In sum

pun intended

• The City's recommendation to the Council for the FY14 budget will be about $500,000 over required minimum net school spending for that single fiscal year. However, the city is still making up for previous years of underfunding. The recommendation that the administration forwards to Council will be $430,000 under net school spending.A note here: while the City Council cannot reallocate funds, they can reject the administration's recommendation and send it back for a new recommendation.
• The Councilors on the Education committee--and more power to them--are floating some recommendations around trying to increase the city's contribution to above minimum contribution levels. Councilor Economou suggests tying it to municipal growth; as Councilor O'Brien noted, this used to be done, and when it was, the city and schools split new growth 50/50. It was suggested tonight that the city might start with 10% of new growth being promised to schools. To talk real numbers: last year, the city's municipal growth rate was 4.9%. 10% of that would be $490,000; on a $300 million budget, that's 0.5% over foundation.*
• In terms of the internal WPS budget: administration plans to get us (and thus the public) the FY14 budget next Friday, May 10. 

*And if you totally didn't follow that, please say so, and we'll try it again.