CITY COUNCIL this week advanced a package of bills that raises taxes to provide an additional $70 million in aid to the School District of Philadelphia.
Only it doesn't.
A provision nestled in one of the bills would divert $25 million of the $70 million to Council's own budget to be held hostage, as it were, until the district satisfies Council that it is doing the right thing when it comes to unspecified items.
Neither Council President Darrell Clarke nor other members have said publicly what they want. But Jane Roh, Clarke's spokesperson, said the goal was to stop the district from outsourcing substitute teacher and school nurse jobs to outside providers, i.e. replacing union workers with non-union workers.
Roh said the district hasn't answered Council's questions about these two items and until it does . . . . Well, you get the idea.
Actually, Superintendent William Hite and district officials have answered Council's questions; they just haven't given them the answer they want to hear.
The district has considered outsourcing the role of providing the district with substitute teachers to a Cherry Hill, N.J., firm called Source4Teachers at first-year cost of $15.9 million.
It has done so because the system of finding substitutes, which is now run by the district, doesn't work well. Only 64 percent of the classes that need substitutes get them. Source4Teachers has said it will fill 90 percent of the classes, for about $2 million less than the district is now spending.
Right now, the district draws from a list of 533 per diem substitute teachers and pays them an average of $133 for each day worked. These subs are non-union.
If it cannot fill a class with a non-union sub, it can call upon retired teachers to sub. There are 520 of these and they work for $228 per day. They are union members.
(Retired teachers don't get first dibs at subbing because they are getting state pensions; they can work only if no regular subs can be found.)
When it comes to school nurses, the district has 183 - down from 283 several years ago.
Under state law, the district must provide nurses not only for the public schools, but also the city's private and Catholic schools. School nurses make an average of $77,289 a year - $130,000 when you add health benefits and pension costs. Hiring a nurse for every school costs the district an additional $16 million a year -money it does not have.
Hite and the School Reform Commission have sent out proposals for providers to offer nursing services. The proposals do not call for replacement of the existing unionized staff of nurses, but do ask for ideas for staffing for one or more schools.
Council seems to be sending a contradictory message to the district: Spend money wisely and cut costs whenever possible . . . except when cuts don't follow Council's agenda.
We remind Council that the main purpose of the school district is not to serve as an employment center for adults, but to educate children. And that withholding $25 million doesn't hurt adults, it hurts children.