[t]he reduction in education funding would be lessened, though, if a 4-percent cut meant a city or town would fall below so-called per-student “foundation” levels established in a 1993 school reform law.Thus, Worcester's ch. 70 aid will not be cut by 4%, as that would put Worcester substantially below foundation.
Not much help for the city budget, unfortunately.
I am sure the City Manager will think of some way to make up the city-side deficit. As you are well aware, that is why he increased the grant indirect contribution from 1% to 3%. This took close to 1 million dollars away from the students. It was pretty sad sitting in the Council Chambers and hearing the then-Mayor admonish anyone who suggested this move was wrong.
ReplyDeleteThe city was projecting $14 million under budget for FY11 before the state came out with this projection.
ReplyDeleteI know the City is projecting a larger number but they always look every place to find dollars. Right now they are allowed to take somewhere in the vicinity of 3.64% for indirect costs. They are taking 3%. The additional funds equal a little over 200,000 which would come from the school-side budget.
ReplyDeleteI heard that each person at the school dept who manages a grant takes money off the top in addition to his/her salary? Why so much grumpiness about increasing the indirect from 1 percent to 3 percent? I think it could be higher and universities often take a lot more off the top of a federal grant. People also claim that the difference between 3 percent and 1 percent pays for 17 people in the city managers office.. Doesn't seem possible to me that the extra 2 percent is funding 17 positions.
ReplyDeleteT-Traveler, not sure what you mean about taking money off the top. While individuals have programmatic oversight of the grants, as well as fiscal access, the Manager of Federal Programs works with the CFO to determine where funds get spent. Each grant has WPS administrative charges to pay clerical, book keeping, etc, as these are done on the school department side. The schools take these as actual salaries, not indirect costs. The State has determiend that indirect on grants to school districts is capped at a rate close to 3.46%. WOrcester is one of the few municipalities who takes these funds. The difference between 1% and 3% on grants (all grants, not just federal) came close to an additional million dollars last year (800K+). The schools received approx 42M in grants. 1% ewuals 420,000; additional 2% is another 840,000 fofr a total of 1,260,000 in indirect charges. So you can see, the "grumpiness" is due to the fact that the schools turned over an additional 840K to the City-side. When we surveyed other cities, towns, we could find only 1 municiplaity which charged indirect to its schools
ReplyDeleteJoan, over the years clerks at the school dept have told me that grant managers at Irving st get paid a salary and then get part of the grant as a stipend, which the clerks and accountants thought should have been allocated to the activities described in the grant.
ReplyDeleteI think the city treasurer gets the grant and retains 3 percent, so nothing actually gets turned over to the city, it is in the city accounts to begin with.
T, there's usually a requirement in the grant that a percentage be paid for administrative oversight. Not sure it's extra, but I can check.
ReplyDeleteI was the former Manager of Governmental Relations---that is I was in charge of WPS grants. This has changed under the new admin, so I am not sure what is going on there now, but I can tell you what has happened in the past. Each grant is different. Administrators at the management level, e.g., Quadrant, Curriculum, Federal Programs, are all salary contracted which means no additional funds. If a liaison or facilitator have grant responsibilities, yes, there is probably some kind of stipend in there for them so they can do work which goes above and beyond their school day. This is the union contracted rate and in every instance it is approved by the organization giving the grant funds to the schools. The clerks and accountants are correct in the fact that any activity for which these folks receive money from the grant HAS TO BE connected to the grant, If they are performing tasks that are not grant-related this is a total misuse of funds. Often times I was not the most favorite admin at DAB because I would not let timesheets go through for non-grant related activities. When the grant auditors came in, it was me sitting with them and I wanted to be 100% confident that I could answet each question honestly. During my tenure, we never had any grant audit exceptions.
ReplyDeleteThe only requirement in some grants is for an administrative cap. This is where the 3% comes into play. Some grants have a 3% cap.So it is not possible for the school department to put in the salary for any grant related account clerk.
The City does take 3% off the top of grants automatically. However, the grant funds are allocated to the schools (via the school committee), not to the general fund. As I stated previously, out of all the cities/towns we polled, only I kept the indirect in their city funds. The others either turned the indirect back to the schools or never took it to begin with. The school department pays for some administrative salaries, e.g., Manager of Federal Programs, Manager of Curriculum and Staff Development, totally from grants. Grants also pay for any school department clerical and accounting positions required for grant administration. However, none of this is new info as it is listed in the school department budget every year.