In his Feb. 15 opinion piece, Abdul-Hakim Shabazz criticized my recent proposal for the Indianapolis mayor to collect a nominal administrative fee from charter schools he authorizes. Unfortunately, he omitted some very important information.
All public schools have costs associated with their public administration. Some argue Indianapolis Public Schools’ administrative costs at 40 percent are too high and more money should go to the classroom. No one argues there could be a complete absence of administrative costs associated with overseeing public schools.
The Mayor’s Charter School Office is run by a deputy mayor, who makes more than $120,000 annually, and staff responsible for oversight of more than 20 charter schools, including several approved recently. The significant and growing administrative oversight cost for mayoral charter schools is covered by tax revenue collected for providing essential city services like public safety.
There are real costs associated with oversight of public schools. The mayor has been named administrator of the struggling IPS schools the state assumed control of last year. Under that arrangement, the state will make payments to the city to cover administration.
No mayoral charter school in Indianapolis currently pays any administrative fee to the city, despite competing against district schools and non-mayoral charter schools that must use a portion of their scarce funds to cover administrative costs. Mayor’s charter schools oversight should be paid for using tax dollars already received by these schools, not by diverting additional tax dollars from critical city services.
Despite requests to the Mayor’s Charter School Office for detailed information about its budget, I was forced to introduce my proposal without that information. I anticipated that once the mayor’s office revealed the cost of overseeing its charter schools, I would amend my proposal to match that amount. Apparently, the current cost of mayoral charter schools’ oversight is around $600,000 annually. Accordingly, the administrative fee to the city would need to be only 1 percent of the estimated $60 million received each year by the 22 mayoral charter schools.
Marion County resident taxpayers are already more than doing their part. The time has come for charter schools, some of which are for-profit businesses, to finally pay something for the public administration they receive.
While the overall policy should be for mayoral charter schools to pay an administration fee, there could be discounted fees for particular schools that serve especially challenged student populations, such as learning challenged or from non-native English speaking homes, that are more costly to serve.
A small administrative fee from mayoral charter schools would free up city tax dollars. How to best use these funds should be part of a broad community conversation.
One option would be funding after-school enrichment programs for at-risk youth. Programming such as athletics, art or music could engage youth that might otherwise be headed toward criminal behavior.
Brian Mahern is a member of the Indianapolis City-County Council.
