost fine to cover a hundred percent of cost for am high require students who were there's fewer those and total their total recommendation for staffing for special education came to eight point one positions per one thousand students won't convert it to the five hundred student model set in our matrix that would be four point oh five. And then in apa's recommendation and twenty twenty to the house instead of education committees they recommended removing special education from arkansas from a foundation funding matrix and instead providing support based on actual students served in special education either through a single way or a multiple student way though they didn't know a multi weight system when a line resources to levels of service a students need in each district. So looking at funding in other states education commissioner states put together this analysis in twenty twenty one in the most commonly used mechanism across the states whereas a hybrid form of two or more of these models after that was a multi student weight using either providing a dollar amount or a weight based on variety of different student factors in those states commonly use factors included severity student placement and disability tape. After that that we had high cost phones used in seventeen states. And this is usually mostly in conjunction with another funding mechanism then after that we have a since the space model to somewhat similar to what we have here in arkansas which is based on the total enrollment not the special education and roman. Then after that we have a flat weight metamodo a reimbursement which was allocation model and then a categorical grant. And then we also have national spending data available for each state so this also comes from ncs for twenty twenty. And I have two different maps here because some of those states find based in total sort of population and some of there was fine based on strictly special education students i'm gonna show you how both of those very in these maps so the first one we're going to look at. His baseline total stood it enrollment. Ends we have two different states here and why that don't have data available but otherwise spending range from two hundred and ninety nine dollars in oregon to just over two thousand dollars for a student in delaware and in that analysis arkansas spent four hundred and seventy four dollars per student with the average nationally at seven hundred and sixty eight percent out. And then for our funding based on strictly special education students that range went from about twenty three hundred dollars in oregon up to almost thirteen thousand dollars in delaware perspective per special education student and analysis arkansas spent about thirty five hundred dollars for a student in the average nationally was about fifty five hundred. And then finally we have applicable results from our superintendent so so seventy per ten of arkansas superintendents reported that their districts ran moderate or extreme need of more funding for special education teachers and with that I want to pass it back to jasmine. So the next line in the matrix for instructional facilitators and here you can see and there for people finding amounts and then their total funding for twenty twenty three and this line accounted for for four point nine percent foundation funding. Their earnest sanders for a creditation that car for these specific positions of instructional facilitators however if the school does have more than five hundred students they're required to have a half time assistant principle instructions supervisor or correct curriculum specialists in addition to a principle and waivers can be for these personnel may be applied for although there is no effect on finding if they received as waivers. The major expense two point five instructional facilitators for every five hundred students and and those add those two point five positions it can cover a half time assistant principle I had time technology assessed it but not all districts or schools rather employ those staff. Again you see the funding versus spending and in twenty twenty three public schools and arkansas but nearly two hundred and nineteen million on instructional facilitators from offense horses which is over forty six million more than they received and foundation funding and for though expenditures that came from foundation funding sixty seven percent of those dollars were spent on assistant principles. Here again you see their per people spending patterns and we see that spending increase with minority levels and charter schools on average spans yell per people then districts. This matches that on average the lower goal to region spent the most per people on instructional facilitators. And then in terms of in the research in best practices you can see and the differences between the matrix what has funded in the matrix the ratio is rather in the matrix and then the evidence based model and automated package shows that nearly all improving the schools provide resources to finance what they revert to is instructional coaches to design the instructional program and also work with score base stated teams to provide ongoing coaching in mind the mentoring necessary first teachers to improve their practice at scale. And it is ever percent of superintendents reported that they were in moderate or extreme need of more offending for instructional facilitators. The next fine is for librarians and media specialist and you can see that and the per people funding amounts again in the total funding for a twenty twenty three for this positions account for one point seven percent a foundation dollars. So in terms of rules and the major expands point eight five librarian media specialists for five hundred students and the accreditation senators call for public schools with fewer than three hundred students to a pop to employ at least one half time specialist in that increases to at least one four time if they have over three hundred students and up to two full time if they have more than fifteen hundred and again this is an area where waivers can be granted and there's no impact on funding. In twenty twenty three public school spent sightly close to sixty seven million on library media specialists which is a little over eight million more than they received and foundation funding. Districts on average absolute significantly more than charters and do which may be am doing part to the number of waivers that charters receive and then you can see the rest of their per people spending patterns. On average schools in the lower delta regions with the most for people on these positions. And then again the table here shows the difference between the evidence based model recommendations and what the matrix phones and the arling parties evidence based model provides for one point oh library media fte positions for each product typical score and in the twenty twenty apa study they reported the funding in their matrix is below the recommendations found in other state adequacy studies. And both apain omp site said is that suggests resources of at least wine library media specialist fte and then a twenty twelve colorado said a using data from and the national center for educational statistics it was collected between two thousand and five in two thousand eleven show that students with access to a license librarian and working full time performed perform better on state assessments. Here again arkansas educator feedback supran forty three percent of superintenance reported they were in moderate or extreme need more funding for library media specialist. So moving on the next slide as for guidance counselors and this line accounted for a two point two percent of foundation dollars. And the major expands a little everyone fee got ins counts or for every five hundred students and accordation standards require districts to have at least one counselor for every four hundred and fifty students which equates to approximately one point one fts per five hundred students and waivers are granted from miss accreditation standard and no address to finding is made if there's a granted. So here are you can see that arguments are schools public score spent a hundred and ten million our close to a hundred two million guidance counsels from all fence forces which is over thirty two million more than they received and foundation funding. Again here you see the per people's spending levels. And on average schools in the southwest region spent the most perp. So the evidence based model uses the associate excuse me the american score counselor associations recommended student to counselor ratio for middle school and high school students which is winded you fifty and the american school ac asca and they believe that this has a positive impact on student wearing achievement tests and graduation rates however and you can see that that automatically smarter recommends a little bit higher ever ratio four k through five that wonder for fifty. And terms of educator for feedback fifty three percent of superintenance reported they were in extreme moderator extreme need and refunding forgotten counselors and the guidance counselors who responded to the teacher survey indicated seventy six percent of their thomas been on direct services to students are the other twenty four percent is spent on administrative duties. Now we come to the nurses line and this accounts for for twenty twenty three counted for one point three percent of that excuse me foundation dollars. The major expands point six seven five t nurses for every five hundred students in saint law requires the districts have at least one nurse for seven hundred and fifty students but this nurses didn't ratio becomes lower with an increase in the number of children with disabling conditions however the law also includes a provision that makes these requirements effective only upon availability of state phones. Yeah. So here you see that banding versus spending and then twenty twenty three and public school spent over sixty one million on nurses from offense horses and this is fifteen a little over fifteen million more than they received and foundation funding. Here you can see the schools with the highest free reduced lines and minority populations but the most people. And in the delta region on average spent the most. On nurses. So their evidence based model uses the stare for the national association of school nurses and and this allocation allows districts to provide a half time nursing each product typical elementary in middle school and a full timers in each prototypical high s. And then fifty eight percent of superintendents reported their their districts were and moderate or extremely defending for nurses. Then we have what's called other student supports and this account for one point four percent a foundation dollars and twenty twenty three. And the major expands point seven two fte positions for other students support which include speech pathology and out audiology services occupational therapy services and psychological services and while there are no specific stainers requiring these individual services and the standards do require schools to offer a continue of services required by the individuals with disabilities education act rather. So in twenty twenty three schools and arkansas spent a little over a hundred and thirteen million on other student support from offense horses which is more than forty six million dollars then they received and foundation funding. And this is over twenty six million more than what was reported in the twenty two adequacy report. We went ahead and broke these expenditures down further so this table summarizes other students support expenditures by function and you can see heard that the largest expenditures were for physical and occupational therapy follow closely by speech pathology and audiology servi. And again here you can see those per people spending and patterns. On average schools in the lower delta region spent the most per people for student support. And is shared a couple of sides earlier schools are spinning students support phones or and student basement or health are though these resources were not explicitly included as part of the original funding for the student support matrix fine and multiple data sources suggest that statement or health is an area of increase need there should be considered for additional resources and we wanted to provide some staffing recommendations and nash that are recommended by national organization so here you can see and there's professional associations and what their recommended staffing levels are for each. So when superintendents were asked if there were any resources not included in the rank tricks they believe are an important part of providing an adequate education mental and behavioral health specialist not guidance counselors were among the most frequently solid resources and this is a trend that we we saw in twenty twenty twenty two feedback as well and and the results from the educator surveys conducted by blr in twenty twenty four and twenty twenty two are consistent where the feedback that was received by apa in their twenty twenty study. And the though the matrix identifies resources for guidance counselors arkansas educators and report the growing need of student mental health goes beyond the expertise of those positions and that more specialized staffer needs. Sixty percent I have super intenance reported they were in moderate or extreme need of funding for a more funding for a student support and am superintendent indicator that eighty five percent have mental health therapists working in schools to provide mental health services directly to their students. There were that and going to pass it overdue. Thank you and next major staffing line is for school principles you can see the per people amount sending amounts for twenty three twenty four and twenty five and the total fending amount for twenty three on your screen principle finding a countered for at two point eight percent of foundation numbers in twenty twenty three and the major expense at when principle for five hundred. Looking at the fending versus ending at districts received almost a hundred million in front foundation funding for principles they spent ninety four million information funding with an additional twenty four point three million in other friends mostly from that other state and local funding category. See the average per people spending amounts for differing types of schools this ranges from a loud of hundred and ninety five dollars per student to a higher five hundred and eleven dollars per student. Here is either average that schools in each region are spending her people ranging and from a low in the central region as you eight dollars to a high in the lower results of region and two hundred and ninety eight. Looking at the research in best practices you can see some of those on your screen organizational duties refers to things like hiring and developing teachers and budget cleaning and leaving. Principles leaving other tasks at least student does the plan are managing facilities and to other stuff like an assistant principle. Looking at the superintendent survey forty nine percent a superintendence or credit that their districts were in moderate or extra you need every more offending for princ. Moving to the principle survey the principle survey has a principle serious mounting question about how they spent their time working as a principle and you can see that student interactions and curriculum in teaching related tasks. Check up the most time. This. Moving back to the superintendent survey we asked questions about recreating and retaining principles and so this side is looking at or creating principles these questions gave all superintendents a list of potential challenges to recruitment and ask them to rink each shall and from not significant to vary significant so on your slide you can see the most significant and least significant challenges as a reminder of a june mentioned early the full superintendence are rare report isn't tab three if you want to take a look at all of the options and how superintendence range each of those individual options. And here we have the same question it related to retaining principles whether the most and lease significant challenges in retaining principles in industry. Our final school staffing line is for school secretaries you can see the fending amounts there at this accounted for one point two percent a foundation funding for twenty twenty three. Looking at fending vs spending districts received about forty two million in foundation funding they spent almost sixty three million in foundation funding in an additional eighteen million in other founding again mostly from the other state and local funding category. For different types of gesture ranging from a lower of a hundred and twenty two dollars for people to a high of two hundred ninety dollars for people. The. And we see our average per people standing for schools in each region and the southwest regions sending the lease for people at a hundred and fifty two dollars and the lower data reaching spending the most at a hundred and eighty six dollars for people. At research and best practices you can see that and I passed reports with consultants there recommending spending allocating two secretaries for either four or five hundred. The. Fifty one percent as due for internet's reported in the superintendent survey that their districts were in moderate or extreme need of more funding first close act. And that concludes our saving report will be happy to take questions for me by school. Thank you ladies and whoever wants to answer can can punch her but. When you go through. Each of the slides that you prepare that shows the foundation funding versus spending. With the exception of guidance counselors and secretaries which on guidance counts sort of it was a plus aid on secretaries it was a plus twenty four. But on every other position it was listed there. If you look at the total amount of foundation funding provided by the state to the districts. As opposed to what they speak from the foundation funding. There's spending. Two hundred and twenty three million dollars less. In staffing then what is being provided by the state through foundation funding. Do we have any feedback as to as to know why or. Now in almost every one of those categories there was more being spit on staffing in total funding. But of the state provided funding through the foundation matrix. When you look at the amount of funding provided to the districts as opposed as opposed to what they were spending of the foundation funding on staffing they're spending two hundred and twenty three million dollars less. We have any explanation as to why. So we we can't. Answer why that's happening however I mean. As we all know that this is this is the funding model it's on a spending model and you will see the expenditures when we get into the rest of our reports you will see where there is significantly more being spent on this on other items that are not necessarily the staffing levels so I mean a lot of this could be attributed to you just the way the districts choose to spend the foundation funding dollars because you know they are offended a certain amount for kitty around teachers but they that doesn't mean that they have to spend the exact amount of may the they're offended for kind of are in teachers from foundation finds are kidding around teachers and they choose to spend it spend more on guidance counselors you know that they can do that because it's it's not a a spending model and they may use there are other their categorical phones right to pay for their kind of art and teachers and so it does anybody have anything else to add to that. Hello in the next year quotes when we talk about categoricals and other offending and our non major excitements will see that and I talk about nine major items and we'll see that districts are snending as some of their foundation i'm send non major excited that are not finding through them has well as they talk about some other other sheeps of any like declining enrollment or student growth that are provided to district with specific challenges to help them meet adequacy and so and we're talking about that other state and local category some of those vendor provided for gestures to help me and they're requirements. Chesterfield thank you thank you madame chair good morning ladies thank you for your work it's most appreciated could you please tell define for me minority funding that does that include english language learners or what is when we say that what are we talking about. We didn't if we've misspoke I apologize but the minority that just referring to those graphs we have their different lines that's just referring to schools of varying levels of content minority student concentrations there's no that's some reporting at any specific funding for minority students that's just referring to the concentration of stoop minority students in a school so we have minority q one what how are you defining minority that's all I needed to know how do you to find it a bullet pretty much i'm wrong anybody but they believe that's anybody instead it's not why it's not white okay and that would include then. But there is a different level of funding for ell yes that there is el funding that's not included you haven't discussed not included in here and am looking for it in in the report and it's not here correct that'll be in our sep next report we talk about the categorical funding it'll be covered there thank you and on page twenty I guess it's the old english teacher in. When you say find instructional coaches to not only design the instructional program I keep looking for the but also and I don't see it here not only this but also unite. Sorry what what. Because when you say that is usually followed by but also is that work with the school but is that where you mean for that to be. It not only. Do not only design the instructional program but also to what is that to work with school based data jeans and provide. Yes please help me with that in the future not just that a thing I guess. But when we're dealing with but I was not only is usually followed by a. But also as it disconfused me to deal and I know it may not mean anything in about it but me. But he did when was this information gather. You are presenting to us. So the multiple times so we're providing you a physical year of funding twenty twenty three and then the expenditures are also from the twenty twenty three school year and then as far as app anything that's related to APA that study was conducted in twenty twenty and then the audit in pikas information thousand three. Nap where we're referencing their most evidence there is reset smaller so we are not referencing that no no no no well it's very interesting to me because. I think too then we have got to do more with the mental health peace. To which you alluded. And i'm i'm worried about it as related once again to alternative education because. I'm not seeing the level of funding that is being sent to alternative it being used for that purpose is that going to be in a future report how many counselors how many mental health providers are being provided to these students who have been doing to be alternative learners are we going to get that sometime going forward we will be addressing our future report on categorical funding and expenditures and that includes alternative learning education and energy through thank you so much and once again thank you for your work thank you madame chief. Representative back. Sorry I hit the button now that that mountain so. And I am just gonna use nurses as it causes quite shells a better. Then a but this pattern fast through the whole thing. Fifty eight percent superintense report that their districts were in moderate to extreme need of more funding for nurses. But yet out the foundation funding which was forty six forty six point three million dollars for that category they only spent twenty five point five million dollars i'm rounding off numbers here. Uhm for that category but yet I reported that they needed more money and they didn't spend the money that we basically provided in the foundation funding. Yeah. Can that you're correct and represent these categories sure you're your correct representative make it once again it really comes back to what my answer that I shared with the chair in terms of it not being a spending model that it's a funding model and II think once we get into the school level of resources reporter and then the district level resources report your really going to see where a lot of the the foundation were the rest of that foundation funding money is being spared it's. It's either it's hard to get what you know it's hard to explain I mean each district you know it's their decision on how they choose to spend these foundation dollars you know and that could bury from district of district you know whether they choose that they want to spend all the many that they receive our nurses. On nurses or they rather shift the majority of their foundation for dollars on teacher to teachers. So gap for power so I understand that but this is not one out in one category it's every category I separate to I think to do that that. Remember now. That the pointed out that I want to drill hundreds of a little bit is like it would be helpful to this group if. The superintendents are whoever would they are doing this would say okay we need more money in these facility things that II not get me wrong i'm all about the funding this but it's it's hard for us to understand where you need money what what we're under funding I should say if you just every category comes up we need more money for this and you don't even spend the money that we give you because you're taking that money somewhere else i'm not i'm not even saying it's not appropriate for them to do that because they are obviously understand what they need but to give us the legislator's better feeling for what's going on we need to know while areas were not paying for and and certainly yet we can move the money from the nurses to the to the other categories if we want to kind of get things in line that we get sort of a clear picture and I just want to make that statement apologize you can only respond to that i'm sure so two two things I want to win in terms of like the matrix itself there are some expenses they have less control over the districts outlets control over such as their electrical bills and. Watson lots of things that you know that in that being spent like in operations and in maintenance which will be talking about here shortly but I also want to go back to what elizabeth mentioned which is what we have it not into it yet but they are spending foundation dollars on things that were never refunded in the matrix and so they had they are the districts are identifying things that they need to spend money on such as dislikes yet you know which is required of them they you know they have to have these and now I don't want to get into all of them because we're going to go into that in the report but there are a white and of things that districts are having a spent used their foundation vending for. That are not in that matrix anywhere and so that also accounts for some I think some of this and what you're saying. The. Bet but if there if you know if in the future whenever we survey districts if there are specific questions that you know the committee feels like would get better at them identifying you know at a moment regular level then we we were more than happy to add at two or surveys but let me maybe we could somehow identify the top ten or something like that funding things cause literally i. It was near fifty percent of either some over in some slightly under every one of these things was we need modern to extreme. Funding they need more money south site how how do you judge what really you need more money I think for a if you just gonna say everything would come up does that so maybe there's some kind of way and I you guys do a great job don't know time I i'm not sort of new at all you're doing a great job then maybe there's some I win falcon these are really the areas that you guys are not funding so we could. Put that funding there in and prevent this and then having to move from one category to another thank you I also added a the survey the full server result in the binder might be helpful instance because we have all of the resulting might be able to see the result bit there's a big variation in those items and what the person interested in superintendents who are rating why it's that might be helpful to see all of them at once and see how they're ranking them in that way in case that's all. Representative long. Thank you madame chairman i'm sorry could you tell us what percentage of the superintendent's total is better than the survey in digital keep up with it is forced regionally uh you know was born in region a lot or heavily participating a participation than others. In our superintendents over we have a one hundred percent participation rate so every superintendent in every direct have a charter school fills out a complete our superintendent survey. Yeah. Senator petty. Thank you circling back to the nurses for just a minute do you have a feel or or some feedback on how much the availability of nurses are affecting that the spending versus the funding I know we had the pandemic level and there was a short as of nurses and we had the whole creation of the travel nurses and so maybe they're other arrangements with the nurses but maybe they were outsourced or third parties or whatever you have a feedback on on that and then then just in general if I make a sure I understand this correctly if you look at all of foundation finding k through twelve there was about a hundred and thirty million dollars in funding through the matrix but more for hundred and thirty more funding than there was actual expenditures when you aggregate him all together if you could just confirm that. The. Let me first speak to the nurses you're question about the nurses I don't. I don't spam have that level of feedback on me right now it seems like we might have a smitty nurses there and. Hiring directly vs outsourcing so I can certainly go back and look to see if if if that was if we have that information for you but if not we can certainly follow up with with the districts for you to get that information and that would be helpful. Thank you. Enter the amount I don't have that worth me we can certainly get that to you pretty quickly. You have. Go ahead. Oh sorry we lose you. So I was just looking on looks like page. Nine. The. And page. The. Yet four and nine I just took those two and added them together and and that's where I arrived at the hundred and thirty million ish. Dollars overall when funding versus expenditures. The. Are you referring to the report or the paper the president sorry. I am i'm looking at the staff in the matrix resource allocation okay page four that shows approximately in k. Thirty million thirty one million thirty four million slad. Eight sorry slide eight. If you want to just circle back on that one that's fine just ask for you referring to total matrix funding versus total major expenditure mail okay I think that the some of those dollars are showing up in the nine major spending that's not being accounted for right now and we will talk about nine major spending so where they are using foundation dollars on items that are not currently in the matrix right we're going to talk about that in a later report gotcha and i'm i'm with you but what i'm the point that I was trying to make is at this point before you get to that next report that you're talking about it looks like it's about a hundred and thirty four million that we've looks like refunded for all of these things that you went through your slade on but a hundred and thirty four had to be used in other places or was chosen to be used in other basis places like for example the nurses I think we're going to find that the nurses were refunded through a contract arrangement or or other arrangements like that so right now to the representatives question. We've given a hundred and thirty eight million and and kindergarten and we spent a hundred and four you're going to show us where we spent the other four in total or the other thirty four in total when you get your next report as combined with those school level resources report place the district level resources thank you thank you thank you manager. Representative springer. Good morning thank thank you for allowing me to ask and ask the question follow up to the senator's question so let's just look at the one on the kindergarten I heard you say they're up the total amount funded was one hundred and thirty eight million and the excellent expenditures were one hundred and four however overall spending was. Ah one hundred and I think twenty four. Million is what you see it and then it was fourteen million less than received is there a way that you are can put all of that on one slide so we can see there and no how much the deficient amount is so they're going forward you can decide where the natwest much more it needs to be appropriate for the particular category am I making them i'm i'm a visual learner so yeah we have that we have a table with all that information I think it would be helpful you're happy to provide okay thank you very much to help me senator dot thank you madam chair. I'd hear so looking through this or listen to your presentation that distracted manner I was looking through the matrix and everything. Is there any place that we track or see how much is spent on superintendents. Or. Coaches the athletics. Yeah. Do we track that at all. On district by district school size versus you know. Various areas of the state or anything like that so in terms of athletics applied will be showing at a little bit later on in another reports and as far as superintendents we don't specifically report on super antennas in this and just these reports to research occasional reports because i'm sorry i've completely we do that's going to be coming up in is the next report yes the final district level report I apologize. Okay right so we only went through and were adrian showed where the underlying parts of the matrix on that first on that uhm. Yeah. Side I don't i'm sorry. Yes the slight you see all the ones that are underlined or where we've gotten to you in this staffing report and then next we're going to move on to talk about school level which is going to include technology I won't read them all up to you because we're going to have a different slide that has those those lines and so is that all fallen to what's called central office. Yes superintendents are okay but it's that's the category of expenditure that you report on that specifically. Superintendent salaries and and things like that as far as district my district. Small medium large districts spending on superinten. Yes introducts and we're gonna show you those it'll be a district rather than a school level analysis but it will show the average we did a look at the superintendent salaries for old districts and charter systems and then we looked at them also for all of those district characteristics in including and we also looked at regions so you'll be able to see a the various how the average salary shake out by online boys to in and I guess just as far as expanding on that question is not just specifically superintendent with superintendent assistant superintendent in those. Those central office personnel. That'll be part of that. Well we we did that level of details specifically for superintendent we do show some average salary there are a number of other types of positions within the central office that we do list. In in the reporting in the slide that you'll see later and it provides average salary information we went into a little more granular detail on the superintendent that we can for all others but we could go. Further if we needed to be for you on those other positions if you need to just thank you very much I appreciat. Representative gardener. Thank you out of chair I just have a quick question back to the middle health and the funding for men on behave your health. I just want to clarify that we are utilizing guidance counselors which are not trained for memory have your health or nurses. Who not are not necessarily. Um. Train with mental health as the only thing refunding in the in the foundation funding for. Behavioral mental health is that true. So as far as other students are portline which is where II talked about and student the street mental health the feedback that we that we received in the apa received was firm from educators were that it wasn't that they were utilizing guys counselors for those types of services it was just that they need they were saying that they needed other types of positions that their perception is not being funded under other people support and then historically am in and what we've read and how the matrix can have our funded the other people support didn't explicitly you know reference that were funding for student basemental health it referred to psychological services but and returned its psychological services right yet they tend to spend a lot of the lot of the psychological services many tends to show up with like testing psychological testing right for students right rather than student basement or hell follow up that and the other question is what what qualifications are required for school verse does it have to be an arion or. Do you know whose utilising I do know that but I don't I don't have it in front of me right now i'm I would be happy to follow up with thank you very much. Representative. Thank you madame chair I just want to declare if I on your responses from teachers it's like fifteen percent. That responded to the survey that you are sent out as that correct. That's great for the teachers I really guess for the superintendents are very well you have a one hundred percent response please young so and I know we discussed the think last time it may be trying to time that differently cause the time frame of those surveys going out is not this really the best time frame to get teacher responses think that's important to remember as far as when we talk about what teachers respond and we had very small participation with our teachers my second question is on these things on middle hell and I don't think I would say was was there anything that distinguished in these questions on the discipline issue that's what I hear a light about is disciplined and the need and support for that was that categorized under the mental health or somewhere else or whether it addressed it all so it was not a risk and necessarily internet mental in behavioral health so we analyzed the the comments and disciplinary you specifically displanary issues were categorized separately um if we could provide as we could provide a summary of those of those response of how many indicated displanary issues if I were at that in the survey somewhere. So for for a lot of the questions they had the opportunity after each section to provide additional like do you have any comments or additional information you would like to provide and to basically explain the previous things that they answer there were more on like a like her scale and so in some of those instances the comments were you know we have we have a lot of disciplinary issues you know something on those lines and so we we do have any any comments that were related to display issues we have that information but I don't think we specifically asked about our address I so we're gonna end the teacher equipment or attention reporters a few months away i'm gonna talk more about teacher responses on the survey but I know we did include that as a response in terms of I think recruitment and retention issues for teachers and I think that was one of the options was discipline but that'll be something I can definitely spend some time on it when I get to the teacher recruitment a retention delve in the more that was cannot do it deeper analysis on those types of responses from teachers I think that would be helpful just because I do think that sometimes is being at least for some staff members they are located out in the middle health and those go hang into the hand it but there's also some different ways to dry some of them as well and I think that information is important as we look at. How were going to address funding in different areas thank you very much appreciate all the information. Say no for the questions you all may proceed. Thank you madam and mister chair members of the committee managed lori bewin with the bureau and elizabeth item and I are going to be a presenting the next report on school level resources. I'm just an external from the hand out you have in front of you so you can see again which categories of expense we're going to be talking about in this report begins with technology and you can see it continues on through teacher continuing it was gives me substitutes is probably the final category. Again just to remind you you can see underscored those categories that we're going to cover in this report and how they're total expenditures compare to the total amount of foundation funding being provided and how much is other expenses are foundation expenses and how much or other funding sources. I will begin with technology a twenty twenty three districts were provided two hundred and fifty dollars per adim for technology or a hundred and eighteen million in total funding in this represents about three point four percent of the total foundation funding. Um they're spending characteristics we can see here that districts spound about fifty two point nine million of the one hundred and eighteen million they were provided overall they spent two hundred and eleven million dollars on technology or four hundred and forty seven dollars per student foundation funding was not the largest category of a funding stores for this category of experience they are federal lending comprised the largest percentage of funding for technology thirty nine percent and followed by a. Foundation funding. Just to give you an idea on the types of expenditures that district spent money on a four technology the first ones a little eyed in that it's a district define they in the computer system districts are given some latter two hundred on how they code some of the expenditure so we drilled a little deeper into that district defined category where they spent thirty four million and found that about a third of that was spin on instruction related technology the next largest category of expense was to neck technology related hardware and the next software about this list of categories of expense accounts for about eighty six percent a total mobile technology spending. And this is going to be a little different than what you've seen before this is going to be expenditures per student item district level because of the way technology dollars are spent they're more of a district as opposed to a school level experience. So we see that charters spend about a a little more than districts did on technology at five hundred and sixteen dollars for student compared to four hundred forty four for regular districts in the highest category of expense was for districts with between one and three hundred fifty students. From a regional perspective north central spent the least on technology spending three hundred and fifty nine dollars per student as compared to the lower delta which meant the most at five hundred and thirty seven. In terms of research adding pike is their latest research recommended two hundred and fifty dollars per student added to achieve a one to three computer student ratio they also point out that if a district door state wanted to achieve a 1-1 computer student ratio the rate would need to be about four hundred dollars per student. In terms of survey results are we did ask the same question you'll see the little bit of repetition here all of the foundation matrix items we ask the extent to which funding was adequate and in response for technology forty nine percent said they had a moderate or string need for more funding are sixteen percent started no additional need we also asked about broadband availability in the school and the community and the vast majority said that broadband were sufficient most all the time in their schools and about two thirds of them said it was sufficient all the most of the time in their communities. And we also asked about the availability of taking home a computer or a tablet and sixty nine percent of the respondents superintendents responding said that they could their students could take them home a regarding whether or not they had access already at home forty five percent of the superintendent said their students on average have access to a computer or tablet. We also ask some technology questions of principles and teachers using some model questions that were part of a national center for educational statistics survey so you're going to see here are comparison to a national administrator a sampling their responses to these questions as well as arkansas principle teachers and first we asked if competing priorities in the classroom adversely affected their ability to use technology education technology I am fifty percent of arkansas principles and sixty two percent of teachers agreed or strongly disagreed as compared to sixty eight percent at the national level. We also asked if teachers are sufficiently trained in the mechanics of using technology and eighty percent of principles or sick and sixty two percent of arkansas teachers agree that they were sufficiently trained as compared to seventy seven percent the national sample. Another question we asked about technology was whether or not teachers were interested in using technology in the classroom ninety five percent of the national sample in the state of arkansas principles of a greater strongly agreed that teachers are interested compared to ninety one percent of arkansas teachers we also asked if teachers are sufficiently trying to integrate technology into classroom instructions and eighty percent of principles in sixty four percent of teachers are agreed or strongly agree compared to seventy two percent of the national level. Unless we asked if technical support for educational technologies adequate I have both at national in the arkansas principle level seventy nine percent agree that it what was adequate compared to sixty nine percent of teachers. The. The next category of experiences instructional materials on twenty twenty three the matter is provided a hundred ninety seven dollars for student or two point seven percent of total foundation funding which provided ninety three million in total funding instructional materials. A district in charter system spin a total of a hundred and sixty five million dollars on an instructional materials or three hundred and fifty dollars for student is compared to the ninety three million and foundation money they received. Uhm foundation funding provided the greatest amount overall of all the categories. Accounting for thirty nine percent of the expending followed by a federal funding and then other state in local. And this is these are the categories of expense that district spent money on for instructional materials that the largest category of course is general supplies and materials almost sixty two percent followed by textbooks and etex books. Looking at the characteristics and again this one will transition to a school level analysis because a lot of these materials are purchased at the school level you can see that charter school spent about three times more than a district stead on instructional materials up outside of the category the highest category of expense for instructional materials was for those schools who had received a rating of earth we did look at a little more detail on their charter versus district of pursuit and amount since it was a pretty marked difference and we found that it was driven primarily by two virtual schools one of which bit more than three thousand dollars per student it was the virtual academy and arkansas connections academy spent over two thousand dollars per student on instruction or materi. Looking from a regional perspective nor central spent the least on instructional materials at three hundred and twenty two dollars for pupil and at the southwest region spent the most at three hundred and ninety one dollars. And both of them is you looked at the category of expense it was mostly on the general supplies material which we are so sell in that previous slide was the most common category. Looking at the research of an impicuous recommended seventy dollars per student for instructional materials plus thirty dollars for library bringing the total to two hundred. We also found a number of studies that are in point it out or found that high quality instruction or materials cost about the same as other types of materials and they conclude that it is an efficient way to boost stood in achievement without increasing a financial commitments. We also looked at how arkansas compares to other states in terms of per student spending on uninstructional materials and this national map to pick that. You can seem to give each customer. And the lowest per student spending was a hundred ninety dollars in the highest is at six hundred and sixty seven arkansas and I apologize i'm the numbers alluding me and I can't. You have the arch. Looking at the responses that we received on the surveys principles and teachers are almost ninety almost a hundred percent excuse me of principles agreeing that there misinstructional materials are met a student learning needs either well somewhat well or very well as compared to teachers who ninety three percent of the um said the instructional materials met them either well or very well. When we asked them who picks the instructional materials there were some differences between principles and and teachers and the principles overall the thought there was a more of a collaborative process involving both teacher school and the district or charter system you'll see in this next line that when when teachers were asked it depended on the type of material as to who they thought was most likely that one to pick their materials and in terms of online interactive textbooks or printed textbooks they they are indicated that and the district or or the school was more likely to pick the materials but for online interactive textbooks or other printed materials they must often responded that they were the ones to pick the material. I will pass it on to a list of it who will pick up with extra duty funds. Plan is extra duty friends the is there a segments for teachers who are cooking athletics are supervising after school has or other curriculars you can see the fending amounts on your screen and for twenty twenty three this is point zero nine percent of total foundation funding. Here is the they break down a foundation fending versus spending districts received about thirty three million and foundation funding they spent honest twenty eight million and they spent about information fending and spent about four million in other f. Here you see air the breakdown of her the average per people spending for a different tapes of districts at ringing from a high of ninety two dollars for people to allow a thirty four dollars for people. The. Here you can see the breakdown of average per pupil spending at for schools in each reason each region i'll make a note here that our maps are una separate page from our other categories because they take out so much days and we want you to be able to see them this is not an indication that we think that this is any more important than our other categories but it's for for spacing and so that you can see our maps and you can see here then out that the central schools are send me on average the lease for people at fifty three dollars for people and their southwest and north central regions are spending the most at ninety five dollars for people. Advanced research and best practices and the research is clear here that extra curriculars provide benefits is students and you can see those at the bottom of the screen but there's actually no common model for allocating. Looking at our superintendents are very fifty seven percent of superintendence recorded that their districts were moderate or extremely need of more finding for extra gd. Our next spectrum sign is supervisory aids and so the other staff that are providing supervision for students non instructional time so lines anytime students are ramming in the huawei is getting the best in the morning on the best and afternoon any of those kinds of times and this account for point zero eight percent of the total foundation funding in twenty twenty two. Looking at funding versus spending districts received just over twenty six million they end foundation funds they spent a little over seven million in foundation finds in an additional amount of million dollars and other phones mainly from that other state and local funding category. At the breakdown of average per people spending it for different types of schools and when I know it had been the top right hand corner and the high here is thirty five thirty four dollars per people in that hub rate him corner and district the three hundred and fifty students in fewer actually did not record any expenditures for supervisory aids so that way that's why they're not showing any spen. You can see the arranged per people sending by region scores in the southwest region are swimming the least for people on average at seven dollars in schools I am this intro reading or spending the most per people at twenty five dollars. Looking at research and best practices there's no measurable impact I didn't achieve me when you look at supervisory and spin it's obviously something that schools need but again there's not really a common mile. For allocating faints. The. Looking at their superintendent survey fifty three percent a superintendence recorded that their district was and moderate or extreme need of more funding for supervisory. In our final school level major explain is for substitutes you can see the funding levels on this screen subsidiary of ending accounted for one percent of total of foundation and. In twenty twenty th. At district received about thirty five and a half million for subsidiary teachers in the main tricks are a little more than forty one million in foundation fines and almost twenty million in other phones mostly from the other state and local funding. The. Here you see the average per published and needing for a different types of schools ranging here from a low of seventy eight dollars to your high of a hundred. You see the irish for people spending by region with the northwest region sending the least amount on average for people and schools in me. Lowered us regions then at the mac. This is another area where there's not a lot of research many states are providing ten days per teacher per year similar to other employees providing about one sixty eight per min and employees are working. Looking at our superintendent survey we ask superintendents add to provide as. At their daily rate of pay for a different types of substitutes miss screen is showing you a the rates for short term services hits and so we took all of the superintendents responses and just average that was and so that's the average amount you're sure. Unless I shows the average amount for institutes and desire to find a long term sense this year as someone who's teaching in place of the contract to teach her for more than. And finally seventy percent of superintendence recorded that their districts were in moderate or extreme need of more funding. And that can clears our school level staffing and will be happy to take questions about that before we remind you districts level resources. Sender chesterfield yes thank you madam chair and again good morning could you tell me please. Did your research include how many school districts actually pay teachers to do morning lunch and even in during. The. Because when I was there they wouldn't be happy i'd appreciate it because we'll providing some funding there. But. The practice in that they spent a long time ago was that we would do that our sales and I would always pay to have someone do my duty once I get made more than five thousand six so it would be very helpful to me if you let me know how many school districts are actually paying someone else. Or who are paying their teachers to do the extra duty that is not a part of the instructional day they can look into that. She know further questions we'll move on to our next. The. Do this. Thank you madame chairman members of the community that given lorry bowing i'm going to be presenting which I know you'll be glad to hear is the last category of a resource allocation for today anyway. The first. Again i'll just show you the three categories that will be looking at based on the hand out that we provided you this morning it's operations and maintenance central office that I know we've already had some questions about in transportation. Again just for a point of reference you can see for the three categories that we'll be looking at how their spending relates to the foundation burning that's been provided and all three of these categories either meet or exceed their spending of foundation money to the foundation level of funding provided to them. Again here are the three categories and they all together a total of the per student rate of fifteen hundred and nineteen dollars or twenty point five percent of the total foundation funding provide to be provided to districts. And again they're the rate for the first category operations in maintenance is seven hundred and forty one dollars per student generated three hundred and fifty three million and twenty twenty three and these are the expenses necessary to maintain school facilities and grounds and to keep buildings clean and called and heated. This slide shows the total spending of districts on operations in maintenance they spent seven hundred and fifteen million and for to shorten it i'm going to refer to it is on him from here on out seven hundred and fifteen million or fifteen hundred and thirteen dollars for student you can also see that they spend about hundred million dollars a little over a hundred million dollars more in foundation funding than they received for operations and maintenance and that may account for some of the underspending in some of the other. These are the topics finisher categories for operations and maintenance leading the way or is that classified salaries and employee benefits spending thirty percent all of these categories represent about ninety percent of total spending on operations and maintenance. Again this is going to be a district level analyst this because that's where these disney's expenditures occurs at the district level you could see the comparison a district spend about a fifteen hundred and eighty dollars out of average for student compared to charters at fifteen ninety five. The highest category of expense are those districts with the highest percentage of free reduced price lunch students at twenty five eighty four for student on average. Base my region you can see the lowest per student spending occurs in northwest arkansas fourteen hundred and sixteen dollars in the lower delta spins the most in eighteen eighty two and for both of these regions their highest category of experience also tracks the expenditure list that we just star moment ago and they spend it on classified salaries and benefits. And the state has no required minimum staffing level for operations in maintenance and the foundation funding rate is not tied to any particular staffing ratio that we as we've seen in other categories. But there is are there are some recommendations in the facilities maintenance repair and renovation manual that's published by the division of public school facilities and transportation and this shows those recommendations for costodians grounds general labor personnel and maintenance personnel for custoding to maintenance you can see it's based on the number of ftes needed to maintain certain amounts of square footage in the grounds and general labor is based on the ft's needed for the acridge that are district is needing to maintain. So we wanted to look and see how they're a meeting that was recommended staffing levels that we divided over allocated that grow square footage to different sized categories for the districts you can see for the smallest district size of one to three fifty there was a little over a million square feet to be maintained that recommended staffing calls for sixty four ftes to maintain that score bootage the actual staffing pattern was forty for a total of sixty three percent of total recommendation the district size category that came closest to meeting that recommended staffing level is the districts with between five thousand and one and twenty five thousand students and they are they've staffed eighty seven percent of the total recommendated recommendation over all the state a stepping was met about seventy one percent of the recommendation for the amount of square footage that districts are required to maintain. In looking at research we see that arkansas statute requires districts to spend at least nine percent of their foundation funding for operations and maintenance. According to a study by the american school and university they found that nine point that nationally speaking districts are allocated nine point five seven percent at their total expenditures to maintenance and operations. Umm and when we looked at the since this data and was a two may upstairs strength is in the succeeding slides but the lowest percentage of total spending was five point three two and the district of colombia and ten point seven eight percent in louisiana. Here is that the pick that a percentage of total expenditure depicted in a map and you can see that the national average is seven point eight and arkansas percentage was at nine percent for this year's data. Looking at it from a per student perspective you can see arkansas as per student spending was thirteen hundred and thirty dollars compared to the national average of thirteen twenty seven my own spent the most at nineteen hundred dollars and you tough spent the least at seven hundred and eighty two and you can see that again louisiana are a neighboring state spent the most of our surrounding state etc seventy excuse me seventeen hundred and two dollars per student. When we asked about the level of need for additional funding about seventy two percent of all superintendents reported a moderate or extreme need for operations in maintenance funding we see a little difference when we looked at it depending on if they were a chartered system or a district with to add regular districts reporting seventy excuse me seventy four percent of regular districts that they had an extreme. Matter it need for additional funding compared to forty eight percent of charter systems. The next district level category is central office forty four hundred and fifty seven dollars for student was provided through the matrix for central office functions and two hundred and nineteen million dollars at was provided in twenty twenty three or six point two percent of total foundation finding. In terms of spending districts and charge systems spent three hundred and twenty million on central office or six hundred and seventy seven dollars per student two hundred and two million dollars at that spending was from foundation funding so that they spent a little under their the amount of foundation funding provided for that but a sixty three percent of total spending worse from foundation ball by a federal funding spending um. Eighteen percent of the total. Looking at categories of experience certified and classified salaries and benefits salary and employee benefits were the two highest categories for central office followed by a professional technical services and management services consulting. And this. Particular particular category of excuse me. Accounts for about ninety percent of total spending. Looking at it by characteristics we see that charter spin about the not quite double what the district expand on a per average per student basis for central office. And the largest category of expenses for those districts with between one in three hundred and fifty students and they spent fifteen hundred and forty three dollars per student. On average the lowest for student spending in districts was in the northwest region at five hundred and fifty six dollars. And the highest was in lower delta at nine hundred ninety two and again the highest category of expense was classified and storatified salary and benefits. Arkansas standards have a creditation require a full time superintendent to oversee i'll operations of the public school district. And in twenty twenty three i'll district but one reported having a superintendent in in the architect public school computer network. An eleven of twenty one charters employed a superintendent with the remaining tea and either having a waver or some a waiver from having a superintendent or a waiver from the license requirement the one district that didn't report one was junction city and we did see we did some subsequent research and found that they do have a superintendent so it may be that they just failed to report it in abscan. Looking at a superintendent salaries by those district characteristics districts the average salary was the hundred and thirty thousand five fifty four compared to charters that went twenty two eight seventeen. And the category that reported the highest average salary for super tendence was those districts with back thousand one to twenty five thousand students. And that average was two hundred and forty thousand dollars. On average at the lowest superintendent salary was north central at one hundred and thirteen thousand. And the highest was in the central region at one hundred and fifty thousand seven thirty. Um. Central office in the in districts do employ a number of other types of personnel in this list all of those types of personnels that they employ along with the number of fts and the average salary so I believe that and had a question about a such assistant superintendent so in apps again they reported forty seven as assistant superintendents at an average salary of forty one three ninety eight. And the number of districts are charged reporting that were to twenty eight. A largest number of f t easers in the secretary clerk non instructional category. The. Overall on in pack it's recommended aid administrative and fifteen classified single office positions for a prototypical school district of thirty nine hundred. Arkansas central office foundation furning rate was established initially on district size of between three and four thousand a student said it was about seventeen point eight ft used that they found was up were in place at that time in their end of initial rate was said at three seventy six and that's been adjusted over the years by the general simply. In looking at a national comparison on superintendent salaries the american association of school administrators found at in twenty twenty three that the at national average salary was a hundred and fifty six thousand four sixty eight compared to arkansas overall statement average of a hundred and thirty thousand two hundred and seven. And the higher superintendent salary in arkansas was two hundred and eighty nine thousand six forty four and fail and the lowest was fifty eight thousand five eighty nine in shortly. The. When asked a superintendent's reported forty one percent of superintendents reported a moderate or extremely for more central offer spending. And nineteen percent reported they had no additional name. Um again we saw a little difference between districts and charter systems on their forty percent of regular districts reported a moderator extremely compared to fifty two percent of charters. The last of the last the last category is transportation districts received three hundred and twenty one dollars per student per transportation is provided a hundred and fifty one million in foundation funding in twenty twenty three in this represents little over four percent of the total foundation funding. District span a total of two hundred and forty eight point eight million on transportation and they spent about two point three million more in a foundation funding for transportation expenses than they received a federal finding was the next largest category of funding available for transportation services. In terms of categories of experience classified salaries and employee benefits I was the largest category of experience followed by vehicles at nineteen percent of total. Again there's a little difference that appears between districts and charters on the per student funding five hundred and forty six dollars for a average student spending by regular districts for transportation and compared to one hundred sixty six for charters and the category that had the largest experience was for those districts with between three hundred and fifty one and five hundred students. Spending seven hundred and sixty six dollars on average per student. The lowest per student spending on a regional basis was in northwest at four seventy nine and north central had the highest average per student spending at six hundred and sixty two dollars. They just the district staffing for transportation abskin reports these position titles director people transportation for which there were a hundred and eighty eight to ease at an average salary at fifty four thousand three twelve. The greatest number of fifties of course are in the best driver category at four thousand five ninety nine or an average salary of sixteen thousand seven ninety four. Looking at research we found about well weather study which is an on profit group the studies are american education and they found that there were three primary transportation service models first is district provided where the districts purchase are the equipment employ the staff and provide the full rate of transportation services. The second is operates very similarly but it's where they contract for all of that we are outside private contractor provides the transportation. And the third way was relying on existing public transit which really only is president in those districts and very large urban areas they also point out that there is some interior into the market of ride sharing into the student transportation market that is. They also found that there were three primary ways that state share in the cost of transportation formulas that are based on actual costs so they may make that on an actual expenditures of a prior period or or individual inputs like wages or fuel cars they can also do it on a flat rate basis by the number of students which is how arkansas provides for it and they are also can do it on certain variables such as linear dins your mileage or miles driven a per student for a district or average miles. Prestudent. In two thousand and fourteen odden and pikis made a specific recommendation to arkansas on transportation that that should be based on knee rather than a flat rate per student and they said that the three c levels or three variables that it should be based on is the number of miles driven the number of school best riders and average daily membership and they also point it out that the uh BLR had done some research looking at costs from based on these three factors and that they thought that would meet their recommendation for having a formula based on need I would also point out that we do have a supplemental amount of funding called enhanced transportation that is based on those three variables that will also hear in the next resource allocation report. Looking at how we compare to other states the arkansas percentage of total expenditure is a two point nine percent compared to the national average of three point one and the lowest at expenditure was found in california at one point four and the highest is in west virginia at six point three. Of our neighboring states louisiana has the highest of percentage of expenditures a proce. Looking at the per student expenditures of. For transportation services arkansas spent four hundred and thirty five dollars per student as compared to the national average of five hundred and twenty eight new york had the highest level at twelve hundred and six dollars procedure in hawaii spent the lowest at a hundred and eighty two and again louisiana is the highest. Per student rate if our neighboring states at seven hundred and sixty five dollars per student. The. According to the superintendent survey seventy one percent reported a moderate to extremely for more transportation funding and again there was a little difference between regular districts in charge systems were seventy seven percent of districts reporting a moderate extremely compared only fourteen percent of charter systems reporting that need. And finally there is there was a twenty twenty three act to act two thirty seven or learn that that has created a new transportation grant program transportation modernization grant the act states that it's interested purpose is to improve access to transportation per students in public school charters and also in us childcare facilities that are serving publicly funded students and to support it trying to protection innovations and efficiency solutions according to the department their currently working on rules for this program and hope to have it implemented in twenty twenty five and according to the fiscal impact of act to thirty seven about five million dollars is allocated for the screen program. And that concludes my remarks then i'll be glad to try to answ. The. Thank you very much very much we have a number of questions here representative walker. Thank you madame chair amazon and this will come out of operation and maintenance but i'm not present sure but what I didn't say was any thing about a maybe a waste of the unfounded mandates that are required and how much that it takes away from the foundation funding do we have anything like that out there. Or is this something that we could get going forward. They would help with my curiosity i'm not personally I don't have access to that list of julie do you have any insight or on that apologise. Yeah. G help with the bureau we've been asked about invented mainlands before we don't have a way classifying there's talking to our legal unit so we we don't report and those as jasmine said we will look at anything or the major categories that are not in the matrix they have foundation fendings being used for and that will be next sorry that will be next month no it'll be after the physical session or go our. Is there any way we can add a category called unfunded mandate. Now we're just kind of help us know what's coming out of the matrix funding or foundation funding. I'm going to let legal address that question and they'll probably get back with the individually that'll be perfect thank you. The. Representative richardson thank you madame chair over here in the corner to the I just had a question on the what is the slight twenty six. Where you have the higher superintendent salary in arkansas. Is that superintended you said in favor was that in a public school system more charter than is the a regular well that both charters the inpublic school districts are public are considered public but pay it will is a regular traditional public school just thank you. Sandra gesture field yes thank you managed here in good morning again could you please tell me the average increase in salary for educational support professionals. Such as must drivers secretaries is there anyway you get that information. There may be a way that that could be mind out of abskin I mean we might be able to. Identifies certain clap position classifications and look out the the average expenditure for those is that possible over a period of time do you have a particular time for you is time I don't want to go back to too far but i'm just interested in seeing how that's playing out because. It is a laze that we're losing bus drivers can utle. Is any school district reporting difficulty in a recruitment rechange in a professional drivers is that anywhere in our research. Because we've talked about transportation funding. Yes and I think if you look at the super tendent survey I think there are a few questions and and they're not included in this but they are included in your survey okay there are some and I can get that to you and and I don't have that right but yeah that we could get you back on some of the question responses are on equipment and returning thank you thank you so very much madam representative duke. Thank you madam chair am my question is on page twelve twenty four on the assistant superintendence. Can you explain that number a little bit it seems kind of low to me. That was based on what we were able to determine and absolutely and it may well be but that was what was reported in there in the public school computer network system so that is possible um. It gives a desert because you're typically they would be teach teachers generally that have been in the system a long time so even before I learned you would think that they would be up on their salary scale some and and so to follow up with that I don't know. Why that. Because I mean I know the system superintendents are making conservative more than that and I guess my nest question is what do we know the highest and the lowest could we get that on the assistant superintendence as well i'm sure we can I don't have that finger tips but yes i'm sure we can and give them is there any reason why there would be. One of the things in II don't know that I pointed to day out on the business officers and because that is actually a requirement of under the accreditation standards that every district have a business a manager of position districts do you have a attitude on what they call those and so it's not really possible to determine that extent to which they're meeting their requirement because the varied ways they refer to them that may be what's going on with the assistant superintendent i'm not sure i'd have to look at it more closely but that may be they might be employing or use in a different position title okay they could be good at that could be i'm not sure. Represented by thank you madame mischiefly the information that you'll get to representative. While per will it be available for all of us to be able to receive. Yes okay thank you. Are there any further questions. Thank you ladies for all of this information there's a lack to absorb i'm sure as we all think about this beginning but got our final report together but we do appreciate you all and say no further business this meeting is a direct.