The Tucson Unified School District is gaining notoriety for all the wrong reasons again. This time, the money spent on administrators’ travel is the focus of national scrutiny.
A national conservative blog dedicated to educational issues EAGNews.org, conducted an “analysis of TUSD’s 2013-14 check registrar and credit card statements, after the District’s Superintendent H.T. Sanchez blasted newly elected Governor Doug Ducey after he released his proposed budget which includes spending cuts to education in response the State’s looming deficit. Ducey also called on districts to reduce their administrative costs and return monies to the classroom.
In a statement released by Sanchez he derided Ducey and said, “When you think about these cuts, people might think of highly paid administrators. But if you look closer at the budget, you’ll see these cuts go beyond administration.”
Sanchez claimed that Ducey’s budget will force the district to scrutinize “all open non-classroom teacher positions,” which means nothing more than TUSD will continue to place inexpensive substitutes in classrooms as it has done for years.
Sanchez’s statement about scrutiny led to EAGNews.org’s scrutiny of places where cuts might be made other than the classroom.
Records obtained through a public information request show TUSD spent nearly $250,000 on travel and lodging expenses for school employees and others in 2013-14, some of it at luxury hotels.
They included dozens of trips to cities across the country, including Albuquerque, N.M.; Sacramento; New Orleans; San Antonio; Washington, D.C.; Phoenix; Dallas; Seattle; Detroit; Orlando; San Diego; Las Vegas; Berkley, California; Anaheim, California; Boston; Atlanta; Minneapolis; Salt Lake City; Chicago; Mesa, Ariz.; Flagstaff, Ariz.; Chandler, Ariz.; Austin, Texas; Sun Valley, Idaho and other locations.
Airfare and other arrangements for those trips were presumably handled by “Rio Grand Travel 1,” which received $112,664 from the district in 2013-14, records show.
School officials spent money at 83 different hotels. Twenty-one of those received at least $1,000, including the Sheraton Grand Sacramento Hotel for $8,562, the Hyatt Regency New Orleans for $5,749*, the Marriott San Antonio for $5,497, Washington, D.C.’s Churchill Hotel for $4,329, the Marriott San Diego Marina for $2,331, and the Westin Las Vegas for $1,599. For the rest of the article, click here.
“Not knowing the circumstances behind the $250,000 in traveling expenditures, I’m not able to defend it,” said Board member Michael Hicks. “We receive reports on district travels only after the fact. I do know that the administration spent $3,000 to send 3 board members and some cabinet personnel to travel to National School Board Associations 74th Annual Conference in New Orleans, LA. April 5-7, 2014*. We were actually able to vote on that expense, and the vote was 3-2. One would think that in this day and age we could utilize technology more to reduce these costs all the way around.”
According to Hicks, before Dr. Sanchez’s arrival to TUSD, then Superintendent Dr. Pedicone was making “strides in reducing administrative overhead only to have those strides erased a year later – and all in the name of the Unitary Status Plan.”
Essentially the District has laid the blame for the excessive overhead on the very students who are suffering from the poor choices by the administration.
“We cannot keep adding real administrators, directors and assistant directors and not expect to be criticized for them; although Dr. Sanchez claims that we have $30 million in surplus, a $6 million cut should not be a problem for us, now and in the future,” said Hicks.
“In Dr. Sanchez’s message, he indicates where reductions will come from. I was criticized for not voting for the employee raises, but as I stated at our board meeting: reduction in TUSD staff is coming, earlier than I expected. I will only vote for reduction of staff starting at the assistant director level and above. Our front line staff are already tasked at critical levels and our students must come first.”
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