Study: State's non-teacher employment makes gains

A new study from the Kansas Policy Institute shows that current kindergarten-12th grade employment in Kansas is 6.3 percent higher than in 2000, while enrollment increased just 1.9 percent over the same time period.

Data from the Kansas State Department of Education also indicates that Kansas school districts increased non-teaching jobs at a much greater rate than teachers; the number of teachers increased by 4.9 percent while all other employees increased 7.8 percent.

"Profile and Comparison of Kansas K-12 Employment Levels" was written by Dr. Art Hall of the Center for Applied Economics at the University of Kansas using publicly available data to help give context to K-12 policy discussions in Kansas.

"K-12 spending consumes roughly 53 percent of general fund spending in Kansas and personnel accounts for a vast majority of most districts' total costs," Hall writes in the study. "In 1972, Kansas was 7 percent above the employee-to-student national average, but by 2007, Kansas was 19 percent above the national average."

Kansas had the eighth highest employee-to-student ratio in the country in 2007, the most recent year for which comparative data is available.

"The only way we'll be able to address the budgetary situation we face as a state is to have the best data possible on which to base decisions," KPI President Dave Trabert said in a news release. "Our hope is that this paper helps provide a better look at the current employment levels and how they have changed over time."

The policy brief uses publicly available data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the National Center of Education Statistics at the U.S. Department of Education and the Kansas Department of Education. References to a school year as 2007 reflects the school year beginning in fall 2007 and ending in spring 2008; this same methodology is used with all dates in the paper unless otherwise noted.

"On average, Kansas school districts have one employee for every 6.7 students," Trabert added. "We must provide every Kansas student with an effective education, but we must also ensure that schools are operating as efficiently as possible. Jobs and people are moving to states with lower state and local tax burdens because Kansans' tax burden has been steadily rising. That trend must be reversed, or we will continue to suffer the consequences."