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Bend over MCCCD wants your money!
Chancellor Rufus Glasper’s salary is over $258,000. [This is the jerk who refused to answer any of my requests for public records] 460 district employees make more than $100,000 a year. Lobbying: The district spends about $387,000 per year on outside lobbyists. The district spent more than $5.3 million on travel last fiscal year. MCCCD spends almost $3.7 million a year on advertising. Maricopa Community Colleges: Flush with cash and hungry for more Jonathan Butcher Goldwater Institute Daily Email June 16, 2011 Pop quiz: what institution has 460 employees making over $100,000 per year, 38 of whom received raises of $10,000 or more between 2008 and 2010? Maricopa County residents should know, they paid for it—and now they are paying even more. The giant sucking sound you hear is from the Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD), one of the nation’s largest—and arguably most bloated—community college districts. While Arizona has lost over 300,000 jobs since 2007, the MCCCD has turned requests for property tax and tuition increases into an annual event. College leadership has requested property tax increases each year since 2005, while requesting tuition increases in six of the past seven years. On Tuesday, by a 4 to 1 vote, MCCCD’s governing board approved a 3 percent hike to county residents’ primary property tax bill, bringing the total college tax bill for a $100,000 home to over $120. As student enrollment has climbed steadily in the past decade, the college district’s spending has exploded. This year total spending hit $1.6 billion, reports Goldwater Institute investigative journalist Mark Flatten. Flatten’s latest, “Schooled in Obstruction: Maricopa Community College Staff Blocks Cost-Cutting Reforms while Pushing Tax and Tuition Hikes,” reports how Chancellor Rufus Glasper’s leadership has turned MCCCD into a serious financial drain on county residents. “I have found no policies that specifically limit the Chancellor’s authority” over personnel decisions, wrote Glasper in an email uncovered by Flatten. “Staffing is a means not an end, and means are my prerogative.” Someone should ask what the “ends” are, and who is responsible for them, because the average completion rate for full-time students in the Maricopa system is 19 percent, below even the disturbingly low national average of 21 percent. County residents should not fund MCCCD’s bloat any longer. The MCCCD board should pass a multi-year moratorium on any tax increases, and Arizona legislators should explore ways to break the district into smaller, independent community colleges to promote competition and more efficient use of tax dollars. Jonathan Butcher is education director for the Goldwater Institute. Learn More: Goldwater Institute: Maricopa County Community College District Calls for Tax and Tuition Increases while Blocking Cost-Cutting Reforms Goldwater Institute: Schooled in Obstruction: Maricopa Community College Staff Blocks Cost-Cutting Reforms While Pushing Tax and Tuition Hikes Goldwater Institute: Maricopa County Community College District hurting businesses and students
Maricopa County Community College District Calls for Tax and Tuition Increases while Blocking Cost-Cutting Reforms Goldwater Institute News Release June 9, 2011 PHOENIX—On June 14, 2011, the Maricopa County Community College District board will decide whether or not to hike property tax rates on all homeowners by 3 percent. In March, the board agreed to raise tuition and other student fees. With state budget reductions in many areas of government, it isn’t surprising that MCCCD is looking for more revenue. But a Goldwater Institute investigation finds that the district has refused to cut administrative bloat or to implement recommendations that could save taxpayers tens of millions of dollars each year. This year, MCCCD, which consists of 10 community colleges and a district office, will spend about $1.6 billion, but less than 44 percent of the district’s operating budget will go toward instruction. When the district’s board grew concerned about overspending and waste, it hired an outside consultant that identified $48 million in savings and new revenue. But administrators fought the recommendations, and to date, few have been implemented. In Schooled in Obstruction: Maricopa Community College Staff Blocks Cost-Cutting Reforms while Pushing Tax and Tuition Hikes, award-winning Goldwater Institute investigative reporter Mark Flatten found that district management publicly embraced and pledged to consider money-saving reforms recommended by the independent consultant, but privately they refused to implement most of them. In fact, Chancellor Rufus Glasper often lectured the district’s voter-elected oversight board on the limits of their power when they asked him to reduce administrative waste. He even went so far as putting together a task force to investigate the board. MCCCD general fund spending has increased by about 30 percent since 2006, even though full-time student enrollment declined during some of those years. A recent study by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity found that the district’s spending on things that do not benefit students averaged 29 percent, compared to just 4 percent at community college districts nationally. Average three-year completion rates for full time students enrolled in a MCCCD school are also below the national average at 19 percent. “Institutionally they are paying more than is typical for lower than typical completion rates,” said Jonathan Robe, a research associate with the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. “So they are overspending and underperforming from the student and taxpayer point of view. You would normally think if they are going to bring in more than is typical in terms of revenue, at least they’d have something to show for it.” Much of the money MCCCD does not spend on instruction goes toward: Salaries: 460 district employees make more than $100,000 a year. Chancellor Glasper’s salary is over $258,000. Perks: Top district officials receive car allowances and cell phones in addition to their salaries. Raises: Between 2008 and 2010, 38 of the district’s highest paid employees received raises of $10,000 or more. Four of them got a pay hike of more than $38,000. Lobbying: The district spends about $387,000 per year on outside lobbyists. Travel: The district and its colleges spent more than $5.3 million on travel last fiscal year. Advertising: MCCCD spends almost $3.7 million a year on advertising. In 2009, concerned that not enough money was being directed to the classroom, the MCCCD board hired consulting firm Alvarez and Marsal to identify ways to cut costs and increase revenues. Alvarez’s final report showed cost-cutting measures and new revenue sources the district could implement to save $48 million a year, including standardizing purchasing and procurement and outsourcing some non-teaching functions like custodial work and grounds-keeping. To date, Chancellor Glasper has implemented only two of the significant cost-cutting measures. In conjunction with the investigative report, the Goldwater Institute has developed recommendations for reducing costs to taxpayers and increasing completion rates at Arizona community colleges. The Institute recommends that the MCCCD governing board reject the current tax increase proposal, institute a multi-year moratorium on tax and tuition increases, and require district administrators to implement the Alvarez recommendations, among other measures. Schooled in Obstruction: Maricopa Community College Staff Blocks Cost-Cutting Reforms while Pushing Tax and Tuition Hikes. The Goldwater Institute is an independent government watchdog that develops innovative, principled solutions to issues facing the states and whose work is made possible by the generosity of its supporters. |