I have noticed one immutable fact about government. When times are good and there is plenty of tax money, they expand government jobs. When times are bad and tax money is nonexistent, they claim that more government jobs are needed to solve the financial problem. And once the problem goes away, through no government action that I can discern, the new government jobs never go away.
I have been investigating two local government bureaucracies through open records requests. They are the Memphis City Schools (MCS) and the Shelby County Schools (SCS). I first asked for a list of job titles, number of employees, salaries and benefits. I had to finally sue the MCS in order to get the information which was 1334 sheets which undoubtedly came from an electronic spreadsheet which they refused to furnish. The SCS furnished the information in electronic format. I have attached several files showing a recap of the information I received. Here is my initial take on this information.
• There seems to be an overabundance of custodial helpers (1017) in the MCS system. I do not find this in the SCS system.
• There seems to be a lot of maintenance people in the MCS system (electricians, carpenters, sheet metal workers, etc). It seems to me that this work could be contracted out on an as needed hourly basis.
• There seems to be a wide range of salaries with the same job titles. e.g. in the SCS system, elementary teachers range from $100,000 down to the $40,000 range. There is a similar range at the MCS system.
• I find no reference to the MCS nutrition center workers although they may be in the list I got. The past scandal there requires further information which I am investigating.
The files that I have attached include the MCS salary schedule organized by job titles a to z with salary ranges and number of people in each job title designation. Also the MCS salary schedule high to low but not including Dr. Kriner Cash who makes over $250,000. Also I included 12 sample pages from the 1334 pages of information I received from the MCS system. On page 3 of 12 your will see the Chief Contracting Officer, Sybille Nobile at $145,000 salary plus benefits.
For the SCS system I included a pdf version of the spreadsheet they sent organized by salaries high to low and another by job titles a to z. Finally a file that shows the number of job titles in the Shelby County School system.
I know this is lot of information but the Memphis City Council and the Shelby County Commission need to analyze these two systems and figure out a way to reduce cost and make them more efficient without hurting the students. More money thrown at the system is not the answer. The answer is opening up the system to competition from private systems such as the Catholic Jubilee schools, voucher and charter schools and reform of the present two systems. More money thrown from Washington is still your tax money.
Click here to see the MCS salary schedule and job titles a to z
Click here to see the MCS slary schedule high to low
Click here to see the SCS high to low salary and benefit schedule
Click here to see the SCS job titles and benefits listed alphabetically
Click here to see number of each titled job at the SCS system
posted by watchdog at
12:47 PM
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