The initiative proposes eliminating the $500 loss limit in Missouri casinos imposed by the Missouri Gaming Commission, which says that casinos “shall insure through internal controls that no person shall lose more than five hundred dollars ($500) during each gambling excursion.”

If voters approve removing that regulation, casinos will respond by increasing the gambling tax from 20 to 21 percent. Why is that important to Missouri public education? The vast majority of those tax dollars go toward education spending in the state.

I know full well the criticisms that will be leveled at this post. Removing the loss limit preys on those addicted to gambling, for starters.

Gambling is not synonymous with casinos. Those who have problems would find a way to gamble — on the Internet, at poker night in their own homes, at their church bingo night, or even by traveling to other states. Attacking a lawful form of entertainment is an outlet for frustration with a different problem. And it’s an entirely legitimate problem. But removing temptation from one quarter isn’t the answer. It’s not the casinos that create the problem, just like it’s not the poker or bingo nights.

Another criticism is the extortionist bent to the initiative. It’s the nudge-nudge, wink-wink “let us get away with taking more money and we’ll kick some your way.”

It’s true that casinos are asking to be allowed to take more money, but in my line of thinking, they shouldn’t have to ask in the first place. Why is the loss limit now in place? Why should the government step in to tell me how much money I can spend on entertainment in any given evening?

Casinos are simply providing Missourians with an incentive to remove a regulation that limits their business. If the incentive is great enough, Missourians will respond. But it should be Missouri citizens who decide, not the government deciding for them.

And a final criticism is the rhetoric being used by the “Yes for Schools First” campaign. Many would say it’s a business deal cloaked in feel-good language. I’ve already acknowledged my misgivings about the wording of the initiative, and I’m not overly fond of the fact that casinos can use schools to make their business seem more altruistic.

Anyone who gives it half a thought knows casinos aren’t in it for the schools. They’re businesses, and they’re in it for profit. But why shouldn’t Missouri schools profit at the same time? You’d be hard-pressed to argue that a person who otherwise wouldn’t set foot in a casino will choose to gamble just to help the schools.

Missouri voters will have to carefully weigh their options this November. Gambling addiction is a serious problem, and not one I’m trying to make light of. But the gambling in question is legal in Missouri. And I simply do not believe that removing the casino loss limit will appreciably change the amount of gambling engaged in by Missouri citizens. The only change I anticipate is that it may become more localized.

And it will help Missouri schools.

If you have comments, please leave them below, or email me.

The post Schools First? Well … Second, at Least appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

We’ve said that we’re looking beyond salary, and that our purpose is research, not advocacy. Now, let’s talk about what our research includes.

I can’t speak for Audrey, but for me, at least, sketching out superintendent compensation for Missouri citizens is important not because it allows me or the Show-Me Institute to say we should change this or that to improve public education, but because it allows Missourians to see where their tax dollars are going. And it allows them to make judgments about how their money is being spent, apart from what I or SMI might think.

We’ve requested contracts from every Missouri superintendent, and we’ve received more than half. While we’re waiting for the remaining 200, we’ve begun entering the contract information into a spreadsheet. In all honesty, it’s a judgment call — what gets coded, what doesn’t, or how to compare benefits across contracts when they’re often not entirely comparable.

For the sake of increasing public information, I’d rather be more thorough than overlook something important.

After careful consideration, we came up with the following headings.

Enrollment, as of 2007: A superintendent in charge of a district with more students might pull more pay than one with fewer students.

The Tax Levy: How much is the district asking of its taxpayers, and how much have they agreed to give?

Percentage of Students Eligible for Free or Reduced-Price Lunch: This is a proxy for wealth of the district. As Audrey discussed earlier, that can play a big role in superintendent compensation.

Contract Year: Our request includes the first employment contract under which the superintendent was hired, as well as any changes in salary or benefits during his employment. This lets us see how quickly pay rises, and when extra benefits are added.

Number of Years With the District: Compensation may increase with experience.

Salary:The biggie, but by no means the only form of compensation. It is the easiest base of comparison across superintendents.

But the benefit boost can add thousands of dollars to a salary, so we account for benefits, too — annuities; life, disability, health, dental and vision insurance; retirement; membership dues and meeting costs for professional organizations; travel allowances; cell phones; sick leave; personal leave; vacation.

We also note whether the district provides for evaluation of the superintendent, the superintendent’s gender, and whether or not the superintendent has an advanced degree. We finish up with any notes concerning oddities in the contracts.

This should allow us to draw some pretty thorough comparisons across Missouri school districts. More importantly, it will allow us to paint an overall picture of superintendent compensation in the state. Do superintendents make too much, too little, or the right amount?

Well, that’s a judgment call I hope Missouri citizens will make with this information.

Our list of headings is by no means finalized; we’re still deciding on categories to explore. If you have any suggestions about what we should consider, please leave a comment below or email me.

The post It’s a Judgment Call appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

But there’s a crucial difference. Their districts pay them with taxpayer dollars. The Show-Me Institute pays me with private ones. The two situations just aren’t comparable.

Classifying superintendent compensation as part of public record isn’t arbitrary. Missouri citizens fund superintendents, and they have a right to know where their tax dollars are going.

When denying our request to waive research and copying fees, one superintendent wrote that this research wouldn’t serve the public good, but rather personal agendas.

While I understand asking about compensation can be a touchy subject, superintendents signed up for this. They made themselves public figures the moment they took a job with a public entity. But the knee-jerk protectionist tendency is still there. Even when superintendents comply with my requests and send their contracts, the information sometimes come with comments.

“I understand it is your intent to lobby against public schools with this information,” wrote one superintendent on a cover page sent with his contract. “What a shame, the focus continues to be on anything but the students.”

I am not writing this post because I feel the need to defend or justify my research. I would hardly be working for the education branch of an organization if my intent were to fight against public education. I am a product of public education, from elementary school clear through to the public university I attended. But I do want to address, again, the purpose of what Audrey and I are doing.

So, where is the focus? Well, I think it’s fair to say that the students don’t have a lot of say in what gets taught to them, what resources they’re provided with, or who makes the decisions about those things. It’s the adults, not the children, that should be the focus of research into the cost and efficacy of public education.

Neither Audrey nor I have an agenda. We’re not trying to uncover scandals or make superintendents look bad. We are simply researching how districts compensate superintendents.

In fact, it goes beyond compensation. We’re interested in how districts function, the strengths and weaknesses of large districts versus small, and a host of other topics that give superintendents as much room to shine as to look bad.

Yes, the research will be published. And, yes, there will probably be conclusions and recommendations made that are based that research. But they will stem from that research — from facts. We don’t yet know what we’ll find, so it’s ludicrous to claim we’re hoping to use it for specific advocacy purposes. Our interest is in finding out what there is to know. Plain and simple.

* I didn’t include the names of superintendents who have taken pot shots at the the Show-Me Institute, myself, or Audrey, because it would do more harm than good at this point.

If you have any questions about the research Audrey and I are conducting, or the about the responses we’ve received from superintendents, feel free to leave a comment below or email me.

The post Where Is the Focus? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

“It started with HAVA,” Kristy Urich, Grundy County’s clerk, said. “We had to have very expensive electronic equipment, and it forced us into having fewer polling places.”

Grundy County underwent precinct consolidation in the wake of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002, meaning it reduced the number of polling places available to voters. Why? To save money.

HAVA requires that federal money be given to states: “to replace punch card voting systems or lever voting systems (as the case may be) in qualifying precincts within that State with a voting system (by purchase, lease, or such other arrangement as may be appropriate) […]”

But even though federal funds were available, there was only so much money to go around.

“They allocated X amount of dollars per location,” Urich said. “And they don’t pay for ongoing maintenance. Although they paid for most of the original setup costs, they don’t continue to pay.”

Without enough federal funds, changing over to more high-tech voting systems was cost prohibitive. And, just like that, places to vote disappeared from Grundy County.

“There was a lot of ongoing legislation [leading up to HAVA],” Urich said. But ultimately, “Our lovely hanging chads created that bill.”

What does precinct consolidation mean for voters? Well, it could mean fewer voters bothering to turn out. After Grundy County’s precinct consolidation, turnout in the April municipal election dropped from 23.88 percent in 2007 to 4.84 percent in 2008.

Urich attributes the drop in turnout to non-elections. She said that school districts and other political subdivisions no longer have to hold elections each year, and fewer races mean fewer issues to attract voters to the polls.

“If [districts] have the exact same number of people file as positions open, then they consider the position filled, and they don’t have an election,” Urich said. “With many of the schools doing the nonelections … it just leaves very little on the ballot.”

Crawford County, too, underwent precinct consolidation. Dedee Hamilton, voter registration clerk for the county, told me it had to do with making polling places accessible to disabled persons.

“The reason [the county clerk and staff] consolidated from 18 polling places to seven is because we had a lot of small polling places,” Hamilton said. “They determined it would be better to bring all those polling places into one area.”

So, to make polling places accessible to disabled persons, as required by HAVA, Crawford County simply got rid of smaller polling places that weren’t up to standard. While HAVA does provide for federal funds to equip polling places for the disabled, the amount of funding again wasn’t enough. Hamilton also mentioned new equipment requirements when specifying why consolidation occurred.

After consolidation, turnout in the April municipal election for Crawford County dropped from 15.28 percent in 2006 to 8.41 percent in 2007. It rose to 14.23 percent in 2008, but the initial drop is interesting.

Could it be that when the polling place to which a voter usually goes disappears, he doesn’t make the effort to travel to a new polling place? Maybe it’s farther away, or just unfamiliar. A year or two later, he falls into a new habit — and turnout starts rising again.

Although I didn’t speak directly with anyone from Jasper County, turnout dips about 5 percentage points after consolidation there. It drops about 15 percentage points in Phelps County.

This is clearly still anecdotal, but I hope to explore it further. It may be that HAVA is not having the desired effect. The new equipment may make it easier for voters who show up, but ultimately, more may be staying home because of reductions in polling places.

If you have any thoughts about precinct consolidation and how it affects voter turnout, please feel free to leave a comment below, or email me.

The post Helping Missourians Vote? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

How much does the cost increase?

“It varies,” said Darryl Kempf, Cooper County’s clerk. “There is no magic number.”

Political subdivisions — school, fire, and hospital districts, to name a few — help split the election tab.

“Missouri law requires that election costs be shared proportionally,” Betsy Byers, elections outreach and education coordinator for the Missouri Secretary of State, said. When determining how much each subdivision pays, the county charges based on the number of registered voters.

The specific Missouri statute, 115.065, subsection 3, states that election costs (emphasis added):

“shall be assessed by charging each political subdivision and special district the same percentage of the total cost of the election as the number of registered voters of the political subdivision or special district on the day of the election is to the total number of registered voters on the day of the election, derived by adding together the number of registered voters in each political subdivision and special district submitting a question or candidate at the election.”

It’s cheaper when there are more subdivisions to foot the bill. In April, the majority of school districts in a county in any given year will hold an election for school board members or financial issues. Because so many subdivisions share the cost of the election, the cost for any one district remains lower than if it were one of a few, or the sole district holding an election. They simply divvy up the cost of the election proportionally, by the number of registered voters in each district compared to the total number of registered voters eligible to vote on all ballot issues.

So, if there are three districts — one with 1,000 voters, one with 500, and one with 3,500 — and the total cost of the election is $10,000, then the first pays $2,000, the second $1,000 and the third $7,000.

But in an August or November election, not all school districts have races. Those who do will pay a higher charge because there are fewer districts to split the bill. And they’re paying not only the cost for that particular race, but also for taking part in a much more costly election.

For instance, in April elections, Cooper County does not use touch screen devices. But in an August or November election, the state does.

“The touch screen device adds more than $10,000 to the cost of an election,” Kempf said. “August and November elections are always higher to begin with.”

Cooper County and any school districts that hold elections in those months have to pay. The state or the federal government does not.

“The state doesn’t pay for elections, and the county pays for it,” Kempf said. “That’s not OK, but that’s what we have.”

So, while it’s tempting to say school financial issues should be put on the ballot in November to bolster turnout, the cost to the districts may be too high. It may entail a burdensome fee that discourages districts from putting issues on the ballot in high-profile election months. Although the exact cost increase is not certain, April is the way to go in order to save money. But it’s not optimal if you’re looking to increase turnout.

So, districts are facing two distinct, competing tendencies. Can we blame them for trying to save money when they’re in the process of asking for more?

While it is more costly for school districts to hold financial issue elections in August and November, some districts do so anyway. We’ll be looking into that soon. If you have questions or thoughts about school election financing, feel free to leave a comment below, or email me.

The post Their Fair Share? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In fact, Missouri’s average county turnout in the 2004 presidential election was just about that — 65.12 percent. But that’s in the highest-profile election in the United States. So, what happens in local school board elections? Well, obviously, turnout dips. Or plummets.

In a June 2008 CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, 83 percent of Americans said that education was either ‘extremely important’ or ‘very important’ to them in making their decision on who to vote for this November.

If education is so important to so many people, selecting the president is just step one, right? We should expect to see high turnout in local elections, too, because it’s those elections in which voters ostensibly have the most direct influence on their own local education policy.

In Missouri school districts, at least, the exact opposite is true.

I have collected district-level turnout percentages for 30 Missouri counties, which includes more than 150 school districts (though not all of those are majority districts in the county). Average turnout in Missouri school board elections (in my sample): 16.91 percent. Now, that’s failing the test. And far from thrilling.

Bates County had the highest turnout in my sample across its six districts, at an average of 26.76 percent. The lowest? Douglas County’s 7.87-percent average across its five districts.

I’m not calling out Douglas County or praising Bates. Both figures are low. So, does that mean that Missourians don’t think education is ‘extremely important’ or ‘very important’? Of course not. It means that people talk big and fail to act. People get busy. They live their lives, and they manage to stir themselves in November because the stakes are high.

What they fail to realize is that the stakes are high in April, too. After all, their votes are much more likely to count in a school election with 17-percent turnout than in a national one. And what they’re influencing is incredibly important.

Voting in local school elections won’t drive national education policy, of course, but it will affect community education decisions. Who is the superintendent? How much is he paid? Where will local dollars be spent, and what will they accomplish?

Voters have a say in this. They choose school board members, and board members make those decisions. It’s time they start treating these issues on the local level as they do on the national level — as if they were “extremely important.”

The post Extremely Important? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

So, who chooses the school board members?

Voters. But some of them have more on the line than others. A school district is one of the few places where employees have some say in choosing the people who will ultimately affect the size of their paychecks.

A district employee has a greater incentive to vote for a board member who would raise school salaries than does someone not employed by the district. And, with turnout in some Missouri school districts lower than 10 percent, school employees might just be able to decide the election.

As Terry Moe noted in a 2006 article in Education Next, “district employees have strong incentives to get involved in school-board politics and to take action in trying to elect candidates who will promote their occupational interests.”

In other words, if turnout of non-school personnel is too low, district employees are a much more potent force in school board elections. So, they may ultimately choose the very people they will later bargain with for salary increases, benefits, and retirement packages, to name a few.

In many Missouri counties, a school district is no small thing. There are counties where one in five employees gets a paycheck from a school district. And, if most of them vote, that’s substantial. And potentially decisive.

Let’s look at the Pattonville School District. I’ve discussed its superintendent’s contract in an earlier post. If you recall it, you know that the Pattonville superintendent’s salary and benefit package is substantial.

Well, the Pattonville School Board approved that contract and all its attendant benefits — and the district’s voters elected the board members.

So, just how many voters showed up to choose who negotiated on their behalf for the superintendent’s pay? Well, not many. From 2000–2007, an average of just 16.31 percent of registered voters in the district turned out at the polls.

This is not to say that the voters who did turn out were only school district employees. In truth, I have no guess as to the number. But low turnout makes it that much more possible that district employees will have decisive electoral power, should they turn out in high numbers. The higher the overall turnout, the more diluted the influence of district employees.

How much say should district employees have? Well, for me, at least, that’s not the real question. The question is: How much say will taxpayers allow district employees to have by repeatedly failing to show up at the polls?

If you would like to know more about school board election turnout, or if you have ideas about the extent to which district employees affect school board election results, feel free to leave a comment below, or email me.

The post How Much Say Do They Have? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

All this time, I’ve been thinking I had the short end of the stick in filing Sunshine Law requests for school district election results with Missouri county clerks. But, as it turns out, they may be just as frustrated as I am.

“I am covered up right now,” said Don Firebaugh, Madison County‘s clerk, when I called to ask for some additional information.

Well, August is fast approaching, so it occurred to me there might be some truth in that statement. But, at the time, I brushed it off as one more attempt to keep from doing the work. Of course these clerks are busy, but how difficult could it be to look up a couple of numbers? And how many requests for public information do they really get?

Well, the answer might be more than you would suspect.

“I’m pulling my hair out,” said Hubert DeLay, the Mississippi County clerk. He had already sent me some data, but I needed a little more, and the news was obviously distressing to him. He said it just wasn’t possible for him to spend much more time on a “low-priority request” like mine.

In all fairness, he sent the extra information I asked for that same day, about an hour later. But our conversation got me thinking. If my request was low-priority, who else was asking for information?

Well, I still can’t answer that. I have asked some county clerks I’ve been on the phone with recently, but they haven’t been willing to say who’s asking for information. What’s clear, however, is that someone is.

“We get requests all the time,” said Shelley Harvey, Audrain County‘s clerk. She did not elaborate, but the message is the same from almost every county clerk I’ve asked. People are using the Sunshine Law — and liberally.

Gary Youngblood, Barry County‘s clerk, said they hadn’t received too many requests, but that it could be difficult to fill requests like mine. Barry County charged me a modest amount for the information provided, but I have since had to call twice for additional information (not because the records were incomplete; they were, in fact, quite good) but because I had thought of other information I wanted to have.

Each time, Barry County said they would have to charge me extra. I asked for invoices. Both times, Mr. Youngblood gave me the extra information for free. He told me he wouldn’t be able to do it again, though.

“We just try to accommodate people,” he said. But he made it clear that he is responsible to the taxpayers, and providing free information — even to a nonprofit — is not always an option. Especially, I would guess, if the volume of requests is high.

The Sunshine Law is undoubtedly useful, and public information should be available. But at what price? Perhaps county clerks who have been dragging their feet on my request have reason to do so. Maybe they really are swamped with other requests.

If so, what’s the answer? Well, busy and stressed county clerks may have found one. The high fees some counties have requested may be their way of discouraging those who aren’t serious about their information requests. Those who value the information might be willing to pay more to get it. Those who don’t value it as much won’t pay the premium.

This is problematic for someone on a budget, but it is what we should expect, maybe. The Sunshine Law is well-intentioned, but my experience has left me wondering: Is it just too much for public officials?

The post Is It Just Too Much? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Well, that’s the idea. But, in some instances, it might be more of a demand. If a school district fails to pass a proposed tax levy, it can go back on the ballot in the next election. So, if a district is persistent, odds are it’ll get passed eventually.

According to Kelli Hopkins, an attorney and director of education policy for the Missouri School Boards Association, there are no limits on how many times a bond issue or tax levy proposal can be put on the ballot, though they do require different majorities to pass in different months.

So, is it a common tactic to wear down voters and use brute force to pass financial issues?

Happily, the answer is no.

But some districts do try. Bucklin R-2 School District put the same 60-cent tax levy on the ballot in three nearly consecutive elections: April 2001, August 2001, and April 2002 (oddly enough, skipping the November election — perhaps because, as Audrey indicated in her last post, financial issues may be less likely to pass in November — or, as a reader commented, because of the higher cost involved in putting an issue on the ballot during that month).

The tax levy failed all three times, and Bucklin gave up.

Maries County R-1 School District‘s proposed tax levy faced a similar rejection by voters. In August 2001, voters said no to a 35-cent increase. The district tried again in April 2002, with a more modest 25-cent increase. It, too, failed. The same 25-cent proposal failed in August 2002, and the district gave up.

So, does it ever work?

Well, maybe. Jackson R-2 School District was able to pass a tax levy increase. But only after giving voters a year off. A 40-cent increase was put on the ballot and rejected in April and August 2000. A 25-cent increase was rejected in August 2001. In 2002, the district backed off. Then, in November 2003, it was able to get voters to approve a 35-cent increase.

In light of the year off, it hardly seems like this was a case of hitting voters repeatedly with the same issue. The district’s situation could have changed in the year off, making the 35-cent increase more acceptable to voters. The fact that it passed probably had little to do with the first three attempts.

The case of Bayless School District looks more promising. A 50-cent increase failed in April 2000, followed by the failure of a 75-cent increase in November that same year. Then, in February 2001, the 75-cent increase was passed by voters.

All in all, this would be the more likely candidate, but because the amount changed, the circumstances may have, too. I can’t say with certainty that this entailed forcing a financial issue. After all, if a school district is doing its job, it listens when voters say no. And then it negotiates between elections. So, the ballot language and the content of the actual tax levy proposal may be different the second or third time around. It could be that Bayless simply listened to its voters and made the appropriate changes to get the levy passed.

Even so, it’s likely the brute-force tactic is sometimes used. But the more common strategy is simply to decrease the amount asked for. Either way, the bottom line remains the same: If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

If you have any questions or insights about success rates of financial issues, please leave a comment below or feel free to email me.

The post If at First You Don’t Succeed … appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Some contracts are sparing with benefits, others chock full of them. But how big is the benefit boost?

Well, it can be very significant.

Take Pattonville R-3 School District. The superintendent’s salary for the 2007–2008 school year was $170,000. Pattonville is a district with more than 5,000 students. In comparison to other Missouri school districts, the benefit package is generous. A few of the bigger benefits are:

• A $600-per-month automobile allowance (plus reimbursement in the amount of 48.5 cents for each mile traveled outside Pattonville)
• $5,000 for an annuity (a tax-sheltered savings account)
• A $300,000 term life insurance policy
• $6,207 per year for medical, hospitalization, and dental insurance
• $700 per month for dependent health insurance
• 25 vacation days per year
• A district cellphone

Minus the life insurance, vacation time and cellphone, the benefits listed above come to $26,807. That’s more than 15 percent of the $170,000 salary.

For the 2008–2009 school year, the Springfield R-12 School District superintendent got a $44,000 annuity on top of his salary. In a faxed salary breakdown the district sent us in May, the superintendent’s total salary was listed at $156,489, and his total benefits at $80,508.09 — more than 50 percent of his salary.

So, benefits can be a big deal. Or they can be fairly small.

The Ava R-1 School District contract explicitly provides for 15 days vacation per year, but is silent on other benefits — except to say that the superintendent “will be entitled to any other additional benefits as approved by the Board.”

Surprisingly, the St. Louis superintendent has a contract that seems to fall squarely in between Ava’s sparseness and the flushness of Springfield and Pattonville. And she leads the largest school district in Missouri. While she makes $210,000 in salary per year, according to the contract that the district sent, no annuity is listed, she does not receive benefits for her dependents, and she receives the same medical, dental, vision, and disability insurance as other administrative employees in St. Louis. But she does get the largest car allowance we’ve seen: $900 per month.

While larger school superintendents tend to make more than smaller ones, student enrollment doesn’t explain all of the differences in pay. We have a hunch that local wealth plays a part.

My intent with this post is not to label school districts as angels or demons, but to comment on the broad array of benefits in Missouri superintendent contracts. And to point out that they can make a big difference. Suffice it to say that pay is not as simple as salary.

For those of you who have been following my posts about county clerks and school district voter turnout, I will get back to that. But while I’m finishing up the data entry, I thought I’d switch tacks and provide a second perspective on superintendent contracts.

As always, I’m interested in what you have to say or add to what I’ve written here. Feel free to leave a comment below, or email me.

The post From Frugal to Flush: The Benefit Boost appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In fact, all school board elections in Missouri are nonpartisan, according to Kelli Hopkins, a director of education policy for the Missouri School Boards Association. Board candidates don’t run as Republicans or Democrats.

Theoretical papers argue that nonpartisan school board members are beholden to all citizens, not just those of a particular party, and that without partisanship there’s a wide variety of candidate choice — not just Republicans and Democrats.

To even further divorce all school elections from partisanship, districts rarely hold elections in November. Many elections run in February, April, June, or August, but most often in April — a month least linked with partisan elections.

“The separation of school board elections from general elections was a deliberate attempt by Progressive-era reformers to reduce partisan influence in the school election process,” write Ann Allen and David Plank in a 2005 paper for the Politics of Education Association.

Still, there is controversy surrounding both the timing of school elections and school board candidate partisanship. Some have argued that partisan school board elections would bring up lagging turnout. Others, that holding school elections in November would do the same. The question is, is it worth it?

These arguments have some serious implications for school district governance. But would partisanship or November school elections do what advocates say? Would turnout increase dramatically?

Right now, I can only comment on the timing. 

If we look at school elections held in April and those on the ballot in November, the difference in turnout is often startling. And, from what I’ve seen, November school elections always have higher turnout than those in April.

The Lathrop R-2 School District put bond issues on the ballot, once in November 2000, once in April 2006. The bond amounts were $4,300,000 and $7,350,000, respectively. So it would seem that the April bond issue, with a significantly higher dollar amount, would garner the most attention.

In fact, turnout in the April election was 39.04 percent, while in November it was 81.94 percent, more than double the April turnout.

Some caveats: this definitely falls into the realm of the anecdotal, and it is likely most instances are less dramatic, as with Clinton 124 School District, where turnout for a bond issue in April 2000 was 31.38 percent, as opposed to 54.58 percent for one in November 2002.

It could be that voting in the school race was incidental only. More people vote in national elections, so there are more potential voters at the polls.  

Regardless, turnout increases in school elections when they are held in conjunction with more high-profile elections. Whether this actually captures voter interest or merely highlights irresponsible, uninformed voting is debateable. But if the goal is higher turnout, here’s at least one avenue to further explore.

The post Remarriage? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Some county clerks have been efficient and forthcoming, while some have been obstructionist or even incompetent. But I have been able to collect 97 sets of school district voting records from Missouri’s 114 counties (plus the city of St. Louis) using Missouri’s Sunshine Law. And I’m not done yet.

I will continue to try to collect the remaining counties’ records, but in the meantime, I wanted to give Missourians a recap of my dealings with their public officials.

Let’s start with a few of the most surprising cases of — I’ll call it what it is — overcharging. St. Charles County quoted me a cost of $274.20 to collect only 4 years’ worth of data. Granted, the years I asked for were 2000 to 2003, so it’s likely they were not easily accessible by computer, but that is not a unique problem. Despite facing the same situation, 63 counties were able to supply their records at no charge.

Harrison County sent me this succinct response:

For $41.37 an hour, we would be more than happy to get your request. Please advise me of your decision. This information is located in the storage of our basement. It will take SEVERAL HOURS to retrieve this information.

There wasn’t a lot there, but it said everything.

Barton County was a whole different story. The clerk there charged exactly the maximum I had specified in my request. When I asked her to break down the charges in an invoice so that I could see how she had arrived at the charge, she said she would fax one to me. A week later, she said she had been too busy. When I asked her when I could expect the information, she said she just didn’t know. I have yet to receive an invoice.

Lincoln County actually sent the requested records, but the clerk asked for $85. When I asked her to break down the charges, she did not respond. A week later when I called, she told me she had undercharged me and that if she were forced to break down the charges, the cost would go up. I requested an accurate accounting of the charges. I have yet to receive an invoice.

It would be unfair to mention only those county clerks who were less than helpful. Although I have had to call nearly every county to follow up on records, either to get them at all or to complete them when data was missing, some counties went above and beyond my expectations.

Henry County compiled the most organized and thorough records. I did have to call, because of missing numbers in 2004, but the clerk was friendly, efficient, and open. There are no longer any gaps in the records.

Christian and Ozark counties were similarly helpful. Christian County charged a modest amount, but the records were exemplary. Ozark County supplied the records at no charge and then worked extensively with me over the phone to get the information I wanted.

I have received complete information from Audrain, Camden, Cape Girardeau, Clay, Dent, Douglas, Linn, Platte, Randolph, St. Francois, and St. Louis counties (I didn’t file a request for the latter, because the information is available online). But keep in mind that the majority of those required additional phone calls to complete.

All in all, it’s been a mixed bag. I have had more positive experiences than negative ones. But those cases in which clerks were obstructionist were particularly egregious. The bottom line? About 10 percent of Missouri’s county clerks have made it difficult. At face value, this doesn’t sound like a lot, but county clerks are beholden to the public.

If even one clerk acts to obstruct a records request, that is one too many.

The post Taking the Bad With the Good: A Recap appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Specifically, let’s talk about turnout in Missouri school district elections. And not the usual rant about how it’s shamefully low (it is), but about what affects it.

For more than a month now, I’ve been working to create a database, which will eventually be publicly available, that details voter turnout in Missouri school district elections. Out of the number of eligible voters in any given district, how many show up to express an opinion? The answer? Usually 20 percent or less.

The real answer? Well, we just don’t know.

Even if we know that 20 percent voted in a school board election, we don’t know whether it was of primary interest to them, or whether they just happened to cast a vote while voting on an issue of more importance to them. Some vote based solely on name recognition, while others use even more arbitrary criteria.

School board election turnouts vary widely. In general, if there is a financial issue on the ballot, turnout spikes for school board races in the same election. Take Cape Girardeau School District’s 2000 school board race. Turnout was 17.61 percent, in a district with an average turnout of 11.96 percent. It’s important to note that the other years showing relatively high turnout (2002, 2003, and 2008) had no financial issues tied to this specific school district.

What’s most surprising about this chart, though, is the 2007 turnout. At 1.03 percent, the nature of this election definitely had something to do with that low average turnout. So why did turnout jump more than 18 percentage points from 2007 to 2008 if there were no financial issues on the ballot?

I spoke with Cape Girardeau’s election supervisor, and he told me that it probably had something to do with a proposed storm water tax increase that mobilized a lot of voters. So those eligible to vote in the school board race as well may have done so only incidentally.

There are, of course, many other factors that affect turnout. What month the election is held in, for instance. The above elections, as with most school board elections, were held in April. In August or November, turnout would likely be higher — though, again, this may reflect only an elevated number of voters rather than elevated interest.

Actual turnout percentages may be influenced by the competitiveness of a particular race. If there is a clear winner, voters may not bother going to the polls.

The bottom line is that school board races are not insulated from other issues. Jumps and dips may be partially explained by a number of factors outside the race itself.

During the coming weeks, I hope to post more of my findings about turnout in Missouri school district elections. Let this post serve as a reminder that numbers, while useful, can only be informative when examined critically and applied cautiously.

The post The Ins and Outs (Or Ups and Downs) of Turnout appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

That was what a Franklin County employee told me when I asked why election results reported in the same format were less detailed in 2007 and 2008 than they had been in 2006 (and earlier years). In 2006, the reports had a figure labeled “times counted.” This was simply the number of ballots cast in a particular race, paired with the total number of registered voters eligible to vote in that race. And it allowed turnout to be calculated. In 2007 and 2008, that figure was missing.

At first, because I’ve seen it so often, I assumed the missing data was caused by a computer error. Even though the format hadn’t changed, I figured it must have been omitted accidentally on the hard copies I was given.

I was wrong.

The “times counted” figure was gone, not missing. It simply stopped being reported in more recent years. Because it confused people.

Who exactly it confused wasn’t made clear (the county clerk’s office, perhaps?). It certainly hadn’t confused me. Although, I admit, the “times counted” figure gave me pause the first time I saw it, I was able to figure it out. Anyone with an interest in the results would have figured it out, either on his own or with a quick phone call to the county clerk’s office.

Instead of recording the information with that assumption, Franklin County opted to make its election results “clearer” for laypeople. And less detailed.

Now you can see how many total votes there were in a given race, but that figure is practically meaningless. Because voters can vote for more than one candidate in many school district elections, total votes don’t tell you how many ballots were cast — and the number of registered voters isn’t listed, either. You can see turnout for the entire election, but for individual races, you’re in the dark.

Who wins and who loses is no doubt important information to store, but that is only one part of an election’s outcome. Being able to see how many people voted, how many were eligible to vote, and the percentage turnout for individual races is equally interesting and informative.

Think: A school district can employ hundreds, sometimes thousands. When a proposed tax levy increase for a district is on the ballot, it will affect employee salaries. Does that create an incentive for district employees to vote for the levy? Absolutely. And if turnout for that election is lower than the number of district employees… Well, it’s very suggestive, at least.

As someone trying to create a database that lists school district election turnouts, this lack of information is frustrating. But I am not writing this post because I have an axe to grind. I am writing it because I think Missouri citizens have one — and not just against Franklin County. In other Missouri counties, though not a majority, the trend is toward less information.

When pressed for unincluded numbers, county clerks and staff generally point out to me that they are not required by law to record those details. But reverting to a less-sophisticated system of election reporting seems both counterproductive and unneccesary. If the system is in place already, why downgrade to make it less informative? It just doesn’t make sense. And neither does the excuse given.

Missouri citizens should be angered by the assumption that they are too dim to understand thorough election result reporting. After all, what good is access to public information if that information tells us next to nothing?

The post Less Confusion … and Less Information appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Contrast this to: What was the turnout in last year’s school election?

If you ask the first questions of a superintendent, and the second of a county clerk, both are required to answer. But the first is clearly a more invasive question.

In the Show-Me Institute’s Columbia office, my fellow researcher, Audrey Spalding, has been asking the first question of all 522 Missouri school districts. I, in the same office, also using the Sunshine Law, have been asking the second of all 114 Missouri county clerks, plus the city of St. Louis election board, if you’re keeping score.*

So, who’s had more success?

The answer might surprise you.

Out of the 115 requests I sent, I have now received 92 responses. That’s an 80-percent success rate. Audrey has sent about 100 requests during the past three business days. Her success rate? About 40 percent.

Superficially, it seems that county clerks have been more forthcoming than school districts. However, I began making my requests in the last week of May. The 40 percent who have responded to Audrey’s requests did so well within the three-day limit stipulated by the Sunshine Law for the party receiving the request to acknowledge receipt of the request.

I have struggled (emailing and calling repeatedly) for more than a month now to gain compliance from several county clerks. Audrey’s on track to beat me by a long shot when it comes to compliance. And she has yet to pick up the phone.

Our formula is the same. We have sent the same request, changing only the paragraph specifying what we’re asking for.

What about the price of the information? I’ve paid 33 counties an average of $28.83 for their records. Of the 12 counties from whom I have not received records because of excessive charges, the average cost would have exceeded $100 per county.

Audrey’s costs? Only two school districts out of the 45 from which she has received contracts have charged a fee — each about $3, for copying costs.

My requests have met with more resistance than Audrey’s. Quite frankly, this surprises me. My request for voting records seems to have a lot less potential to be used to cast stones. Let me reiterate that none of our research is being conducted for advocacy purposes. My intent is only to point out that it may appear to superintendents receiving Audrey’s requests that she is trying to unearth something or to paint them in a negative light. But it seems that only a small number of superintendents have taken it that way. And, if they have, they have called to ask questions, but not attempted to stonewall her.

So, what accounts for the compliance/resistance divide?

It could be a number of things. For one, I am requesting nine years’ worth of data, some of it not accessible from a computer. For many districts, fulfilling Audrey’s request is as simple as faxing over a contract. For county clerks, a great deal more digging might be required. It may be that some county clerks have been noncompliant simply to avoid the work associated with my request.

Other county clerks have responded to my request defensively. Many noted that their predecessor resigned or that they had been on the job only a year or two. It may be that some clerks are nervous about how the clarity or completeness of their county’s voting records will reflect on their performance.

Still others have told me apologetically that they know their turnout in school district elections is low. I assumed that most county clerks realized that other counties’ turnout rates are similarly low, but that may not be the case. It could be that they are concerned that their county will look bad by comparison.

Whatever the reason, for now it seems that public election results are more difficult to obtain than salary and benefit information — which many Americans consider to be private.

*Also, after an additional phone call directly to the clerk, Jasper County sent the requested voting records.

If you have any questions about the purpose or intent of our research, please email me.

The post The Compliance/Resistance Divide appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Well, obviously, that depends on the election. If you’re like me, you’ve heard the figures for high-profile, national elections, but the general focus there is campaign costs. What about the cost of renting polling places, printing ballots, and even paying postage on absentee ballots? For a Missouri municipal election, at least, Andrew and Hickory counties were able to shed some light on that question.

For Andrew County in 2002, the total cost of conducting the April municipal election (which includes school district elections) was $12,735.62. According to the secretary of state’s website, the number of registered voters in the county that year was 10,523 (this number was unavailable from the county clerk). At about 20-percent turnout, the cost of the election per registered voter who actually voted was about $6. Not bad.

In 2004, the total cost of the April municipal election was $10,849.57. Registered voters: 11,401. Registered voters voting: 2,296. Cost of election: $4.73 per voter who voted. Even better. For more recent years, costs per voter remained within that range.

So, is this pretty standard for municipal elections in Missouri? Maybe not. Hickory County’s per-voter costs were not even in the same ballpark as Andrew County’s.

In 2004, it cost Hickory County $26.08 per voter who voted to conduct the April municipal election. If we compare the April 2004 municipal elections, Hickory County spent more than 5 times as much as Andrew County per voter who voted.

So what accounts for this difference? The short answer: I’m not sure. My guess would be that it may have something to do with the size of the two counties — Andrew County’s registration is nearly twice that of Hickory County’s, so maybe there are economies of scale at work.

While some costs, like printing ballots, truly are incurred per voter, there may be other costs that every county pays, no matter how many people vote. Those would be spread over a larger group of voters, resulting in lower per-voter costs for larger counties.

That was how Hickory County’s clerk explained the substantial difference in per-voter costs between the two counties. She said that turnout tended to be low for municipal elections in her county. However, in the April 2004 election, both counties had about the same turnout — close to 20 percent. Andrew County, however, had nearly three times as many people vote. That could have contributed to the cost difference.

Regardless, the difference in per-voter costs is striking. It’s likely that Andrew County is doing something to keep election costs low.

It Takes More Than Paper:

According to the list of expenses Andrew County provided, the costs of holding a municipal election include: judges/training/etc.; ballot stock; ballot printing; precinct counter cards; postage; precinct rental; publications; absentee costs/supplies; miscellaneous costs/supplies; compensation (time wages, mileage), and RSMO 115, which includes a broad array of possible costs of conducting elections.

There was a cost listed with each of the above categories. The smallest, $51.08, was for miscellaneous supplies. Included: cellphone expenses, paper, tape, and green pens. The largest, $4,811.25, was for the judges/training/etc. category.

Although the above amounts certainly don’t allow me to make any sweeping generalizations, they are interesting simply as case studies of two Missouri counties — and two very different Missouri counties when it comes to election costs.

If you would like a more detailed breakdown of election costs in Andrew County, or if you have any comments, please email me.

[NOTE: A few of the figures used in this entry have changed since it was originally posted, because the numbers have now been standardized between counties.]

The post Just How Much Does It Cost? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Collecting voter turnout data from Missouri’s 114 counties and the city of St. Louis has proven difficult. If you read my first post, this might surprise you. After all, I reported a success rate of more than 50 percent in obtaining records from county clerks. But getting the records is just the first step.

The Sunshine Law is meant to promote transparency in Missouri government, but the voting records I have received are anything but clear. Although I only requested the last nine years’ worth of data for school district elections, numerous county clerks struggled to fulfill my request. In fact, some didn’t even come close. Many times, information was missing because of a new computer system.

What struck me first was the abundance of missing data. County clerks often omitted years completely. When I contacted them, many became defensive or tried to skirt the issue.

As far as general trends, gaps in election results seem to be most prevalent in 2000, 2004, and 2007. The gaps often coincide with the implementation of new computer systems for tracking election results. For several counties, even those that compiled otherwise exemplary information, the registered voter totals for some years read zero.

Many counties were able to sort this out as soon as I brought it to their attention; several read me the numbers over the phone from their hard copies in cases where it was missing from their computer files.  However, there were some who couldn’t find the numbers. They often pointed out that they were not required to keep data longer than 22 months. Most, however, were reluctant to say the earlier records had been destroyed. Instead, they gave noncommittal responses, saying the information just wasn’t available.

While they’re not required to keep the results for more than 22 months, if the records still exist, they are required to make them available to anyone who asks. They are not allowed to destroy records in order to avoid a Sunshine Law request. I have no way of knowing for sure if or when this happens.

Computer system changes aren’t the only reason data goes missing.

The Mercer County clerk mentioned that an archivist had updated the records before she took office and that much of the data I had requested was unavailable. (What exactly did that archivist do?) After I emailed to request any remaining data, I waited for two weeks without a response. When I called, I finally got results: two handwritten numbers for 2008.

New Madrid County‘s clerk said he couldn’t give me the exact number of registered voters in the county for the indicated years. He sent me an average figure for the nine-year span. When I told him I needed more precise information for my research, he suggested that I check the Secretary of State’s records. (The Secretary of State’s website does list voter registration, but only for even-numbered years. For any other questions, or for more in-depth information, the website suggests contacting — you guessed it — the election authorities.) After another phone call, New Madrid’s deputy clerk is now working on my request. I did not mention her boss’ refusal to collect the data.

In essence, I met with some pretty cloudy results and stormy reactions from county clerks. The idea behind the law is good, but in practice: Don’t expect sunshine.

If you would like more information about which counties were missing information because of computer system changes, don’t hesitate to email me.   

The post Sunshine Requests, Cloudy Responses appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Specifically, I’m asking for school district election results from the past nine years — school board elections, special school elections, bond issues, and tax levies — in the hope of creating a publicly available database detailing turnout in those elections. While some county clerks have been forthcoming, others have come up with creative ways to avoid giving me the information.

A Jasper County employee, after covering the receiver, said something along the lines of "they’ll just use it for political reasons," before refusing my request for any and all election results.

Some counties have promptly sent their records, all fees waived.
Others have asked for modest amounts of reimbursement for research
efforts, copying costs or postage. And a handful have asked for exorbitant amounts, such as Wright County‘s clerk, who asked for a $100 deposit to even begin working on my request, or Harrison County‘s clerk, who responded with a fee of $41.37 per hour and estimated several hours of work. After flatly refusing to comply with my request, the Jasper County official said they only
provided such information to potential candidates (who would be using
it for political reasons). When reminded that the information I was
requesting was public record, the woman I spoke with obstinately
repeated her original refusal.

So, here’s the breakdown: Out of the 81 counties from which I have
received records, 60 provided them at no cost, 20 charged less than $50,
and only one charged more than $50.

Because of the high fees charged, I had to cancel 11 other requests.
All in all, the tab of collecting these results comes to about $1,000.

Even without all the data, it is possible to see some trends
developing. Costs of gathering the data may have been high, but the
most obvious trend is that voter turnout is low, on the order of 20
percent — lower in many instances, but higher when bonds and levies are
on the ballot. Although this information is neither shocking nor new,
I hope to be able to use the database to draw some fresher, more
insightful conclusions about education-related voting behavior in
Missouri. As I continue to work with the data, I’ll post some more
concrete figures and observations.

For now, suffice it to say that it seems Missouri voters have other
plans in April; turnout appears to be hovering around the low end of
the spectrum for school elections.

If you have any comments or questions about school elections, or how to file your own Sunshine Law request, please email me.

The post High Costs, Low Turnout appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

"Based on the information submitted, I find you have presented no new or corrected information," King said in a written denial sent to Superintendent Diana Bourisaw.

The district will keep trying in court tomorrow. I give the St. Louis Public Schools an ‘A’ for effort. Had they worked as hard to improve student academic achievement as they’re working to hold on to their jobs, the district would probably be in much better shape now.

The post If at First You Don’t Succeed … appeared first on Show-Me Institute.