Some hard truths on the FY25 Worcester Public Schools budget

The Worcester School Committee begins budget deliberations on Thursday at 4 pm. 

As they start these deliberations, I did want to lay out a few hard truths ahead of that.

Twenty-two million dollars is a lot of money. 
As I have said every time I have said this, I don't mean to point out the obvious, but $22M is a lot of money. This is not solved through grant funding. This is not closed through administrative cuts. This is not going to be closed without position cuts in schools. 
I am absolutely certain that we are going to hear the School Committee spend a lot of time on slivers of the budget (and in some cases, probably self-righteously defend it as budgetary oversight), but unless you are actually grappling with the actual scale of the issue, you're not solving the problem. 
Don't bikeshed the budget gap.

This wouldn't have been an issue if the inflation rate was higher. 
I've heard some rather odd framing of the Worcester School Committee decision to front SOA increases with ESSER funds during the duration of ESSER, as if somehow the district was shocked that ESSER was gone and that was what was causing the gap. 
That isn't the case at all.
We in Worcester have known how much the SOA increases were due to be since SOA was passed; the only pieces of the puzzle missing have been enrollment changes--the enrollment for WPS this year was essentially flat--and the inflation rate.
And yes, everyone has known since ESSER III was passed that FY25 was the year it would be gone.
It is the inflation rate (as some of us started noting at the end of last year) that was the issue for this budget. 
With a 4.5% inflation rate, paralleling the past two years of inflation?
Worcester would be receiving $25M more in chapter 70 aid.

There's no more money coming ahead of the School Committee making allocations. 
I've recently seen some social media action decrying the proposed budget cuts, and while I entirely sympathize, the fact of the matter is that position cuts are coming, because the state chambers both passed budgets without meaningful increases for Worcester, and the Worcester City Council passed the WPS budget that is below net school spending. It is too late now to influence additional funding for the Worcester Public Schools for FY25 to stave off position cuts. 
There's a $22M budget gap. The School Committee has to deal with that, and we're going to live with the consequences.

The Worcester School Committee has to pass a balanced budget. 
Were I a betting person, I'd bet that there will be at least one, if not more, stirring "I refuse to vote for a budget that cuts [fill in the blank here]" before a split committee vote on this budget. This is not brave if you have not done a single thing to change the bottom line. The Worcester School Committee, like every school committee and municipality in Massachusetts, must pass a balanced budget. 
That means that this budget is going to involve cuts. And, as I've already noted elsewhere, the only place there is $22M in this or any like sized school district is in positions. 

Make no mistake: this is a lousy budget year.