So what's the deal with the low income measurement?

Why is there discussion/controversy/activism about the low income implementation in school funding in the House 2 budget?

As I mentioned when I ran through the Governor's proposed budget back in January, most of the sections of the Foundation Budget Review Commission's recommendations and the Student Opportunity Law that had to do with funding were implemented at 1/7th of the goal, under the general understanding that this will be phased in over seven years.
Not low income.
What did happen with low income was this: the law provided for a one year "best option" count on students: for each district, the state looked at the direct certification count--the one we've been using, through the matching of students via the databases--and also ran the FY16 percentage of students that were low income then (the last year that everyone was being credited on free/reduced lunch, 'though some districts had already switched), and each district got the higher of those two counts.
Note that if you download the FY16 spreadsheet, you can double-check your number by calculating your percentage of low income students that year. I assume that there were business offices that did this ahead of time. And each of the FY21 preliminary foundation budget sheets has, in the bottom right corner, a comparison of the FY16 percentage applied to this year's enrollment and this year's direct certification:

Here's Worcester's. See the blue box? 

That "best of," as has been widely noted, added about 46,000 students statewide to the count of low income. Those students, of course, were not all in one district, and, as with any such count, there were districts that benefited more than others. Worcester picked by 2000 more students for this year; as Mike noted, Northbridge actually lost kids even with the FY16 count being used (it would have gone lower if it were only direct cert) and so on.
However, as a result of the the increased count of students, the state of course had to increase the amount of funding going to that line. In order to keep to the overall $300M or so planned--the overall 1/7th--the rate change was only implemented by 4/100ths, not the 1/7th of the other sections.

This was part of the Mass Taxpayers' Foundation presentation yesterday
to the Connecticut Valley Superintendents' Roundtable.
We were told it is a slide that DESE doesn't like.

This isn't a thing that I or anyone else cooked up; you can find it right on DESE's page on FY21 under "Foundation Budget Rates."
As noted in the above slide that you probably can't read, this means the rates for low income will then have to pick up the difference over the next six years in order to meet the seven year generally understood goal.
It also, as a side note, means that some of the money gets postponed having inflation applied by a year.
The slide also notes, however, that the final section of the law says that the changes are to be implemented in "an equitable and consistent manner."
Thus the question is: is this equitable? is this consistent? does it line up with the intent of the law? is in line with what was fought so hard for?

A number of us are arguing that it doesn't.

Two additional notes after the jump:

Worcester's foundation budget gaps

I'm just breaking into the FY16 end of year report to run district by district comparisons of general fund spending against foundation budgeted amounts. I did a dry run on Worcester. As noted these are general fund, so it doesn't include grants and such. It shouldn't have to, as the foundation budget is supposed to be adequate. 

Health insurance is still about a $29M gap: that means WPS is spending 193% of foundation on health insurance.

Where does it come from? If it's a Gateway, it must be the classroom, as it's the largest category in any school district budget. In FY16, Worcester was $34M short on classroom and specialist teachers.

On professional development, the district spent 45% of what the foundation budget calls for (note that this doesn't encompass all spending on professional development; WPS reported nearly another million out of grant spending. But foundation is supposed to be adequate.)

Nearly $6M short on instructional materials and technology, or 61% of foundation.

And 55% of foundation for operations and maintenance.

Worcester gets 71% of its foundation budget from the state. These numbers aren't enough to "provide an education for all its children, rich and poor, in every city and town of the Commonwealth," as McDuffy found.
We need reform. And we need it this fiscal year.

Worcester School Committee Finance and Operations

agenda is here 
MSBA spending: total of $43M in spending
Allen: balance of $3M annual allocation this past year to fix HVAC for Jacob Hiatt which had failed
Foley: money going to windows "and the reasons behind that" but the windows were also in terrible shape
Allen: pretty good results
ESCo plus MSBA plus environmental mitigation
windows "at twenty cents on the dollar, we're going to take advantage of that"

Puzzling out the City of Worcester FY17 budget

The news that the FY17 City of Worcester budget would make up all remaining ground on net school spending to the Worcester Public Schools has been something I've been puzzling over this past week. When we last left this particular item, we were looking at a budget that hit the yearly requirement, but didn't make up the backlog, which coming out of FY15 was $2.3M. Now the City Manager's memo says this:

$4.3M of that increase [in total budget spending, of $14M] is allocated to the Worcester Public Schools, based on state funding that increased by $3.8M 

From the city's budget, that looks like this:

And then goes on to say:

The State’s required minimum for the public schools would have allowed the City to reduce funding for education by $670,000. 

The above puts the city's spending on schools at just $500,000 over last year. As the Manager mentions, because the city's municipal wealth multiplier actually was negative for this calculation, the city's required spending could have been less than last year.
Thus, the first $670,000 is an amount the city could have cut the schools but didn't.
Given, of course, that the vast majority of municipalities are funding the schools at well over the minimum, the city's choosing not to cut the schools budget from last year is something I, anyway, have a tough time feeling particularly excited about.
Then there is the additional $500,000 (maybe there's rounding in the numbers to bring it up to the $630,000 the Manager mentions) over last year's budget.
That gets us to $1.1M or so over what the state said the city had to spend.
That would mean in FY17, the schools are being funded at 0.28% over the minimum required.

Now, just to put this into perspective, here's the statewide numbers on funding of schools over time:

Yes, the bottom right corner is the statewide average in school funding OVER the minimum for FY16.
Because of the vast gaping hole of the outdated foundation formula, statewide, cities and towns ON AVERAGE are spending 1/5 more than required on schools.
And Worcester's budget is funding at 0.28% over what is required.

In any case, that gets us to what's going on with FY17. What happened in FY16 to make the changes from the last time we saw where we were on NSS?
Let's add this to the list of outstanding questions on the FY17 WPS budget, but here's where I'm going to check: the municipal charges.
There aren't a whole lot of things that change in municipal allocation once the budget is passed. One is charter charges and the other is what the city is charging for municipal services.
And there was at least one change that went through after the budget did last year.

Worcester has a finance meeting today

just caught this: audits and third quarter, mostly. FY16 looks as though it is heading towards the F&O department's usual small margin to close the year.
Wonder if this bit about withholding bus money will come up? 

March Board update on the budget

88.2% of total budget goes to chapter 70 aid (FY16: $4,511,882,199)
5.3% to circuit breaker
5.3% to grant programs
0.7% to state supported resources
0.5% to general admin

thus only the last 1.2% is DESE

Worcester School Committee Finance and Operations meets tomorrow

The Finance and Operations subcommittee meets tomorrow evening at 5:00 with three items on the agenda. You can find the agenda here.
The second quarter budget report for FY16 has good news! The account by account update shows an end of year balance (largely due to teacher vacancies; see the report for details), and that means real things can happen heading into the third quarter. In this case, administration has released the frozen $10 per pupil supply money for schools (hurray!) and the projected balance means that the district can buy new textbooks (!), plus security equipment, AED & CPR equipment, and HVAC and boiler replacement (can somebody ask where?). 
Following on Good Harbor's safety assessment last year, the Safety Advisory Committee is reporting out. The big recommendations are creating a safety/communications administration position, with an expanded definition of safety and security; aligning the security budget (which right now comes out of multiple accounts); moving the police liaisons to resource officers and adding two more to cover elementary schools (and in the process, discontinuing the use of outsourced security); adding after school programming, and adding (long term) additional vocational programs.
Finally, there's a report on the Environmental Health Bureau of DPH discontinuing radon testing at City View School.

Board hears about FY17

Chester: hearing on state budget on Monday
very little of funding "is for this agency" says Chester: majority is chapter 70
changes on charter school reimbursement, changes on low income calculation
consolidation on literacy initiatives in early childhood
"very much recognize that this is going to be a tough budget year"
fixed costs in state budget going to increase by projected increase
supplemental budget for this year: additional funding for testing program
Peyser: feels counterintuitive that income is growing and yet the budget is so austere
health care consumes a lot of dollars
hope that after year we'll "be back to structural balance"
hope then to be able to spend it
1.5% for education; but more than other sectors are getting
"not as healthy growth as we'd like to see"

Worcester Public Schools wins Meritorious Budget!

For the THIRD YEAR IN A ROW!!

For the third consecutive year, Worcester Public Schools is the recipient of the Meritorious Budget Award, presented by the Association of School Business Officials International. The award recognizes Worcester Public Schools for excellence in preparation and issuance of its budget for fiscal year 2015-2016.  Congratulations to Brian Allen and his team for their continued exemplary performance.

swiped from this week's "Creating Connections" from Dr. Rodrigues (Worcester parents, recommended!)

Most read in 2015

Unless I suddenly start getting a lot of traffic on a blog post I wasn't I expecting, I don't pay a lot of attention to my analytics, but here's my once-a-year look at what was most read.

As usual, the top hit is just the front page, meaning that there are a lot of you who just come by to see what's new. That's increasingly unusual these days; most blog traffic is driven by links. I appreciate--and will try to stay attentive to--the faith that I have something new and worth reading up!

1. The single post with the most hits (not surprising, given last year's weather) was this post on how snow days and the Worcester Public Schools calendar works. That was an evolving post, as I fielded questions about how the calendar works and how WPS was going to deal with the days off. With luck, we won't need that information so urgently this year!
2. Governor Baker's FY16 budget proposal and its impact on urban districts had the second highest number of hits this year. YES, YOU SHOULD BOOKMARK THIS ONE FOR THIS YEAR!
3. This one seems to be caught in a bigger search: "special education" brings you the interviews for a new special education director back in 2012. 
4. Given that the national Massachusetts education story was on testing, it makes sense that the liveblog of the Board of Ed's deliberation on that decision would make this list.
5. For a bit the only place with any public information on this was here: the proposal to make Chandler Magnet's field a parking lot for Worcester State. 
6. My notes from the March 5 update on North High at Worcester School Committee saw a lot of traffic.
7. I posted my testimony before the Board of Ed on MCAS or PARCC. 
8. Governor Baker appointed two new members to the Board of Ed in September, and Google is our friend on these.
9. Baker's inaugural a year ago had some language on education, but not much for the education of most kids. 
10. ...which was borne out a month later by his choices in midyear budget cuts. 

It's always interesting to me to see the mix of Worcester and state on these. As I said earlier, my blogging on Worcester will continue, but will be more focused on the superintendent search and the budget; the state blogging will continue...and more to come on that. 

9C cuts...

You may have missed it in your holiday planning, but, bad news:

Despite growing revenues, Gov. Charlie Baker is still considering mid-year budget cuts.

...and I've heard from multiple places that it's pretty serious consideration.
As a reminder, 9Cs can only be made by the Governor in Executive office spending:

The Governor can only use 9C powers to cut funding in parts of the government that are under his control—in other words, his 9C authority extends only to the executive branch agencies. The Governor cannot use 9C authority to cut local aid, the courts, the Legislature, or other constitutional offices. The Governor can file legislation recommending cuts to those other areas of the budget. The legislature can then pass a law with those cuts, or with other cuts, new revenue, or the use of reserves.

You might remember that we went through this earlier this year at the end of February. Worcester Public Schools lost half a million dollars in one fell swoop, and with a midyear cut, the impact is double.
Should Governor Baker hit Quality K this year again, if your district is on this list, they'll get hit. 

Omnibus

No doubt you've heard that the federal omnibus (budget) passed and was signed. I've continued to hear that school aid is up, and even that Title I is up, but there's a whole lot in there, and I've been searching for a greater level of detail.
Via EdWeek, I found it; the Committee for Education Funding (whom you can follow on Twitter) has a nice breakdown of not only the level that passed, but also the levels proposed at various stages and the levels at previous years.
And that first line sure does look like Title I is level funded. And remember: if you're funding much of anything, but most particularly salaries, level funding is a cut, assuming any kind of contractual increase. 
As you scroll down, do note the footnotes.
What this means for any given district or school remains to be seen, of course, as Title I grants vary by school enrollment and awards won't be known until next summer. But how much money there is over all certainly will make a difference.
I'll keep an eye out on this and post again should I find more. 

Worcester School Committee meets Thursday, December 17

The regular meeting--and final one of this year and this term--of the Worcester School Committee is Thursday, December 17. You can find the agenda here. 

The report of the superintendent is the school safety and security assessment. It's not that long or dense, so if you're interested, do go give it a read.

We have some recognitions (yes, it's Ms. Ramirez and my final meeting), including Dolores Gribouski who has spent her whole life in the Worcester Public Schools.

We have a citizen petition regarding student arrests.

Teaching, Learning, and Student Supports is reporting out.

We're being asked to accept a donation of $500 for Goddard Scholars; $5,720.35 to Lake View School from a spelling bee; donations of $500 each to Claremont Academy, Gates Lane School of Science and Technology, Grafton Street School, Midland Street School, Tatnuck Magnet School, and Forest Grove Middle School from Big Y; and $195.00 from JVE Co, Inc. for Tatnuck Magnet School.

We're being asked to thank Robert Kraft for his donation of $100,000 to Worcester Tech (which hasn't yet been received) and the Rotary for their donation of $50,000 to Worcester Tech (? I assume? I don't know where that one went).

And we're, yes, being asked (told?) to reduce the FY16 budget by $501,120 "to reflect the final state budget for charter school reimbursement and tuition assessments."

I can't believe I have post these charts again

But since it appears we're going to have another round of proposals to cut central admin, let's look at the actual numbers.

First, here's Worcester's FY13 central administration spending compared to other urban districts:

That's from page 373 of the WPS FY15 budget. 

But, some would say, what if all those other districts are just spending too much?

Okay, how about compared to what the state says we should be spending on central administration?

That's the comparison of what WPS actually spends on central admin to what the state says we should spend from the F&O report on the Foundation Budget Review Commission implications.

It's really easy to say "principals say," but what is happening right now is admin responding to ongoing, years-old pleas from principals across the city who have been asking for more support. They're starting to get it, and they should. It isn't just one or two who have certain school committee members' ears; it's much more widespread. 

It's pretty straightforward: as a district, we need more hands in the Quadrant office (and several other places downtown), not fewer. Calls to do otherwise aren't responding to actual school needs.

UPDATE: And the position is already posted, incidently.

Forewarned on FY17

Today's T&G article captures the concern that has been raised several times since the opening of school report: namely, what a foundation-level budget looks like when enrollment is flat and inflation is negative. 
“The combination makes for a dire projection,” is what Mr. Allen is quoted as saying. Yeah...
A good rule of thumb (note that this is just me speaking based on past experience) is that the WPS budget increases by about 3% each year across the budget; line item by line item is different--some will be lower, health insurance (for example) will always be higher--but without making a single addition, that's how much the budget generally will increase.
The words that we'll be hearing this spring, thus, will be "hold harmless" which means that the state won't cut our chapter 70 aid, even if our enrollment falls and even with negative inflation. Those minimum per pupil increases that are always a hot legislative topic and generally don't impact Worcester also will be of interest this year to us.
Neither of those two things is going to be enough to save us from some pretty nasty looking decisions this spring.
Thus let me point out again what I have pointed out before: while the city of Worcester has met foundation for FY16, there remains $2.4 million from previous years that the city is under net school spending. Making up the ground on that (particularly if the city wisely projects a 3% increase in minimum school spending that won't entirely be required) would be a very, very good idea this coming year.
It is also crucial--not only for Worcester, but for minimum spending communities across the state--that the question of inflation be dealt with. The back years that the state changed the rate (to their advantage) were called out in the foundation budget review commission report; there remains a question if the inflation multiplier being used is the best one to use (in other words, should we really be basing increases off of how much was spent by cities and states the previous year?).

Note, incidentally, that Dr. Rodrigues commented at Thursday's School Committee that the first budget presentation would be at the January 21 meeting, after the release of Governor Baker's budget.
__________________________________________________
Relatedly: I've had some questions on if I plan to continue to cover the Worcester School Committee with my leaving the committee in January. The answer is somewhat. To my mind, there are two major looming issues that warrent close attention:

• the superintendent search
• the budget

Given that I live here and I have three kids in the schools, I'll continue to have an interest. I'm still working out what my schedule come January is going to look like, and I won't be doing a blow-by-blow account of every meeting. I do plan, though, to keep a close eye on both of the above issues, and yes, those I'll certainly be blogging about. 

First quarter budget update: Finance and Operations

post as we go
Allen: state reduction of nearly $600K less than WPS budgeted
school committee recommended budget based on House 1 budget
only funding charter reimbursement at about 69%
generally would have to find that in our budget
within that reduction, there's an offset of $102,014 on chapter 70, which could reduce city contribution, but is not
still have a $500K reduction as part of the city setting its tax rate
there will need to be an item on the full agenda to reduce the budget by that amount (but can see where those will come from in full budget backup)
Final grant awards came through, increase in low income students
"largest increase in low income students across the state last year"
(also largest increase in chapter 70 across the state)
increase in federal grants of $1.8M
had projected a level funded grant stream
increase in each of the grants then has to be directed to that grant's requirements (and can only supplement, not supplant)
restoring PreK and IAs which were previously funded out of that grant
"trying to look at this from a whole budget" perspective
"because of some other things we were seeing in the full budget"
over a $700K deficit in personal services, largely due to special education costs (as specialized services are restructured)
plus new Recovery High School, "I believe there are four students attending"
increase in legal (which is never funded adequately) and translation
in many cases typical: custodial overtime, workers comp, nurses' subs
transportation, as some of our buses had to be taken off the road; services now being provided by Durham
have made assumptions through this time and past history
"even with charter school reduction...projecting $55,924 negative balance at this time"
usually don't do transfers in first quarter, but due to things that are jumping out, transfers recommended
Foley: wider variance that we'd usually see first quarter
freeze on instructional materials?
Allen: yes, and in last two years have had to use to address budget deficit
Foley: have we considered swing custodians?
Martin: looking at all our overtime costs to reduce
Foley: workers comp underfunded
unemployment?
Allen: even in good years, are layoffs
much greater numbers qualifying than projected
Ramirez: nine custodians collecting workers comp: typical?
Allen: has been roughly the number in previous years
Novick: loss of $500K: good time to raise issue of foundation underfunding of previous year's carryover
Allen: $2.4M cummulatively
"that the city will continue to carry forward
motion to discuss with city
transportation issue due to replacement cycle not on cycle
(we bought one bus this year; we usually buy three. That also isn't a fast enough replacement cycle.)
motion to refer to Joint Committee with City Council

Finance and Operations meets Monday at 5

You can find the agenda here.
It's time for the first quarter budget update. First, note that once the city does the tax recap, the School Committee will have to reduce the budget by half a million dollars. 
And why?
Charter school reimbursement is underfunded. It was underfunded in the budget we passed, but it got worse, rather than better. I ranted about this briefly yesterday on Twitter, but to recap: A district that serves 25,000 students is going to have to cut their budget by half a million dollars in November/December, because the state can't get its act together enough to fulfill their basic LEGAL responsibilities on school funding. Don't talk to me about "stealing possible" when this is your funding pattern.
In other quarter one news:

• personal services is up quite a bit, as we continue to bring more special ed services back in house, as the Recovery High School tuition is up (good for other reasons, but tough here), and as translation services continue to rise. This is also the line item where the superintendent search is budgeted.
• workers' comp is already projected at a deficit. Again. We'll take Mr. O'Connell's item on a workers' comp update with the quarterly report, but the answer, again, is that we aren't budgeting enough here. 
• nurses are also projected at a deficit, because we need subs when they're sick.
• and in a possible (I'll ask) "chickens coming home to roost," you might remember that we didn't replace school buses on the same schedule this year, because our city capital funding remains SO tight. Guess what's up? Contractual transportation services. If we don't pay for the capital expense, we'll pay for it in operational expenses.

Note also the that the Title I grant being up means that some IAs and preK teachers could be moved back to grant funding, which will assist with some of the above. 

The full rundown on where accounts are currently projected is here. 

In other "clearning the decks" items, we have the South High pool item, which is recommended to referral to the South High building committee (do we have a South High building committee?).

We have the request to see the bid on Lake View's asphalt repairs; the proposal is we get it in a Friday letter.

The ads on buses item is on with a recommendation that it be filed. It turns out that looking at an external object, like an ad, is more distracting than putting on makeup or dialing a phone when you're driving, which is dangerous enough. So putting a known danger on buses to make relatively little money...

We also have the conversation we started during budget on how much of security spending comes out of the facilities budget (which is funded at 61% of foundation).

The proposed 2016-17 and 2017-18 calendars are on here, along with comments from schools. Two notes: both years would start with a full five day week for students over the week that goes from August to September (with teachers coming in for two days the week before), followed by Labor Day (and thus a four day week); there is no change to vacations, though considerable interest expressed in a March break. 

Finally, the Foundation Budget Review Commission's final report is on the agenda. More, I suspect, to come on that. 

5 o'clock, 4th floor of the administration building or livestreamed on the web!

Big day on the federal level

Post to come on the news of Secretary Duncan's resignation and former NY Commissioner John King taking his place (suffice for now to say: not good news). However, two quick things that I had missed in the change of month:

• October 1 started the new fiscal year on the federal level, and, no, they haven't passed a budget yet. We're into continuing resolutions (CR) and trying to fend of sequestration again.
• The Healthy and Hunger-free Child Act (that's school lunch) has expired. Here's hoping that they don't mess that up in renewal. This wrong in many particulars editorial in the New York Times last Sunday didn't help, 'though this Huffington Post post responded correctly and with links (I just wish it had gotten the same level of circulation that the Times article surely did). 

Our IA's have been SAVED

Unanimous House vote!

Unanimous vote in the Senate to override Governor Baker's veto as well!

Thanks to all of those of you who joined me in advocacy, and thanks to our delegation who all voted for this! Advocacy works! 

Not all good news on FY16

While we're still glad we've got our 21 IAs for this coming year, it's not all good news for FY16 coming out of the conference committee:

While Worcester avoided a budget hole with its kindergarten aides, it’s now facing another sizeable deficit after a cherry sheet released by the state showed the city’s fiscal 2016 charter school reimbursement money came in roughly $650,000 below what local officials had estimated, according to Mr. Allen. While he said the district had budgeted about $350,000 extra next year with the expectation there would be at least some shortfall, that would still leave $300,000 they would have to make up.

“That’s concerning,” he said, adding it was still too early as of Friday to say how the school department could close the gap.

Watch the quarterly budget updates. We'll have to find it somewhere.