Somerton Elementary School District

In fiscal year 2006, Somerton ESD’s administrative costs per pupil were 51 percent higher than those of other districts with a similar number of students, primarily because of having more administrative positions.  Further, the District did not establish adequate access controls to safeguard its accounting system.  The District’s transportation costs per mile were 11 percent higher than the comparable districts’, contributing to the District’s spending $116,000 more on transportation than it received in funding.  The District may be able to reduce costs by making its routes more efficient and by limiting the amount of nondriving time for which it pays bus drivers.  Somerton ESD’s plant operations and maintenance costs per square foot were 38 percent higher than comparable districts’.  Higher plant costs were due to more plant positions and high electricity costs. The District also had high data and voice communications costs, but it qualifies for a program that reimburses 90 percent of these costs.  The District spent its Proposition 301 monies for purposes authorized by statute.  However, the majority of its performance pay goals were based on activities already expected of employees, and performance pay was awarded to some employees not meeting the stated goals.  The District’s fiscal year 2006 classroom dollar percentage of 50 percent was 8.3 points below the state average.  However, the District’s per-pupil spending was higher than the state and comparable district averages because Somerton ESD had more per-pupil resources available, mainly because it qualified for additional federal and state grant monies.  In fiscal year 2006, the District identified 66 percent of its students as English language learners (ELL) and placed the majority of these ELL students in mainstream classrooms with English proficient students.  The District will need to substantially change its program to meet new statutory requirements.  The District did not identify and separately account for ELL-related costs in fiscal year 2007.