AAPS SUPERINTENDENT DR. Swift is preparing to launch another “listening tour” similar to the successful one she conducted shortly after her hiring. We congratulate her on this effort to get out of Balas and into the community to hear from her constituency. The defeat of the annexation of the Whitmore Lake School District sent a clear message that Ann Arbor taxpayers expect and need concrete information and data in order to support plans placed before them. One of the most persistent criticisms of the annexation had to do with the fact that AAPS officials offered no working budget for the proposed unified district.
In her “listening tour,” Dr. Swift intends to do some talking, as well. She wants to discuss her “growth strategy.” We find alarmist the rhetoric that the district must “grow or die.” The AAPS’s most recent audit shows that once again administrators spent more than taxpayers provided in tax revenue. Nonetheless, between 2011 and 2013 the district paid out bonuses in the form of merit pay to Balas administrators as well as the district’s principals. In 2013, while Dr. Green’s cabinet members agreed to three percent compensation reductions, the cuts were achieved by reducing their respective incentive compensation by 3 percent of their salaries.
At the end of the 2015 school year, Dr. Swift will decide whether to pay $4,500 bonuses to her cabinet and $3,394 bonuses to her 50+ principals. While the bonuses are called for in the respective contracts between the AAPS and its administrators, Board of Education trustees were prepared to void the teachers’ contract in order to force recent pay concessions. Part of making ends meet, then, could be using that money saved to give bonuses to district administrators; this would be both imprudent—given the district’s shrinking fund balance—and grossly unfair.
Dr. Swift has proven herself a good listener and a creative problem-solver. She has called out state legislators, including Gov. Snyder, on long-term cuts to K-12 funding. She has also proven herself a ruthless competitor by marketing schools of choice. She set a target of 700 new pupils from schools of choice and attracted about half that number. Oct. 2015 will reveal whether the strategy is viable—if those students return to AAPS and are joined by new enrollees. Dr. Swift wants to grow her district. We believe the Superintendent doesn’t yet have a firm enough grasp of her district’s finances. She must listen to those who have urged her to adopt zero-based budgeting and demonstrate she is as fiscally savvy as she is pedagogically competent. We commend her on launching a second listening tour. We expect she’ll be listening closely.
