New Hope in the New Year
Posted on | January 12, 2010 | 1 Comment
Just before the holidays turned our collective attention to food in a somewhat different context, the Budget Committee of the SFUSD Board of Education met to hear reports from several District departments. Student Nutrition Services was one of them, and a group of parents and advocates – including two members of the SF School Food Coalition – were on hand to testify in support of retaining a strong budget for school food .
Nancy Waymack, the District’s Director of Policy and Resource Management, presented a very interesting PowerPoint to Board Members, outlining exactly what Student Nutrition Services provides as well as an update on the department’s fiscal circumstances.
Though by now, our brains are finely tuned to glaze over whenever the dreaded PowerPoint rears its ugly head, I have to say that I was riveted. Three main threads stood out for me and provided much inspiration as I contemplate what is on tap for our work in 2010.
First and foremost, what quickly emerged from the presentation was that we already have data proving that when investments are made in our school food program, student participation – the holy grail when it comes to success – rises. Better food and a well-managed program can be a reality and a win for all. This is great news!
Second, the SNS department spends A LOT of money on labor. To the tune of an average $92,714 per FTE (including benefits) – and we have less than 74 staff to manage the entire food program, at over 100 schools. What opportunities does this provide in terms of the future? Do we need more staff to run a strong program? Can we create higher-skilled jobs with this level of expenditure? This will be interesting to consider.
And finally, our Board members are getting behind the concept of change! Jill Wynns, Budget Committee Chair, asked Ms. Waymack to have the facilities department evaluate the feasibility of a central kitchen. Budget Committee member Rachel Norton spoke about the need to prioritize high school lunch participation. Sandra Fewer, Chair of the Curriculum and Program Committee, talked about creating a long-range plan for substantially improving school food and growing food for schools at schools!!!
Please continue to spread the word about the SFSFC – and join our monthly meetings, held in the Mission the 3rd Wednesday of each month (the next is January 20th). Contact Lena Brook at sfschoolfood@gmail.com for meeting details.
Comments
One Response to “New Hope in the New Year”
Leave a Reply
January 13th, 2010 @ 9:39 am
I am afraid that the presentation at the BOE budget committee meeting slipped a little too easily into “Districtspeak”, causing those members of the audience who are not native speakers of that bureaucratic language to make the all too common mistake of thinking that “FTE” meant “full time employee” when in fact it means “full time equivalent.” An FTE position is 8 hours per day; those 8 hours can be worked by one individual, or it can be a combination of the hours of several individuals. Most cafeteria staff do not work an 8 hour day, thus, the number of FTE positions, as shown in the PPP, is just under 74, but that does not mean that total SNS staff is 74 individuals. What’s more, only those employees in the “permanent” category (as opposed to the “as needed” category) are counted towards FTE’s at all. The approximate 74 FTE’s is determined by the total combined hours of the permanent employees only, divided by 8. The approx. 74 FTE positions represent 116 individuals, a few of whom are office staff.
In fact there are 297 people total working in SNS (116 representing the approx. 74 FTE position hours, and another 181 as needed employees), although only two of them are at the management level in the SNS central office (compare that to the 6 people Ann Cooper had working in SNS management when she was in Berkeley, a district with only 1/6 the number of students as SFUSD.)
So, you can’t calculate the “average” pay for an FTE by dividing the amount which the PPP showed as spent on labor and benefits ($6,795,007) by the approx. 74 FTE positions, to derive the “average pay of $92,714 per FTE”, because that $6 million+ figure for salary and benefits covers not just the approx. 74 FTE positions but also all of the “as needed” positions; in addition, most of those FTE positions represent more than one individual, so while the FTE position itself may cost about $92,000, that does not represent the salary of one individual.
I think this whole misunderstanding is caused by the confusing slide in the PPP which stated “Salaries (73.29 FTE’s)…$5,022,943″ and then went on to list benefits and other expenses of the department. I think district admins are so used to preparing their presentations for the BOE that they forget that some of us real people are watching too, and can easily be confused by the difficult foreign language Districtspeak.
That said, Lena is correct that labor costs are high – SFUSD pays what I am pretty sure is the highest salaries in the country, probably the world, for cafeteria workers. This is due to our very high cost of living in SF; you have to pay people enough to be able to live here, and since most of these positions are less than full time, there is a limit to how far people will commute to fill them (so the idea that you could pay people a lower wage which would be adequate in a lower cost of living community which is an hour commute outside SF, is a non starter.)
Permanent school lunchroom helpers make $19.71 an hour (top step, which they pretty much all are) as base pay plus some additional if they are the sole employee at the site.
As needed lunchroom helpers make $16.28 an hour.
School lunchroom cooks make $21.68 at top step (all are at top step). This classification dates from the era when schools did cook; these folks are not generally doing cooking now.
Cook managers make $26.12 at top step.
I hope this helps clear up the confusion caused by the dreaded PPP.