Spending on Underused Facilities Saps D.C. Schools, Study Finds

The D.C. school system spends too much money on maintenance of underused buildings and too little on classroom instruction, according to a report issued yesterday that compared spending patterns in the District with those in 45 other urban school districts.

The independent study, commissioned by the D.C. school board, added momentum to a recent push by the board and the D.C. Council to close and consolidate underenrolled schools. Council members, who are scheduled to vote today on a measure providing an additional $100 million a year to modernize schools, have said they expect the system to shed its excess space. And the board responded last week by promising to get rid of 3 million square feet of underused space by summer 2008.

The 175-page report by the Council of the Great City Schools, a Washington-based nonprofit group that advocates for big-city school districts, said the average number of students per building is 459 in the D.C. school system, compared with 682 in the 45 other systems that were studied.

That difference contributed to higher costs, the report said. The D.C. system had to budget $1,083 per student for maintenance and facilities costs in 2004-05, compared with $603 per student in the other urban districts; $525 per student for energy and utility costs, compared with $191 in the other systems; and $714 per student for school administrative personnel, compared with $582 in the other cities.

Only 32 percent of the District's per-pupil spending went toward classroom instruction, compared with an average of 42.7 percent in the other systems, the study found.

The report recommended that D.C. school officials "resize" the number of buildings and employees in the system and invest the savings in after-school tutoring and other programs designed to boost dismal student achievement. Without suggesting how much space should be eliminated, the study said the system could save $500,000 to $1.5 million a year for every building it closes.

"It would be easy for us to recommend closing schools and laying off staff, but that's a conversation you should have," Michael Casserly, executive director of the nonprofit group, said yesterday at a news conference attended by school leaders and advocates.

Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) and School Superintendent Clifford B. Janey appeared with Casserly and said they were committed to converting excess school space to other uses. Janey has said he will issue a proposed list this spring of schools to be closed or consolidated.

In an interview after the news conference, Williams said he thinks the school system, rather than closing a large number of schools, should focus on leasing space in its underused buildings to public charter schools.

"I don't think we necessarily need to close all these buildings," Williams said. "Before we freak out parents and say we're going to close all these schools, let's look at all the educational needs, in terms of Superintendent Janey's educational plan, and coordinate that with what the charter schools' education plans are -- and I think we can get more economy and efficiency without looking for an easy way out."

About one-third of D.C.'s 147 school buildings are underused, according to the 21st Century School Fund, an organization that studies school construction issues.

School board member JoAnne Ginsberg said one way the system could reduce staff is to adopt a model used by Peabody and Watkins elementary schools and Stuart-Hobson Middle School in Capitol Hill. The three schools are in different buildings but share a principal.

"This could be a way to keep some of the small schools small," she said. "The District hasn't looked at the problems as creatively as we could."

School board members said they commissioned the year-long study to help assess how much progress the system has made in addressing long-standing fiscal problems. During the 1990s, the school system ran large deficits and was taken over for five years by a federally appointed financial control board.

The study said that although the system has made strides in managing money, it is not ready to shed the last vestige of the control board era: oversight of the budget operation by the city's chief financial officer.

"It's better than it used to be but not where it needs to be," Casserly said.

The system still has a "cumbersome budgeting process, payroll problems, internal controls that are weaker than we'd like to see and a budget not aligned with instructional priorities," he added.