About that $16.4 million...

So, remember the $16.5 (it's .5, not .4) million that I couldn't figure out from the City Manager's budget presentation last night?

The city passed along the presentation to the School Committee tonight, and it's cleared up where the number came from.

And it's wrong.

It takes the $10.6 that has been cited in the past--spent on needed transportation that does not count towards net school spending--and adds to it the cityside administration expenses that "count" towards the Worcester Public Schools, which is $5.9 million.

But here's the thing: THAT IS ALREADY INCLUDED IN NET SCHOOL SPENDING.

When we calculate city contribution, part of what is in the list of things that get subtracted--that are essentially "in kind" contributions--is the cityside administrative piece. You might remember that the number is calculated based on the percentage of the budget that goes to each part (schools and city), so 54%* of those departments counts toward net school spending.
So it's already in.
So that's a double count.


As an aside, what's odd about this is that the city finance department knows this. They're a part of calculating the numbers each year. So I'm not sure where this came from...

*setting aside the usual caveat that those departments don't actually spend anything like 54% of their manpower or time on schools.