FORT WORTH -- Administrators didn't know how many teachers were on campuses, often worked off bad information, and didn't communicate clearly with one another or with middle and high school principals, consultants told Fort Worth school board members at a special meeting Saturday to discuss a $13 million budget miscue.
All were key breakdowns at multiple points in the staffing process that contributed to the school district having 200 more teachers on staff than officials had budgeted for, said consultant Alyssa Martin, who works for Weaver and Tidwell L.L.P.The audit blamed no person or department but pointed to numerous breakdowns districtwide."There was not one failure point, not one point in which the plan got off track. The process got off of track, and there was not accountability for it," Martin said.Trustees and top administrators spent nearly three hours Saturday morning going over an outside audit that looked at how and where the mistakes occurred.Last year, officials had hoped to cut 200 to 250 teachers this school year because of a dramatic decrease in state funding and other budget challenges.But the staffing process quickly veered off course in early 2011 as administrators and principals worked off reports that inaccurately counted teachers on campuses, Martin said.By spring, newly implemented staffing ratios for middle and high schools -- created to maximize teaching resources -- were disregarded, and staffing projections given to principals were incomplete. In May, principals signed off on master schedules for their schools that included the positions gained and lost, but the schedules did not reflect what administrators had projected, officials said.In August, principals were given approval to hire more teachers to fill vacancies even as Chief Financial Officer Hank Johnson noted concerns that the staffing levels in high schools were already high, the audit found.Walter Dansby, who took over as interim superintendent in June, said top Cabinet administrators will hold a daylong workshop Saturday to go over the findings and create a plan to improve the staffing process."It is to correct action and not to blame anyone but to move forward and take action," Dansby said.Trustees were shocked by how widespread the communication breakdown was among principals, school leadership administrators, human capital management and the finance departments."We had a perfect storm" that created the staffing mistakes, Trustee Norm Robbins said.Trustees said they want a stronger staffing process to include strict deadlines and identify specific administrators responsible for key actions.Trustee Ann Sutherland noted that principals had too much unchecked control in staffing their schools, which she said seemed to be at the heart of many problems."It's like telling a principal not to eat too much candy. ... You have to watch them or they will eat it," Sutherland said. "Any principal wants to have extra teachers."Eva-Marie Ayala, 817-390-7700Twitter: @fwstayalaThe findings
Administrators assumed that middle school principals would cut as many teachers as possible, while principals assumed that they could keep staff at the same level as last year.
An appeals committee of administrators that was supposed to review additional staffing requests from principals never met.
The district's student software program, which has been fraught with problems, made it difficult for principals and administrators to keep centrally located staffing data.
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