MacIver News Service | January 21, 2011
[Milwaukee, Wisc...] The Milwaukee Public Schools system is so large and inefficient that it cannot accurately track the workloads and physical locations of its substitute teachers. In fact, the MacIver News Service has learned inefficient methods for hiring and placing substitute workers at MPS are costing taxpayers over $4.2 million in wasted funds every year, and district officials have just begun to address the problem of which they’ve known about for nearly a decade.
“The substitute teacher dispatch operation in complex, not only due to the manual dispatch operation, but also because of the specific wage and benefit entitlements of the three categories of substitute teachers as specified in the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association (MTEA) Substitute Teacher contract,” the auditors wrote.
MPS has been examining the problem for the last eight years and is currently soliciting proposals to implement recommendations contained in an internal audit released last November.
The audit examined an outdated and wasteful process that has become a longstanding problem with MPS. Early in the last decade it was determined that the process for hiring and placing substitute teachers on a daily basis would be best served if it were outsourced to a private staffing organization. This would reduce the hassle of daily planning on the district’s end while lifting the burden of excessive staffing costs from Wisconsin taxpayers, it was believed.
Beginning in February 2002, Milwaukee Public Schools outsourced their substitute teacher dispatching operations to QTI, the vendor who had been dispatching temporary clerical workers to district schools. Yet, MPS auditors could not find all the materials regarding that move in 2002.
“Written goals, objectives, anticipated cost savings and other benefits relating to outsourcing the substitute teacher dispatch function in 2002 could not be located,” auditors wrote. “Interviews showed that the lack of data collection, reporting, review and analysis were conditions that led to outsourcing and these same conditions continue to exist today.”
Reports in 2002 and 2006 both recommended the updating of Milwaukee’s inefficient program to benefit both teachers and administrators. However, these suggestions were ultimately ignored, allowing the program to waste money year after year.
MPS uses a labor intensive placement system rather than an automated program similar to those used in other large districts, like Madison’s Public Schools. As a result, both employee time and district money is wasted in trying to pair substitute teachers and clerical employees to daily openings across the district.
The audit explains the labor-intensive process:
4:00 am QTI Dispatchers begin work to complete the substitute teacher dispatch process by 9:00 am
On average, about 180 and up to a maximum of about 260 new substitute teacher assignments are filled each day.
Substitute teacher requests are made by teachers that call into one of four phone lines maintained by QTI, although principals and secretaries also call into QTI if teachers fail to call.
5:00 am QTI dispatchers are to have reviewed all voice mail messages which request substitutes. These requests are entered into a database developed by the temporary staffing agency MPS used previously to QTI’s contract, which is now serviced by MPS.
5:00 am QTI employees begin calling available substitute teachers.
However, this lapse in organizational planning and ignorance of opportunities to improve isn’t the most pressing issue facing Milwaukee’s substitute teacher situation. Every year, millions of dollars are going to teachers who are earning full-time pay and benefits while working only part-time jobs. MPS’s reliance on Day-to-Day and Regular Substitute teachers costs the district an extra $2.1 million per year.Many Day-to-Day Substitutes are treated like permanent employees within MPS, earning full-time pay and nearly full benefits despite having reduced workloads. This differs from Hourly Teacher Substitutes, who are only paid based on the days and hours in which they have actually worked. The city employs teachers at both positions, despite the additional costs of an expansive Day-to-Day staff. These teachers cost a budgeted $14.1 million in 2009 –an average of $33.20 per hour worked. Extrapolated to a standard 40-hour work week, this would be the equivalent of a $68,848 salary in other fields of work.
Conversely, hourly substitutes were more common, accounting for almost three times the staff hours of their daily counterparts (617,770 to 230,783). They earned $22.89 per hour, or $47,611 on a 40-hour per week salary schedule.
This group of substitutes also gets fewer benefits than their counterparts, in most cases receiving no health insurance or retirement benefits. Remarkably, day-to-day substitute teachers earn the same benefits as standard contracted teachers. Regular substitutes, a subset of the Day-to-Day Teachers have the opportunity to earn these extras as well, usually based on service of 90 days or more in a given year.
The complex jumble of substitute teacher classifications and a lack of communications between MPS’s Office of Human Resources and their Vendor, QTI, leaves MPS unable to accurately determine whether substitutes are available for placement, or even if or where they may be instructing MPS students.
The Audit cites one incredible example of a Day-to Day teacher substitute whose leave status was in question:
“The Office of Human Resources believes the employee was back to work but the dispatch office thought she remained on leave as the initial documentation reported,” auditors wrote. “Because the employee is responsible to inform QTI that they have returned to work, if this does not happen the employee could be paid and not dispatched.”
MPS Auditors admit there is a glaring hole in their system.
“One of the major risks in the substitute teacher dispatch process is that Day-to-Day teacher substitutes will be paid but not dispatched,” the audit found.
Thanks to these and other inefficiencies, taxpayers are on the hook for over $4.2 million in misspent funds at Milwaukee’s Public Schools.
Moreover, MPS provides lucrative benefits to their substitutes generally, especially when compared to their peers
“Evaluating the level of health care and other benefits MPS offers to substitute teachers, substitute clericals and retired District employees may present cost saving opportunities,” according to the audit. “Our survey of four school districts showed that three of the four did not provide health care benefits for substitute teachers and one offered health care benefits but the substitutes paid the full cost of this benefit.”
Current plans to replace the old substitute teacher system are supposed to take place this July, according to District officials. Changes in the benefit structures would be subject to collective bargaining between MPS and MTEA.
So for nearly a decade, several reports confirmed that Milwaukee’s current substitute teaching programming does a disservice to MPS, substitute teachers, and taxpayers. MPS is and has been aware that money is being wasted on a complex and outdated system that could instead be used to fund other learning programs in the district.
No one associated with the district was willing to speak on the record regarding the audit’s findings. Attempts to discuss this mater with members of the MPS Board were unsuccessful.
MacIver News Service will have more on efforts to reform the substitute teacher placement and tracking processes in the months ahead.
The full audit can be found, here.
MacIver Institute
