A quick note on the city budget

The City of Worcester posted their FY22 budget yesterday. The three pages that cover the Worcester Public Schools start on page 150 of the PDF.

The most important things to remember about the City Council's role here is that they can only pass a bottom line budget for us--they have no oversight on internal appropriation of the school department--and they, under our city charter, cannot add funds.

Compare this from the City budget:

To this from our first FY22 presentation in January:

You might remember that the problem with getting to the $386M was revenue: this was why the district needed hold harmless enrollment funding. 
So how are we getting there? Read the final line on the second paragraph on the second page of text:

In total, the district will utilize $40 million of federal stimulus funds in FY22 to support these initiatives that align with the district’s Strategic Plan.

That would be ESSER funds. 
So, the way we're going to avoid cutting (and the way we're going to be sure that we have enough staff for the students we'll have) is by using federal funds.

What we aren't doing, I feel honor bound to note, is being funded above net school spending. The February presentation assumed the minimum required spending from the city, and it appears that is what the city is giving us.

What this means, as always, is that one needs to remember that all of the green in this chart:

...is in the blue in this chart: 

And it's most of it.