By Rowena Coetsee - Contra Costa Times
In a recent countywide report on school boards' compensation, Knightsen and Byron stood out for reasons that district officials say could be misunderstood.
The school districts were among 18 that the 2011-12 Contra Costa County grand jury examined in its analysis of what school members received in stipends, health benefits and other perquisites the previous year. The report also included the county Office of Education and the Contra Costa Community College District.
Byron Union School District was mentioned in the grand jury report for the $8,067 it spent on board members' travel and training last year -- the highest by far of any school district. It does not, however, pay any other compensation.
Knightsen School District, meanwhile, doesn't pay its five board members for attending meetings and the $9,326 it spent on them overall in 2010-11 was the least among all districts. But Knightsen is the county's second smallest district with an average daily attendance of 477 students last year, which means that its board compensation amounted to $19.55 per student.
Calculated that way, the per-capita expense places the K-8 district squarely at the top of the list; Walnut Creek School District ranks a distant second with its board compensation equating to $10.66 per student.
"It makes Knightsen look like we spend a lot of money on our board," Superintendent Theresa Estrada said.
By comparison, the collective compensation of Mt. Diablo Unified's school board members works out to $2.86 per student -- but the district is also the largest in the county with an average daily attendance of 32,293.
Grand jury foreman Lloyd Bell says he and his colleagues broke out the data this way simply to provide another basis for comparison.
If one looks only at total board compensation, "West Contra Costa (Unified) would look way out of proportion," he said of the $86,502 that district spent on its trustees.
Bell reiterated the report's summary, which notes that the grand jury's intention wasn't to criticize or condone any district but merely to let the public know how much its elected school officials are receiving.
"We weren't trying to present the data to highlight any one thing, but ... so that a comparison could be made and discussion could start from there," he said.
School districts were a logical focus given that the previous grand jury had examined city councils' compensation, Bell added.
Nonetheless, government agency watchdogs might question the expense considering that Knightsen School District is deficit spending, has eliminated music instruction, and hasn't given teachers or classified employees raises this year or last.
Moreover, the number of people on the payroll has remained the same since 2008-09 and it's not going to change in the coming fiscal year, said Business Manager Teresa Sidrian.
"We're pretty tight -- we've just been hanging on," she said.
The district's board-related expenses last year were limited to health benefits, which only two of its five trustees receive: Dorothy Walter had vision and dental coverage that cost $941, and Franklin Dell's medical and dental premiums totaled $8,385.
Walter did not respond to requests for comment.
Dell, however, said he accepted the insurance when he joined the school board eight years ago so he could take advantage of a board policy allowing him to add his wife to the plan. She pays the district $600 per month for the coverage, according to district officials.
Dell believes that the additional health insurance he has through Medicare is adequate for his needs, so he says he'd be perfectly happy to opt out of the school district's insurance plan as long as his wife can find an alternative safety net.
Serving on the school board was never about the money, he added.
"I didn't join it to get benefits," Dell said. "I got voted in not realizing there were any benefits other than the kids. I didn't expect anything."
In Byron, the $8,067 it spent on board members' travel and training last year, was $2,762 more than the next highest district, the much-larger Liberty Union High School District. The report noted that the board average was $2,601 for such expenses.
Although it doesn't compensate them for attending meetings or offer health, retirement and life insurance benefits, all five board Byron board members attended a California School Boards Association training conference in San Francisco in December 2010 on the agency's dime.
One trustee also received additional CSBA training at a cost of $1,600.
By contrast, the board has incurred $341.93 to date this year in the training-and-travel category, said Bev Nicolaisen, assistant to the superintendent.
Byron School board President Elaine Landro doesn't have a problem with the report, but also noted that she and fellow trustees already follow the grand jury's recommendation to confirm that their travel and training costs are necessary.
In fact, they do this before incurring these expenses, Landro said, adding that newcomers to the board need to know the basics of administering a school district that such conferences provide.
The grand jury report also advised districts, Byron and Knightsen included, to conduct an annual public review of everything they spend on school board members and discuss whether changes are warranted.
In addition, the grand jury concluded that as part of this discussion Knightsen and the seven other districts that provide health care benefits should decide whether these costs are justified.
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