A couple of notes on the WPS budget

It's been awhile since I posted anything on the WPS budget--we've been sailing along through quarter two here--but there are a few things that I haven't yet had a chance to note, so I thought I'd pull them together here.

"The School Committee has budgetary authority at the cost center level."

Of the many things I say about school finance frequently, this is one of the most frequent, in part because what "school committee authority" on budget actually means can be unclear if you haven't been around school budgeting.
If you have...please know that this level of authority has explicitly been the case since the early 90's.

What does this look like? The best illustration is the quarterly budget updates that the Worcester School Committee gets, at which we also exercise our transfer authority. 
Thus, in September, the Finance and Operations subcommittee received the first quarter budget report for FY23, which started in July. The fourth page gives the 30 cost centers the Worcester School Committee voted allocations to back in June and how much we adopted them for; how much of that has been spent; and what the projected balance for the end of the year is, based on what is known at this time. 
Based on that last, which is described in the prior pages (good budget reports don't just have numbers!), the subcommittee, and then the full School Committee, may make transfers as recommended by the administration between those cost centers. Administration can spend within and up to the allocated amount in every one of the thirty centers, and the School Committee does not have the authority to, for example, designate a salary (save for the small number of contracts which we negotiate directly). If a cost center is projected to be more than what is allocated, the money has to be transferred, by School Committee vote, from somewhere else. 
If you wonder over the course of the year where we're at on spending: this is the place to check. 
And if you wonder if folks know what they're talking about school spending, remember: cost center level. 

Back in September, the Worcester Regional Research Bureau published a look at the overall city budget, which I highly recommend to anyone trying to follow or figure out how it is that the city spends its money. It's also--from my corner of the universe--very useful in terms of showing what the cityside can and cannot do for schools, and does and does not do for schools.

Let me show you what I mean. 

This chart is page 7 of the report, and while it's a chart we see every year in the WPS budget (this year, it's page 30), there are some things that it is useful to have someone else call attention to, like exactly how little of the overall WPS budget is local contribution: it's less than a quarter. As a reminder, this is intentional: it's a function of the foundation budget and municipal wealth calculations working precisely the way that they should be.

I'd put this in concert with the note on the full rundown on allocations on page 6:

...something which you wouldn't often know in watching Council deliberate the WPS overall allocation.

Note that this voluntary contribution over required this year was originally projected to be just over $300,000; you can find that on page 432 of this year's WPS budget. Due to the changes in the state budget described in our September budget update, the district has a commitment from soon-to-be-no-longer-Acting City Manager Batista for the $1M that our budget otherwise would have dropped, which will push this contribution up. 
That's much appreciated, because otherwise we would have either had to cut the budget by $1M, or, sigh, use ESSER funds to fill the gap.

Going more deeply into the Worcester Public Schools budget, the Research Bureau not only issued a report, but gave us all a new toy to play with on the WPS budget. They've spent what's clearly a ton of time breaking down both revenue sources and spending in the Worcester Public Schools' budget from FY19 to the present. There not only are numbers: there are charts! And you can change them! You'll be able to see, for example, that the vast majority of our budget is spent on salaries, and most of that on teachers, just like every other district out there. Education is a people-centered system.
Give it a whirl, as it does a nice job of breaking down some of the internals of what exactly we're doing with our now over $500M a year.

And you don't get higher praise from WPS finance than a link straight from the budget page.

Now, all of the above is about the operating budget: that's the "running the system" part of the funding. For the major purchases--things like buildings?--you have to look at the capital budget, which the Research Bureau includes in the first report, on page 8. 
First, check out where the money is coming from: 

MSBA far and away is the most, and that's because, yes, we're building new schools. Much like chapter 70 state aid can't be spent on anything other than education, MSBA funding is coming to us to go straight into new buildings. The rest of the $90M is coming in through various local means.

Keep in mind, of course, that the MSBA is going JUST to those projects: it's building the new Doherty; it was building the new South; it's putting a new roof on Worcester Arts Magnet. It is project funding only, and it does not go to any other buildings.

Check out, though, what we spend our capital budget on:

The $60M at the top is the same $60M we saw coming in for those specific projects: it's a wash. 
Skim down, though, and look at where all of the other capital needs for 48 schools in buildings ranging in age from last year to before the Civil War. 

$4M. For everything. 

Now, I've been reading the city's capital budget for years, but I don't think that I've ever seen in presented in quite so stark of terms before. Something to consider as we head into the planning of another fiscal year. 

Please note that I am always, always happy to field questions on our budget, and if I don't know the answer, I'll find out!