SAN FRANCISCO – The people who run the San Francisco Unified School district owe the taxpayers of California a big “thank you.”

If voters hadn’t approved Proposition 30 in November, 2012, which created new taxes to increase funding for California’s K-12 schools, San Francisco and hundreds of other districts would still be wallowing in huge deficits and distress.

That’s mostly because they spend a boatload of money on labor costs every year, and have never been very successful at controlling costs.

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In May of 2012, before Proposition 30 passed, the San Francisco district was facing an estimated $83 million budget deficit and the prospect of hundreds of layoffs. A year later, after the ballot proposal passed, the deficit was significantly lower, but 105 layoff notices still went out to teachers and other employees.

One would think, with the new infusion of revenue, as well as continued budget headaches, that the district would do everything in its power to curtail extra costs and be more frugal with taxpayer money.

As Superintendent Richard Carranza was quoted as saying, “Though the funding climate is much improved, we still have several areas where there are budget shortfalls and budget uncertainties.”

Yet the district continued to throw money out the window like it grows on trees.

Automatic, annual step raises for teachers, mandated by the teachers union contract, is just one of many examples of how the San Francisco district continues to waste much of the revenue it receives.

They raises go to nearly every teacher every year, and are based solely on seniority and the number of graduate level college credits earned. Effectiveness in the classroom is not a factor.

Basically, San Francisco teachers get a bonus every year for not getting fired. And of course, in a strong union district, it’s pretty difficult to get fired.

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In 2013-14 fiscal year the district spent $4.4 million on automatic annual step raises for teachers. The handout did not reward excellent performance or create an incentive for lesser teachers to improve. It just moved a lot of tax money out the door for no good reason at all.

One has to wonder if that $4.4 million could have prevented a few eager young teachers from being laid off.

Union collective bargaining is not solely to blame for the black hole of labor spending that plagues the San Francisco district. The district’s administration is financially top-heavy, as well.

In 2012-13, for example, 84 district administrators made straight salaries of at least $100,000 dollars per year, costing the district just short of $10 million. With other compensation and benefits added in, that total came to $10.9 million.

So much for belt-tightening to meet the taxpayers halfway. It’s more like, “Thanks for the extra money, people of California. We’ll continue to spend it at alarming rates.”

Another example is the much smaller Fontana Unified School District.

In early 2013, the district issued layoff notices to 42 teachers. Officials doubted that any of those teachers would actually lose their jobs, due to the extra money that would be rolling in due to Proposition 30, but they had to issue preliminary layoff notices to satisfy the law.

In other words, the district was issuing layoff notices based on its financial situation before taxpayers came to the rescue.

But the following year, 2013-14, the district still coughed up $2.9 million in automatic step raises. That was a colossal waste for a district that was just months removed from having to reduce staff and lower the quality of instruction for students.

In Fontana, the step raise expenditure was an even bigger waste than in other districts, because it was, in effect, rewarding a failed performance.

In 2013 state testing, Fontana students did not come close to making the grade.

In English/language arts, 46.9 percent of Fontana students had either proficient or advanced scores, compared to the 56.3 statewide. In history, 39.4 percent of Fontana students were proficient or advanced, compared to 49.3 percent statewide.

The same dismal pattern held true for math (40.2 percent/51.2 percent) and science (50.4 percent/59.1 percent).

Yet most of the teachers still received their step raise the next school year. It was a very nice “thank you” for a job far from completed.