Teacher Layoffs Resulting From Misappropriation of Funds, Essay Example

It is important to understand the definition of misappropriation or misuse of funds for the purpose of this research paper. The legal definition of misappropriation of funds is using property or funds of another person illegally and intentionally for the use or benefit of which is unauthorized. With that said, when persons in political power use funds in such a manner often there is not enough money to go around to pay teachers properly according to budgeted plans forcing unwarranted layoffs. Who suffers? The teachers, of course, but mostly the students suffer because there is a lack of educators in the classroom and lack of supervision and the classrooms become overcrowded. Is this a crime? Certainly it is!

Misappropriation or misuse of funds in Ventura County has led to massive budget cuts in this year’s school agenda of nearly $2 million and anticipated cuts of “general funding which pay for employee benefits and salaries as well as electricity bills and other operating costs.” Other cuts will include low-income tutoring services and text book purchasing as well as increase in class sizes for the year 2010 due to misappropriation of public funding. (Carlson, 2009).  Further cuts are anticipated to be nearly $1 million for the next three years to make up the lost funding. Baird states giving up classroom size will be the last resort to end this tragedy. The teachers have already taken a 3% across the board reduction in pay and legislature has proposed to accommodate the schools with nearly $20 million for lunch programs.

In China there is legislation passed in 1993 to protect the teachers retirement. The act of legislature is named Teacher’s Law but recently has failed to protect the civil rights of two retired teachers Liu Longhui and Li Jinguan. “The county has failed to properly implement the Teacher’s Law in their county for the past 13 years leaving them with money owed to them in some cases as much as 60,000 yuan each.” (“Retired Teachers Battle with Country Government for their Benefits”).  In some instances the government of the county completely refused to follow the law and in other instances the government asked the teachers or retired teachers to sign promissory notes to have their pay remitted to them annually which was against the law. Many teachers report that the retirement income is barely enough to live on and they need the income. In Beijing the law states it is clear for a patron to address a higher court if their rights are violated. However in some of the lower lying areas in the country there is not much redress for violating of rights. Many of the good teachers have left the country areas and fled to Shuangliu leaving poor education in Renshou. There is a trade union present but the local government puts a lot of pressure on those who use that resort. Often the chairmen or principal of the school is on the board of the union and fears losing his principal ship so will not represent the teachers’ grievances properly. The Labour Arbitration Committee is present for redress but there is not much knowledge available to patrons seeking redress. There is much misappropriation of funds and unfortunately through interview with two retired teachers the teachers and the students suffer tremendously because of the political power of the government in China especially in the small rural communities.

Mass teacher layoffs contributed to misappropriation of funds must be thoroughly examined beyond the concentration of misappropriation of funds. This is a ripple effect of senior teachers refusing to retire, teacher salaries encompassing the majority of the budget and the government not funding the misappropriation of funding entirely or fast enough. As seen in New York City, “Mayor Bloomberg reports as many as 15,000 teachers may have to be cut this coming year.” (Winters, 2009). Research shows these cuts may not be detrimental to the City of New York as long as the effective teachers are not loss in the process. This type of reform is often seen as a way of trimming the fat and left open to bring in better help when the economic situation betters. Research shows that there is currently no advance to children by being taught by a senior level teacher. Today’s young teachers have been scoring higher on certifying exams than the senior teachers. Hence the misappropriation of funding may be detrimental to the country but may serve the children well in obtaining better skilled teachers in the long run. The city is looking to other counties for funding to save some of the teacher jobs but this is only a short term solution because the money must be repaid.

In Los Angeles many schools are facing mid-year cuts because the legislature is unable to fund enough money to support the budget. With this in mind more than 2,000 non-tenured or probationary teachers would be laid off in the upcoming year of 2010. “The school system is heading towards bankruptcy if they do not cut $250 million very soon because of misappropriation of funds during the last two years.” (Song and Blume, 2009).

Teachers in Los Angeles are opposed to lay offs and cut backs hence they planned a one day strike in opposition but the judge found out and declared the strike null. District officials braced themselves for civil disobedience in May 2009 for the frustration due to misuse of funding causing teacher layoffs. Many students were in support of the teachers’ one day strike and as many as 500 students per school vouched to stay out of school to support the teachers in their strike to support their jobs. The teachers feel it is not fair for them go get laid off because of the misuse of funds. They feel the government should step in and lay off the senior teachers and force prosecution on the criminal offenders that misused the funds rather than punished the less senior teachers and students. The cut is always made from the bottom up which means the less senior teachers will suffer the loss first.

Michigan school districts have reported over $305,000 in missing school funds that are allegedly misappropriated that have forced layoffs of teachers and aides and further cuts in school programs across the state this year. These cuts are prominent in the Metro Detroit area and are said to have “increased numerous taxes throughout the Detroit area in 2002 to present.”  (“Financial Scandals Exposed in Michigan School Districts”). Parents’ and grandparents’’ of the students are accusing the financial advisors of not keeping close enough eye on the money available to the school. There is prospect that the current accountability system leaves room for abuse. Officials were suspended in 2002 after finding discrepancies of over $1 million in the budget. Some of the illegal findings were purchasing television and studio equipment without bidding, members of the board giving themselves raises above what the board had approved, selling of school board property to friends of board members below market value and non-verifiable work for pay by board members, especially Benford and his son. There have been several court cases of bribery in the Detroit courts. Further the Detroit school spend average dollar per student and generate less than average scores per student. “At the end of the 1999-2000 fiscal year, auditors condemned the district’s financial practices and uncovered a $2.4-million deficit, according to the Detroit Free Press. The deficit led to the elimination 37 district jobs and the closure of school technology programs, in addition to unfinished school building projects.” (“Financial Scandals Exposed in Michigan School Districts”). Bucholz states, “school administrators are not to be blamed for the full demise of the Detroit school system for it’s a culture that does not put children first, a culture that’s more concerned about power and control and making sure the adults get paid.” (“Financial Scandals Exposed in Michigan School Districts”).

Misappropriation of funds can be devastating to a school, community and the federal government. It produces havoc in the school system whether intentional or not because there simply is not enough money to go around to fund the teacher’s salaries, provide textbooks, laboratory fees, educational resources and fund the needs of the children. Often misuse of funds are not necessarily intentional but even so this is a very tender situation because the school system is left holding the boat without enough money to allocate payment for expenses to educate the children and make salary payments. The school cannot simply rely on the federal government to bail them out of these situations because the federal government allocates an annual budget to the school in advance and when that money is depleted the school and students suffer the consequences. The majority of the time when misuse occurs one will find that this misuse has been carefully calculated over time and should be punishable in a court of law. Sometimes it is difficult to prove misappropriation because people take careful steps to cover up their illegal acts and there still is a deficit present that cannot be proven beyond an unreasonable doubt hence the school system hires an independent investigator to decide the situation. After careful review it is often found that the money is missing and the person should simply resign because there is not enough money to bring criminal charges but the misappropriation does not look ethically right for that person to continue in their current position. This was seen in the case of superintendent and board of trustees of Yosemite High School, Bill McCabe. “McCabe rendered a twelve page resignation to the District Attorney’s Office in lieu of prosecution for misappropriation of funds.” (Copper, 2009).  McCabe was found guilty in 2004 of using his position to gain entrance for a student to a university but not found guilty of misappropriation of funds. Because of the money spent on McCabe’s salary whilst under investigation and having to hire a new superintendent the public felt that there would be cuts to teachers and the class size would certainly rise. When funds are misappropriated the entire school system suffers. The legal fees for McCabe’s defence could have saved many teacher jobs.

Another example of the misuse of funds is at the “New Jersey University of Medicine and Dentistry whilst in 2008 over 300 workers were laid off to close the gap on a $49 million hole in the next year’s budget.” (Ryan, 2008). Of these 300 anticipated to be cut positions over 78 of these positions will be permanently left open and unfilled. In addition a state runned hospital in New Brunswick is losing millions of dollar a month contributing to the deficit thus nurses, technicians and maintenance workers will be cut to close the gap of the misuse of funds. The anticipated layoffs will have an impact but the national spokeswoman for Allied Health of New Jersey, Jeanne Otersen said it was too soon to make formal comment on the exact nature of the effects of the layoffs.

Sometimes collective bargaining agreements promote misuse of funds that are governed by contracts which are not in the best interests of the school, teachers and students. The only option to alleviate these misuses is for there to be an arbitration clause and there to be legislation to protect the rights of the teachers. The contract should be governed and orchestrated by an official that is not affiliated with the trust account or the school board to eliminate any personal interests in the matter or any conflict of interests. The trade unions normally govern the rights of the workers with respect to bargaining agreements to eliminate any conflict of interests but often members of the board are elected and with that pose the threat of misuse or misappropriation of funds. In order to further eliminate this occurrence there should be a detailed system of checks and balances incorporated into the bargaining agreement to ensure this misuse cannot occur.

There has been a demonstration of both misuse and misappropriation of funds which affect the teacher, the student and the community as a whole. The main difference between misuse and misappropriation is the misuse can come in the form as negligence or non-intentional and misappropriation is usually intentional and illegal and punishable in the criminal law courts. Either which way funds are misappropriated the misuse has devastating effects on the community, the school, the student, the teachers and the families. There are massive layoffs that occur to fill in the gap of the misappropriated money and often the public becomes frustrated with the existence of the misuse. The students suffer tremendously for lack of teaching material and resources and there is a contribution to higher teacher/student ratio and a lack of funding available for the slower student who may need additional tutoring. There may be a lack of funding for research and laboratories which are essential for science laboratories. The younger teachers may be forced to find employment elsewhere and the schools are forced to cut extra programs of technology and even close some programs. There is a ripple effect with the existence of misuse of funds. Students begin to score low on standardized testing and are not properly prepared for college/university studies and the state received a lower ranking with national statistics. The government is forced to provide extra funding to support the deficit thus cutting from other government programs.

California, Maryland, Michigan and Georgia have reported numerous situations of misuse of school funds within the past three years by school officials. Employees at all levels especially teachers, aides and other management levels are affected by the misuse of funds because there is a need to make lay-offs to support the left over budget deficit. Often there is offer of days without pay to compensate for losses and teachers are forced to accept these offers which are non-compliant with their contracts and their labour union agreements if they want to keep their job. A contract is only as good as the money available to make good on the contract. Sure you can take a contract to a civil court of law but if the school board goes bankrupt there is no means to pay out the contract. Is this considered a hardship exemption that would eliminate any such coverage under an exclusionary clause? No it is not! Normally exclusion clauses rendered would not allow a person to continue employment if the budget does not permit. You can take it to court but by the time you wait out for your job back you may lose all of your life’s possessions. It is easier to go find another job and hop the union gets your job back a year or two later or your attorney wins you some money that is if the school official is found guilty of criminal misconduct by misappropriation of funds in a criminal court of law.

References

Carlson, C. (2009) Local Officials Appeal to State Lawmakers Retrieved November 24, 2009 from, http://www.vcstar.com/news/2009/jan/24/schools-appeal-to-state-lawmakers-officials-ask/

Retired Teachers Battle with Country Government for their Benefits (2008) Retrieved November 24, 2009 from, http://www.clb.org.hk/en/node/100190

Winters, M. (2009) Mass Teachers Layoffs+senority rules=bad news for kids Retrieved November 24, 2009 from, http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/02/04/2009-02-04_mass_teacher_layoffs__seniority_rules__b.html

Song, J. and Blume, H. (2009) LAUSD Teacher Layoffs Threatened Retrieved November 24, 2009 from, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/01/scores-of-teach.html

Financial Scandals Exposed in Michigan School Districts (2002) Retrieved November 24, 2009 from, http://www.educationreport.org/pubs/mer/article.aspx?id=4835

Copper, J. (2009) Superintendent Resigns Retrieved November 24, 2009 from, http://www.yosemiteuhsd.com/sierrastar/2009/superintendentMar5.pdf

Ryan, J. (2008) UMDNJ Considers Cutting 300 Workers Retrieved November 24, 2009 from, http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/07/umdnj_considers_cutting_300_wo.html