A note on Worcester and net school spending

This is far enough down in my Tuesday live-blog that it may well be missed, so I am giving it its own post:

As part of the discussion on police in the schools, Councilor King asked about the municipal contribution on policing; that, of course, is represented on our favorite, the municipal contribution calculation:

Noting that the amount being credited against the school contribution appears not to have changed for this coming year, Councilor King asked how this could be, if in fact the police were being removed from the buildings. 
City CFO Tim McGourthy said that this wasn't the number, noting that actual school spending gets reported at the end of the year. WPS CFO Brian Allen agreed that this was "a placeholder."

The city CFO, though, said two other things worth noting: 

1. The drop in this municipal contribution will drop the city's net school spending. Quick math says that if it's actually cut in half, we'll drop below net school spending, something which would not be an issue if we weren't running this so close to the line. Rarely are districts having this discussion anymore. 
   
   
2. McGourthy said that some federal funds can count. That answers the question on if the city has been counting on the allowance in the Governor and Senate versions of the budget, providing for up to 75% of a district's ESSER II spending to count towards the increase in local contribution. Three-quarters of Worcester's ESSER II award of $34.8M obviously more than covers the $3.7M increase required of the city for the local contribution, so I'd been wondering if they planned to actually increase local spending. It appears they are, but will claim?--I'm unclear on how this is going to work; is the state simply going to state that 3/4 of a district's ESSER II award is local contribution? Because that's ridiculous--to be over due to ESSER funds.
   ...which is just useless for anything other than the state being able to wave its hands and declare district contributions fulfilled. I mean, really. 

Anyway, to watch for this year.