Big Bucks, Taxpayer Schmucks: the RPS Middle School Hustle

By John R. Butcher
February 24, 2016 by cranky 

We have seen that, among the Richmond middle schools, tiny Binford is costing the taxpayers an inordinate amount of money per student.

Yet, looking at the 2017 budget, the Binford expenditures by category appear to be in line with the other middle schools.

As we would expect, the major expense is personnel costs; salaries are 55% at Binford, 57% as the middle school average. If we expand the abscissa, we don’t see anything unusual in the lesser categories either.

As best I can discover, neither RPS nor VDOE provides data on faculty size by school. But, since the budget is dominated by personnel costs (> 75% of the total), it is clear that Binford must have an inordinate number of teachers and administrators. Based on total budget, it looks like about a 50% excess(!), compared to the other Richmond middle schools.

The 2015 SOL pass rates, when combined with the budget data, give a measure of the productivity of that excess staff (Note: Elkhardt/Thompson not included here).

Given that none of the Richmond middle schools is producing an acceptable pass rate,

the bang per buck analysis tells that Binford is battling with Henderson and King for the most expensive awful performance, but it is King, our worst-performing middle school, that is providing the least return on our tax dollars.

For sure, more money does NOT produce better performance, either in Richmond or statewide.