More children are crowding into classrooms in Modesto, Calif. Parents are paying extra to send their kids to full-day kindergarten in Queen Creek, Ariz. And the school buses stopped rolling in one St. Louis area school district.
These are but a few of the unwelcome changes greeting children as they start the school year. Tight fiscal times are forcing school districts to lay off teachers, enlarge class sizes, cut programs and charge for services that were once free.
"School districts are going to be stripped down from what there were a few years ago," said Jack Jennings, head of the Center on Education Policy, an advocacy group. "They are really feeling the economic squeeze."
The national economic downturn has sucked state coffers dry, forcing cuts to school districts and municipalities. The Obama administration’s stimulus package softened the impact, but many districts still found themselves having to downsize.
"Every student is being affected in some way or another," said Dan Domenech, executive director of the America Association of School Administrators.
Teachers are experiencing the brunt of the budget cuts this year, even though Congress last week gave states an additional $10 billion to keep an estimated 140,000 educators and support staff employed.
Still, the number of teachers who won’t have a job this school year could be as high as 135,000, experts said.
While grateful for the federal funds, school officials are not sure they will be able to use it to bring back many teachers this year. Many states have yet to say how they will distribute the money and many districts have already started or set up their class schedules.
Some plan to use it to hire tutors, counselors and non-core classroom educators such as art and music teachers. But others say they may hold onto the money until the next school year, when the last of the stimulus money is set to disappear.
"We’re all looking ahead over the next couple of years and not seeing any respite," said Chris Nicastro, Missouri’s commissioner of education.
More kindergarteners per class
The great wave of layoffs means students will have to share their classrooms — and their teachers’ attention — with more of their peers.
In California, for instance, state education officials have approved 23 requests from local districts to increase their average class sizes beyond the maximum allowed. At least 33 more are scheduled to be reviewed in coming months.
This is quite a change from the previous decade, when the state received no requests.
"It’s rising exponentially," said Judy Pinegar, manager of the waiver office at the California Department of Education.
Facing a $25 million budget gap for this year, Modesto City Schools district officials decided to raise the average class size in kindergarten through third grade to 25 kids, up from 20.
The school district was initially looking to lay off one-third of its teachers, or 500 people personal loan for poor credit. But after educators agreed to give up their raises and some retired, only 50 teachers were not rehired for this school year.
Still, the larger class sizes will have an impact, said Megan Gowans, executive director of the Modesto Teachers Association.
"Students are going to feel that they are getting less one-on-one attention," she said.
Neighboring Sylvan Union School District now has elementary school classes with up to 34 students in them. That’s 12 more than the average size last year. The elementary schools now only have one librarian and no dedicated art teachers, when there used to be four of each. In all, there are 19 fewer educators on staff, said Superintendent John Halverson.
The district has gone so far to combine several grades, teaching kindergarten and first graders and first and second graders together for the first time in recent memory.
These moves allow school officials to keep some classrooms dark, helping close a $5 million gap in its $60 million budget. But the changes won’t go unnoticed.
"I can’t say it won’t have an impact because I think it will," said Halverson, who has been in the California school system for 33 years.
Paying for programs
Elsewhere in the nation, school districts have cut back on programs and services or are charging for them.
Take Queen Creek, a small town 38 miles southeast of Phoenix. When the state cut funding for full-day kindergarten programs, Queen Creek took a $900,000 hit, but decided to continue offering it…at a price. Parents have to pay $200 a month to enroll their 5-year-olds.
"Our community was used to having it," said Shari Zara, the district’s chief financial officer. "We thought we’d still offer it for those who could pay."
Some 122 kids signed up for the extended program, while another 216 are in the free half-day class. Charging tuition spared the district from having to cut teachers or programs, Zara said.
Busing is another area that has taken a hit in scores of districts.
In the Bayless school district in the St. Louis area, for example, the board and administrators decided to eliminate bus service instead of laying off staff and raising class sizes beyond the current 25 to 30 per room. The decision affects about 650 of the district’s 1,650 students and saves $240,000 a year, said John Stewart, chief financial officer.
Getting rid of transportation helped close the roughly $650,000 gap in the district’s $14 million budget. Employees also agreed to pay more toward their health insurance.
"We wanted to impact the classroom and educational process as little as possible," Stewart said.
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USD 259 has closed on a deal to buy 127 acres southeast of Wichita for a new high school.
The district bought the property Friday on the southeast side of 127th Street East and Pawnee from Wichita developer Gary Oborny, of Occidental Management.
Oborny declined to release the purchase price. The district has said the price was $1.56 million.
USD 259 plans to build a high school on the property next year as part of its $370 million bond issue. The school is expected to be open by the 2013-2014 school year.
Oborny retained about 30 acres on the corner for a future commercial development. He says the property isn’t likely to be developed for another five years, depending on how fast housing developments pop up in the area, which is mostly rural.
“If it happens sooner, it happens sooner. I can’t imagine it will,” Oborny says.
More information about Oborny’s plans can be found here.
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Debbie Yow hasn’t been on the job long, but she’s already making her presence felt as N.C. State’s athletics director.
“We are doing a reorganization,” Yow said in a phone interview Monday afternoon.
Yow, who took the helm of the Wolfpack athletic department in July, already has promoted department veteran David Horning to executive senior associate AD, making him the clear No. 2 administrator in the department. She also is looking to hire at least one, and possibly two, new senior associate ADs.
Additionally, Yow is shifting around some duties and responsibilities. The process will be complete in a couple of weeks, she says, and then the changes will be reviewed again a year from now.
Yow, who previously served as AD at the University of Maryland, says that she doesn’t intend to fire any employees as part of the reorganization and hasn’t heard of any employees that are leaving voluntarily.
Yow replaced Lee Fowler as AD. Fowler stepped down from the post after a decade as AD.
Google’s second quarter didn’t do much to help get the company’s stock out of its current rut.
The world’s online search leader reported a quarterly profit on Thursday that rose from its year-ago results but missed Wall Street’s forecasts. Though quarterly earnings rose 24% from a year earlier — healthy by any standards — it’s far from the nearly 40% average growth rate that Google posted over the past five years.
The company said its non-core businesses are growing nicely, most notably in the mobile field. Google reported that its advertising partners are becoming more receptive to mobile-specific advertising, and smart phones running its Android operating system are selling at a rate of 160,000 a day.
"We saw strength in every major product area, as more and more traditional brand advertisers embraced search advertising," Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, said in a prepared statement. "We feel confident about our future, and plan to continue to invest aggressively in our core areas of strategic focus."
Still, the vast majority of Google’s revenue in the quarter — 96% — came from advertising. That has some investors worried that Google will forever remain an advertising company disguised in a tech firm’s clothes. The other 4% of Google’s revenue came mostly from selling Google Apps to corporate customers — a business that’s under pressure from Microsoft after the release of an online version of Office 2010.
Google took a few other hard knocks during the past three months. Users clicked on fewer ads compared to last quarter, and Google’s bottom line was hit hard by an unfavorable foreign exchange rate.
In all, the second quarter produced results that mostly fell short of Wall Street’s expectations. Google said its net income increased to $1.84 billion. Excluding one-time benefits, Google said it earned $6.45 per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, who typically exclude one-time items from their estimates, had forecast earnings of $6.51 per share.
Sales for the Mountain View, Calif., company rose 24% to $6.82 billion. Excluding advertising sales that Google shares with partners, a figure also known as "traffic acquisition costs," the company reported revenue of $5.1 billion, roughly in line with analysts’ forecasts of $5 billion.
Shares of Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) fell 5% after hours. The stock is down more than 20% this year, faring far worse than competitors like Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500), Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) and Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500).
The company remained upbeat about its quarter. Google noted that the average per-click rate that it charges advertisers has been rising, helping drive the company’s results higher. The company won regulatory approval for its purchase of mobile advertising company AdMob, and it recently secured its license to continue operating in China.
Google continues to invest in the expansion, adding 1,184 employees during the quarter. On a conference call with investors, Patrick Pichette, Google’s chief financial officer, said now is the "right time" for Google to grow its business, especially because the company is seeing financial growth from its emerging businesses amid a still-difficult economic environment.
"There’s a lot you hear on the news about how the world economy is going to hurt us and all, but from a Google perspective, our business has had a great quarter," said Pichette on the call.
But at the same time, the company deflected an analyst’s question about whether it would start to return some of its $30 billion in cash to shareholders. Pichette said only that the decision is the board’s to make.
The executive who succeeded founder B. Thomas Golisano at Paychex Inc. will exit at the end of this month.
The Rochester-based company announced Monday that Jonathan Judge has resigned as president and chief executive officer, effective July 31. Judge, who joined Paychex in October 2004 as just its second president and CEO, will complete his term as a member of the Paychex board of directors.
Golisano, who owns the Buffalo Sabres, told reporters the resignation by Judge to pursue other interests was straightforward and simple.
“Jon joined Paychex as my successor, bringing with him experience and qualifications gained during his 25-year career with IBM,” said Golisano payday loan lenders. “During his tenure with Paychex, Jon guided our company’s revenue growth from $1.4 billion in fiscal 2005 to $2.0 billion in 2010. He also strengthened our management practices, oversaw key technology advances for our payroll and HR offerings, and led our successful entry into the health and benefits business.”
The Paychex (NASDAQ: PAYX) board immediately began the search for Judge’s successor with an executive committee formed to lead the payroll and benefits company on an interim basis.
Employment gains, a rebound in exports and an increase in taxable sales are cited as reasons for optimism in Wells Fargo Securities’ Florida economic outlook for July.
“After more than two years of dark clouds across much of the Sunshine state, a few rays of sunlight are finally beginning to break though,” said the report, authored by senior economist Mark Vitner and economic analyst Yasmine Kamaruddin.
Nonfarm employment has risen during three of the past four months, producing a net gain of 78,000 jobs since bottoming in January of this year, the report said. Still, virtually every part of the state was hard hit by job losses, including Tampa, where employment declined by 110,200 jobs.
Florida’s manufacturers are getting a lift from a rebound in exports, and taxable sales rose solidly during the first part of 2010, the report said.
Tourism spending also has improved and hotel occupancy rates are up from a year ago, but the latest data does not incorporate much impact from the Gulf oil spill, the report said .
The biggest cloud hanging over Florida is the huge oversupply of housing constructed during the previous decade, Wells Fargo said. Florida leads the nation in foreclosures and about one in five homes with a mortgage is either seriously delinquent or in foreclosure.
A big risk that is hard to quantify is growth and an economic base historically built around a continuous inflow of retirees, tourists and working-age adults seeking a lower cost of living and a better lifestyle.
“The fundamental growth model that has served Florida so well since the 1950s is broken,” the report said.
The best strategy for the state is to boost the presence of industries such as biotechnology, medical devices, aerospace, international trade and finance, simulation, alternative energy, and film, television and new media, the report said.
Read the full report here.
Moody’s Investors Service cut BP’s long-term rating by three notches Friday, marking the second downgrade in a month, citing the worsening impact of the oil disaster.
Moody’s cut BP’s senior unsecured ratings and long-term debt securities to A2 from Aa2 and said there could be further downgrades as it continues to review BP’s ratings.
"Moody’s update assessment is that the spill will have a sustained negative impact on the group’s free cash flow generation and overall financial profile for a number of years," said the rating agency in a statement.
Also on Friday, Moody’s downgraded the senior unsecured issuer rating of BP Finance by three notches to A3 from Aa3 and the senior unsecured issuer rating of BP Corporation North America by four notches to Baa1 from Aa3.
The rating agency had downgraded BP once before, on June 3. On that same day, Fitch Ratings also announced a downgrade of the oil giant. Since then, Fitch announced a second downgrade to just above junk status.
Moody’s referred to the BP’s agreement to set up a $20 billion escrow to cover damages and liabilities related to the spill as a "mildly positive development."
"Establishing a clear funding mechanism to make payments to injured parties may moderate pressure for the government to pursue more punitive actions," said Moody’s.
BP (BP) owns 65% of the well that is spilling up to 60,000 barrels per day in the Gulf, according to government estimates. The problem has been ongoing since April 20, when the Deepwater Horizon offshore rig, which is owned by Transocean (RIG) and leased by BP, exploded and sank, killing 11 workers.
Since then, BP has been unable to plug the leak. The company’s chief executive, Tony Hayward, was subjected to blistering Congressional testimony on Capitol Hill Thursday, where he was accused of "stonewalling."
BP’s stock has plunged 47% since the accident by Thursday’s close. The company was not immediately available for comment. Under pressure from the government, BP has canceled its dividend for the rest of the year.
The company was not immediately available for comment.
Starbucks Corp. has opened its first store in Hungary.
The Seattle-based coffee giant (NASDAQ: SBUX) created a joint venture with Amrest, a restaurant operator in in Central and Eastern Europe, to manage the store, located in Budapest.
“We have great respect for the longstanding and colorful Hungarian coffeehouse culture and are excited to become a part of the community,” said Vladan Armus, Starbucks Brand President for Central and Eastern Europe, in a statement.
Full Starbucks press release below.
BUDAPEST, Hungary–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Starbucks Coffee has opened its first store in Hungary in the lively and popular WestEnd Mall.
AmRest Kavezo KFT, a joint-venture company between Starbucks Coffee International, Inc. a wholly-owned subsidiary of Starbucks Coffee Company (NASDAQ: SBUX), and AmRest Sp. z o.o., a wholly-owned subsidiary of AmRest Holdings S.E. (AmRest, WSE: EAT), will manage the daily operations.
“We have great respect for the longstanding and colorful Hungarian coffeehouse culture and are excited to become a part of the community,” said Vladan Armus, Starbucks Brand President for Central and Eastern Europe. “Over the past few years, coffeehouses have regained their popularity in Hungary, and we look forward to introducing our customers to our high quality coffees and the unique Starbucks Experience.
“WestEnd Mall is a vibrant and dynamic location in the heart of Budapest where people love to shop and meet,” continued Armus. "We think it will be an ideal location for people to enjoy a place where they can rest, relax and chat with friends over a great cup of coffee.”
Starbucks and AmRest have worked together since 2008 opening stores together in the Czech Republic and Poland. They now operate 16 stores across the three markets.
“We are excited to open our first store in Hungary and are committed to being part of the community, a good neighbor and a force for bringing our partners (employees), customers and their communities together,” said Buck Hendrix, president of Starbucks Europe, Middle East and Africa. “Our expansion into Hungary with our trusted partner AmRest is another positive step forward in growing our presence in markets that have a longstanding coffeehouse tradition throughout Central and Eastern Europe.”
Customers in Budapest will be able to enjoy Starbucks full range of offerings including hot and cold beverages made from 100% Fairtrade certified espresso, brewed coffee, and a full range of Tazo Teas. Starbucks will also offer a selection of 16 different varieties of the world’s finest whole bean arabica coffees sourced from farms across Latin America, Africa and Asia Pacific.
Starbucks will offer traditional coffeehouse fare like cakes, muffins, donuts, sandwiches and salads. Exclusive to Starbucks Hungary will be a selection of local favorites including Reform Triangle Sandwiches, Sausage Sandwiches and Pick Salami Sandwiches. Starbucks Hungary is very proud to feature Cheese Pogácsa and Almond Nougat Cake baked by the treasured local patisserie, Gerbeaud Confectionery.
Since 1971, Starbucks Coffee Company has been committed to ethically sourcing and roasting the highest quality arabica coffee in the world. Today, with stores around the globe, the company is the premier roaster and retailer of specialty coffee in the world. Through our unwavering commitment to excellence and our guiding principles, we bring the unique Starbucks Experience to life for every customer through every cup. To share in the experience, please visit us in our stores or online at www.starbucks.com.
AmRest is the largest independent restaurant operator in Central and Eastern Europe. It manages KFC, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Starbucks, Applebee’s, freshpoint and Rodeo Drive sites in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia and Russia. The company will operate Starbucks coffeehouses in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. For more information, please visit www.amrest.eu.
Leafing through newspapers and magazines, I ran into these mutual fund ads.
From Janus: "100 percent of Janus equity funds have beaten their benchmarks since inception."
From T. Rowe Price: "Proven performance that has stood the test of time. For each 3-, 5- and 10-year period ended Dec. 31, 2009, over 75 percent of our funds beat their Lipper average." (That refers to the average performance of funds tracked by Lipper, a fund analysis firm.)
From Fidelity Investments: "In each of the past one-, five- and 10-year periods, at least 8 of the 10 Fidelity Select Portfolios broad-market sector funds beat their benchmark indexes." (This one refers to 10 Fidelity "Select" funds. Each invests in specific sectors of the economy.)
For many fund companies, performance sells (although some major firms, such as Vanguard, advertise low costs rather than performance, and others, such as Dodge and Cox, do not advertise at all). And when the fund’s "absolute," or actual return isn’t all that great, then "relative" performance, or how a fund did compared to others, is the thing to tout when you can.
For example, the Fidelity Select Technology fund did beat the so-called MSCI technology sector index for the 10 years ended March 31. But with technology stocks in the tank, the fund lost an average of 7.15 percent a year. It’s just that the index lost more, or 8 percent.
We need to read ads critically, including the tiny-print disclaimers in the footnotes. We also need to question how significant performance numbers are.
As the ads all say to comply with Securities and Exchange Commission rules, "past performance cannot guarantee future results." But even so, isn’t past performance a factor to consider?
Debate has been raging on that front for years, with a recent academic study suggesting fund performance advertisements are misleading investors payday advance low fees.
"A large body of studies has found little evidence that high past returns predict high future returns. In fact, advertised mutual funds even tend to underperform the market after being advertised," said Ahmed Taha, a professor at Wake Forest University School of Law and co-author of the study.
"We found that people viewing the advertisement with the current SEC disclaimer were just as likely to invest in a fund, and had the same expectations regarding a fund’s future returns" as people shown the ads without the disclaimer, said Alan Palmiter, another co-author and law professor at Wake Forest.
The study, also co-authored by Molly Mercer, an accounting professor at Arizona State University, suggests investors would be more likely to heed a more strongly worded disclaimer such as: "Do not expect the fund’s quoted past performance to continue in the future. Studies show that mutual funds that have outperformed their peers in the past generally do not outperform them in the future."
On the other hand, I can cite evidence that sectors in the market that have done well recently — and therefore, the funds that invest in them — continue to do well for a while.
That is, in fact, the basis of the "upgrading" strategy of moving incrementally into funds with superior near-term performance — a strategy that has led to strong absolute and relative long-term returns for DAL Investment Company of San Francisco, which publishes the NoLoadFundX newsletter and manages the FundX Upgrader mutual funds. (Disclaimer: I invest in some of these funds.) Overall, I consider many factors when choosing a fund, including performance in up and down markets, costs, manager tenure and sticking to a well-defined discipline.
Austin area deal volume and venture capital funding during the first quarter increased slightly compared with the same period last year, but the median capital raised per deal continued to decline.
Fourteen local venture-backed companies completed financings during the quarter versus nine companies during the same period last year. Also, the total amount that was raised surged from $42 million during the first quarter 2009 to $43 million in the first quarter this year, according to Dow Jones VentureSource.
However, the median amount raised by local companies declined to $3 million during the quarter compared with $4 million during the same three-month period last year and $6 million during all of 2008. Local financings included $7.7 million for WhiteGlove Technologies Inc., $6.2 million for Javelin Semiconductor Inc., and $1.4 million for 7 Billion People, Dow Jones reported.
Austin financings during the quarter stood in contrast to the national trend that showed the volume of deals increased along with the median amount per round.
U.S. companies received $4.7 billion in 597 deals during the first quarter, up 12 percent from the $4.2 billion invested in 522 deals during the same period last year. The median deal amount surged from $5 million during the first quarter 2009 to $8.8 million during the same period this year, according to Dow Jones.
“The uptick in venture investments during the first quarter of 2010 shows the industry is moving toward a slow recovery following the economic downturn,” said Jessica Canning, global research director for Dow Jones VentureSource.
“As the liquidity and fundraising environments thaw, investors have more capital on hand but continue to deploy it cautiously.”
New Orleans-based Advantage Capital Partners was tied with Austin Ventures as the first quarter’s most active investor in local companies with two apiece, Dow Jones reported.
PricewaterhouseCoopers reported that Austin-area companies raised $71.1 million in venture capital during the first quarter versus $20.5 million during the same period last year.
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