Honig Accuses Davis of ‘Doctoring’ Data on Too Many School Officials

State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig angrily accused Controller Gray Davis Thursday of “intentionally doctoring” information contained in a report that found an excessive number of administrators in six school districts.

In releasing the report Tuesday, Davis said the problem of districts having more administrators on their payrolls than allowed by a state law was “systemwide” and was preventing schools from hiring badly needed teachers.

But after scrutinizing the report, Honig, who like Davis is considered a possible gubernatorial contender in 1990, vigorously rebutted its findings and cast aspersions on Davis’ motives.

“My speculation is Gray Davis is hungry for press,” Honig said. “He is always out trying to make a story (and) this is a great target. Everyone likes to stand up and say schools have too many administrators.”

Biased Sample

He said Davis deliberately used a biased sample of districts known to be out of compliance with the section of the state Education Code designed to prevent the growth of school bureaucracies and said much of the information cited in the report was inaccurate.

Davis could not be reached for comment Thursday, but a spokesman said the controller would stand by the report.

“The bottom line is we were required by law to do this study and make these findings public,” said Daniel Zingale, a special assistant to the controller. “I don’t think Mr. Honig or anyone else would dispute that.”

The report examined 12 small districts across the state and found six that had more administrators than allowed by state law. The law specifies that elementary school districts may have no more than nine administrators per 100 teachers. High school districts are allowed seven administrators per 100 teachers and unified districts eight administrators per 100 teachers.

Honig said Davis’ staff obtained half of its sample by asking the Education Department to recommend six districts known to have compliance problems.

“That is obviously not a (random) sample” and is sorely insufficient as a basis for drawing conclusions about the entire 1,028-district public school system, Honig said.

Legal Limits

The state schools chief also took issue with a statement by Davis that 200 more teachers could have been hired last year if districts had complied with the legal limits on the number of administrators.

“You cannot extrapolate that from such a limited (sample),” Honig said.

Honig referred to state Department of Education figures that show a statewide ratio of administrators to all other school employees of 1 to 20, which, according to the department, is comparable to private industry ratios. Department figures also show that only 5.5% of a typical school’s budget goes to cover administrative costs, while540422949for teachers, books and other materials.

A recent review by the Education Department found violations of the administrator ratio law in only 23 out of more than 1,000 districts, a number that later was reduced to 18 when errors in reporting the figures were accounted for, Honig said.

“(So) this is not a situation where half of all districts are not complying” with the law, he said.

Education Department spokeswoman Susan Lange said five districts were penalized for having too many administrators in the 1987-88 school year.

Based on Report

Greg Newington, audit manager for the controller’s office, said the finding of a systemwide problem with excess school administrators was based, in part, on a state auditor general’s report last year that found three out of a total of five districts surveyed in violation of the limits.

“It was quite obvious that this was not a problem unique to a few districts . . . (and that) the rules were being enforced in a rather liberal fashion,” he said.