Tuesday, May 25, 2021

about the FY22 budget

Before the committee deliberates, the public has a chance to weigh in: don't miss it Tuesday! 

You can find the agenda and link here.


You can find the full budget here. I always recommend starting with the executive summary. Remember this is the budget that starts like this: 




You might also look over this nice infographic on what is in the budget:

The budget uses $40M in ESSER funding, of which $30M is beyond that which is filling in the gap in state aid from the drop in enrollment; the specifics of the gap filling are spelled out on page 145. You can find the overview of year by year plan for district ESSER funding on page 165:

In terms of that funding--which is most of the changes in there--you can also look at this chart on page 145, which is the "enrollment increase" on the second line in more detail:


And then today, we got this additional page of detail for the first line of that ESSER chart, of what administration is recommending we spend on that then would get picked up by SOA funding next year: 

Note that this means that the expectation is that both the $9.6M and the $13.1M would be picked up in the increase in our foundation budget next year...or else be cut. 

Without getting into pre-deliberation--because yes, I do have many thoughts--the question we have before us is: is this the budget that Worcester students need next year, and does it make the highest and best use of the funding that is available to us? 

Come tell us what you think tonight. 

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