I am doomed to have the same discussion over and over forever

 The FY24 net school spending report was released yesterday.

if you click this, it will get bigger

Here’s a zoom in of the current year:

In words, that's "you didn't meet required spending last year by $5,548,031; you are required to make up for it this year, and you are not budgeted to do so."

But what did Fair Share get us?

ahem...

I hope by now you've seen that the Fair Share amendment, which taxes at 4% on every dollar over a person's first $1M in income, has far exceeded expectations. As noted back in May: 

Massachusetts has collected about $1.8 billion from a voter-approved surtax on the state’s highest earners through the first nine months of the fiscal year, the Department of Revenue said Monday in a quarterly report.

That’s more than $800 million more than what the Legislature and Gov. Maura Healey planned to spend in surtax revenue for all of fiscal year 2024, raising the possibility of a sizable pot that will land in an Education and Transportation Reserve Fund and the Education and Transportation Innovation and Capital Fund, both surtax specific accounts, once the books close.

Remember, unless you've made a million plus at least a dollar in income? You are not paying this. And if you made a million plus a dollar, you're only taxed the extra 4% on that one additional dollar.

I've seen some confusion about this, so I thought I'd clear up a few things. 

First, the above money doesn't get spent until next year; this is a reserve fund, so the funding goes in and sits until the total is determined by the state comptroller in December. It's pretty clear, though, that the state's been conservative with projections, and this is one where we do really want to spend the money that's coming.

Second, this is funding--like most in the state--that's allocated by vote of the Legislature, signed by the Governor. There isn't some sort of formula where everyone gets some of this. I've heard districts ask how they can apply, or if it's being allocated evenly...that isn't how this works at all. The Legislature decides on what, within transportation and education, they want to spend the money on, and that's where it goes.

Funding was allocated in this year's budget from last year's Fair Share collection. Again, there is a very good chance that you are not personally paying for this--these efforts are not increasing your taxes!--but we as state residents are benefiting!

• universal free lunch - a program much in the news, due to Minnesota similarly funding meals for all students, the reimbursement to districts of the federal reimbursement rate for non-federally reimbursed meals (the wonkish explanation!), this $170M is from Fair Share funding. 
  Yes, we literally have our millionaires making sure all kids eat!
  Remember, the FY24 number is a compromise and is expected to still not be enough to fully reimburse the expense to districts
• $74/pupil increase in minimum aid in chapter 70. I've ongoingly argued that this is not a fair, equitable, way to get aid to districts, and yet...here we are. $37M here for K-12 districts.
• free community college is funded from the Fair Share amendment (there's several lines of public higher ed funding, in fact)
• $110M to regional transit authorities-- aka, local bus systems
• $60M for MBTA physical infrastructure
• $20M for a low income reduced fare program for the MBTA
• $7.5M for ferry services
• $36M for safety work at the MBTA
• $45M for municipal roadwork
• $10M for a skilled workforce pipeline for the MBTA (those bus and train drivers don't grow on trees!)
• $175M for child care grants (operations)
• $15M to reduce the waitlist at early childcare and education for teen parents and homeless families
• $5M for preschool expansion
• $65M for increased salaries and benefits for early education and care
• $18M for reducing the early childcare waitlist
• expanding early college, technical, and innovation pathways at $2.5M 
• the Literacy Launch, funding for both curriculum and professional development, which they compromised at $20M for
• Green Energy infrastructure grants to schools for $10M
• developing a framework for mental and behavioral health funded at $5M

This is all really good stuff! We should be proud that we fought for this money! 
I wish more people were more clear on where it is going. Please spread the word!

A round-up on WPS things

 So much to post, so little time. Some WPS notes in the meantime:

• At tonight's Worcester School Committee meeting, the School Committee conducts Dr. Monárrez's annual evaluation. The presentation is here. As I noted last month, there is a SINGLE evaluation of a superintendent, not, in Worcester's case, nine. The evaluation as presented overall evaluates her work as proficient, which, as the DESE standards remind us, is a "rigorous expected level of performance." This is an official action of the School Committee and will be voted. 
  
  
• The agenda tonight also has a proposed meeting schedule (which I suspect will need to be amended) and a proposed calendar of agenda reports.
  
  
• Oddly, still no update on the bottom line of the budget. 
  
  
• With the first day of school for students grades 1-12 on August 26 (preK and K on the 29), there's a back to school letter shared on the district website. This includes a list of new principal and coordinator assignments, which I'll include below. I assume these went through a community committee screening, 'though it's odd that it never had any public side (aka: not the internal school community) outreach for those. 
  
  
• Note that the WPS Transportation system not only had routes available for families LAST WEEK--it's never in my memory been that early!--they're also starting the year FULLY STAFFED with drivers. There's going to be 101 bus routes this year in Worcester. And don't miss WPS mechanic Jim Hicks on WBUR this morning! 
  
  
• You've probably caught some of the Doherty coverage; yes, the new building is done and will open with the rest of the district. The T&G also had a piece on late WPS superintendent Leo T. Doherty, after whom the building is named. We can't say "on budget" on this due to the pandemic, but remember that the inflationary increase was covered by the state. 
  
  
• And yes, Burncoat is still going next; yes, that's actually official; and if you want to bug someone about it, ask when the building committee is going to be announced. There are districts that were accepted at the same time that are WAY ahead of us on timeline (we can actually go quicker than the deadlines!). 

__________________________________________

New assignments: 

Challenge and Reach Academy: Scott Moriarty

Chandler Elementary: Margaret Murphy

Claremont Academy: Christopher LaBreck

Clark Street Elementary: Christopher Dodge

Gerald Creamer Center: Angela Plant

Jacob Hiatt Magnet Elementary: Amanda Martinez (acting)

Lincoln Street Elementary: Karen Allen

New Citizens Center Secondary: Dr. Erin Goldstein

Rice Square Elementary: Fjodor Dukaj

Thorndyke Road Elementary: Susan Donahue

Transition Program: Dr. Brenda Diggs

Vernon Hill Elementary: Tammy Boyle

Odd one on WPS FY24 funding

I haven't posted on this because monetary decisions have to be done in public session, and so I expected, naturally, that we would see something in an agenda, and so I was waiting for that.

Fiscal year 2024 has ended; fiscal year 2025 has started.
There was no meeting called before the end of June after budget.
There is nothing on the July agenda.

There has been no vote by the Worcester School Committee to change the bottom line of the FY24 budget; there has been no vote of the Worcester School Committee to allocate funds received (it would be a prior year allocation, one assumes, now).

And yet at the City Council meeting on June 16, it seems, the City Manager said that additional funding would be forwarded to the Worcester Public Schools in response to a question from a councilor regarding minimum net school spending.
That then was raised as a question by Member Mailman at the June 20 meeting, with the response being at that point it hadn't been received yet, and that there would be a memo sent to the Committee.

It appears that was only done to the Committee², not publicly, and there still hasn't been any action taken by the Committee.

Last Thursday night, in response to a question by Member Biancheria (noting that the district has laid off literacy tutors, and questioning both why and how it is that the superintendent spoke of hiring an 'outside contractor' for literacy tutoring), the response was that this from "extra money from the city."

The response was that this was being done from the additional $1.8M received from the city--it's homeless transportation¹ reimbursement money, which the schools only get if the city actively moves it to schools--as the School Committee, it seems, received a memo about. 
And that funding went to fill FY24 holes, so it freed up federal grant funds, that then can be carried over into FY25, some of which can be used for literacy tutoring. 

Can the district do the above? Yes. 

And the Committee votes each year--and they did this year--to authorize the superintendent to move money among cost centers to close the fiscal year. 

It should be clear, though: this is not what this is.
This is new money for the district, which as not been recognized by the Committee in any way in their own action, which then is being used to provide for spending that the Committee also hasn't overseen. 

The City Auditor, it seems, has said that further action by the Committee isn't needed. The auditor, though, isn't who sets state law, regulation, or guidance for districts, all of which is unified that school committees in Massachusetts both set the bottom line spending and allocate funding by cost center. 

What's really, really odd to me about all of this is that the Worcester Public Schools are not--and I dare say I'm unusually well informed about this--a district where the budgetary authority of the Committee is usually in question. 
____________________________________________________________

¹As an utter side note, this means that, if this funding is being used to meet net school spending, it isn't being used for transportation, as that doesn't count. And that, again, is fine, and will no doubt show up in the end of the year close report.

²Let me head off the obvious here and say this: my concern isn't "I'm not on the Committee, so I don't know." My concern is that it's budgetary, so we are all supposed to know, regardless of our relationship with the district.

Testimony before Council on FY25

non-testifying attendee at City Council tonight

Good evening, Mr. Chair,
My name is Tracy Novick and I live at 135 Olean Street here in Worcester.

While I am not here primarily to speak against items 10d, 11o, and 11p, please count me among the myriad of your constituents requesting that you stop wasting time and money on actively working to make our city less safe for pedestrians, bicyclists, bus riders, and, yes, motorists. The base attempts to play politics should be ended this evening and never be revived.

I am here to speak in support of President Verdier’s public petition 8v, the first time I have heard Worcester’s not meeting its constitutional mandate to fund schools for four years running mentioned on a Council agenda. It should shame all of us that it had to be done by the leadership of our teachers’ association.

But of course, Worcester has been here before. In fact, eleven years ago this evening, I was here to speak in support of then-Councilor O’Brien’s motion to fully fund the Worcester Public Schools in the FY14 budget.

Let us be clear: the mandate to fund public schools dates back to the 1993 Education Reform law, a law which was passed in part due to a lawsuit filed on behalf of Worcester schoolchildren by the late Mayor Levy.

Massachusetts General Law chapter 70 section 1 defines “a standard local funding effort applicable to every city and town in the Commonwealth.”

So, no, there is no “Worcester exception” for building high schools. Besides, Worcester is hardly the only city or town in the Commonwealth to be building schools.

Worcester is, however, eleventh from the bottom of 351 cities and towns in the percentage of our minimum budget that we are required to fund from local resources. Twenty-six cents of every local revenue dollar funds the schools, with another three for construction; that is also among the lowest applications of local revenue to schools of which I am aware.

I am aware of no local community in which the schools are facing the revenue crisis--and it is, to be clear, a revenue crisis--on the scale of the Worcester Public Schools in which there has been zero effort on the part of the local funding authority to increase allocations to meet or soften the hit.

As the statewide average in projected school funding for the current fiscal year is 125.5% of the required minimum, the vast majority of local funding authorities see the need in their school districts, and have risen to meet it.

And to again be clear: this city is not in the company of cities sitting on unused tax capacity out of fiscal prudence. It is in the small number of cities and towns that are not meeting their constitutional obligations to schoolchildren.

You make it impossible to effectively advocate for the state to further its support for Worcester’s schools when you don’t meet the minimum requirement locally. 

It is a ridiculous to need to request that our local funding authority not break the law. 

It is however the request I make tonight.

Two on Worcester Public Schools budget (this one on FY24)

It's been a bit since I've written anything on Worcester's budget at all, let alone this current year, and there are a few things worth understanding. 

Let's first note that the Finance, Operations, and Governance subcommittee meets on Monday at 4:45 PM. The agenda for that is here, and it does include proposed policies on cell phones and earbuds, on service animals in schools, and on emotional support dogs, as well as the current student handbook ahead of its annual changes. I'm not going to post on that here, but if any of that is of interest, go take a look.

The subcommittee also has the FY24 third quarter report, though, running through March 31.

A few notes from the Worcester School Committee legislative breakfast

 I promise I'll go back and post on last Thursday's Worcester School Committee, but before we get too far away or lose the impact, I did want to share a few notes from Friday's Worcester School Committee legislative breakfast, As it was a posted public meeting--it had to be, as the School Committee was discussing the budget, which is under their purview--I attended and took a few notes.

The presentation at the breakfast was largely (though not exactly) the preliminary budget presentation the School Committee heard from Deputy Superintendent Brian Allen in February after the release of the Governor's budget; my highlights of that are here. You may remember that the upshot of that is: 

If you're at all looking at headlines across the state, you will have caught that the picture has only gotten more grave since then (there are so many articles I could link to there that I don't know where to start). As shared at the breakfast by Mr. Allen, last week MASC/MASS/MTA/AFT-MA sent a joint letter of advocacy on inflation to the state legislature. 

The second February Worcester School Committee

 Yes, it's taking me about a week to get to these. It's budget season...
Hey, do note that due to this being a Leap Year and February having five Thursdays, there is NOT a Worcester School Committee meeting Thursday; you can have this week off. There is, however, a Teaching, Learning, and Student Success meeting on Monday at 5 pm.

The February 15th agenda can be found here; the video is here.

If you're interested in the Worcester Public Schools budget and facilities

 Do note that there is a meeting of Finance, Operations, and Governance tomorrow at 5:45 pm, which is taking up the second quarter budget report and the quarterly facilities report. 

Unfortunately, those are still being done via "view only" Google Drive links, rather than posted as part of the agenda. 

I won't comment, but I will offer that the second quarter is really when the district gets a clear picture of how the budget is rolling out; it also can offer some insight into the following year. 

And of course, the facilities report has photos! 

The first Worcester School Committee meeting of the new term

The Worcester School Committee had their first business meeting of the new term (and new makeup) on January 18.
While I noted the change in the budget bottom line settled at the meeting (also noted by the T&G), it seems clear that this Committee where keeping the record straight is going to be necessary, and, while I do want to recommend you take a look at Bill Shaner's piece on last week, I think keeping track of what's going on will be helpful (and the tracking was kinda shaky in this meeting, to be honest, with roll calls consistently out of order and reported incorrectly more than once).
As always, I'm not going to pretend here to be anything other than what and who I am, writing as a citizen of the city, so you can read with that in mind. The commentary is largely in italics. 

A quick note on Worcester Public Schools FY24

 While I plan to write up what did (and didn't) happen at the Worcester School Committee meeting on Thursday (very interesting meeting!), I did want to quickly note that the T&G caught the news of the night, which was setting a new bottom line in the FY24 (current year) budget. While the backup memo is posted here, the School Committee agendas now have backups that go to Google Drive files that don't allow download or copying, so I've screenshotted and posted the full memo here. 

I hope the Committee changes that; it makes it feel as if access is deliberately being limited. As they aren't being posted as PDFs, it also means one cannot mark and link to particular pages. 

There's really two pieces of news here within this memo:

The first, coming with the final vote on the FY24 (which, remember, started in July), is that, as was noted at the first quarter report in the fall, the charter reimbursement for the Worcester Public Schools is not fully funded: it's $688,455 short. That amount was cut from the paraprofessional account--an account, as was also noted in the first quarter, with vacancies--and the new bottom line for FY24 set that much less. It's that $688,455 less from the $1.2M that was already moved out of the account in the first quarter report.

The new bottom line of the budget is $461,862,571 in the general fund.

And kudos, incidentally, to Member Sue Mailman, who, in her new capacity as MASC Division IX chair (as of January), noted that this was an issue for state level advocacy, and made a motion that passed 8-1, Biancheria in opposition, to raise at the state level, including with the state delegation. One of the pieces of the Student Opportunity Act is that charter reimbursement is to be fully funded now. Worcester's, at least, was not. That's wrong, and we should be clamoring about that to say the least. It's a core piece of the School Committee's fiduciary and advocacy responsibility to see that our reimbursements are fully funded. 

The second piece of news is the school piece of a City Council item from December 5; tucked in among the finance items the night of the tax classification hearing was this memo (that link goes to the Council version) that creates, with an initial investment of $1M, of a school capital maintenance fund.
As Mr. Allen outlines in his accompanying memo to the Worcester School Committee: 

It is, of course, a longstanding need, but it has gone unrecognized til now, as the schools' capital funding has been level funding. It is the prioritization of school facilities under Dr. Monárrez and the collaboration with City Manager Batista which means we've finally moved beyond people talking about it, to something being done about it. 

A hopeful beginning to the FY25 process in Worcester. 

Full WPS memo:

The midyear budget cuts are bad, but the news on FY25 is worse

 Well, there's a happy headline, huh?

It was the mid fiscal year 2024 budget cuts that got the headlines earlier this week, as Governor Healey, using authority granted her under MGL Ch. 29, sec. 9C (thus "9C cuts") cut $375 million from the current state budget. While those cuts must come from the executive branch, and so couldn't hit local aid including chapter 70 aid, grant programs in education did get cut, including extended learning time, dual enrollment, school-to-career connecting activities, student wellness school support, and advanced placement math and science programs. Additionally, the allocations for both the 21st century education trust fund and the STEM Pipeline were cut. The Governor's office framed these cuts as either bringing the accounts either to what is projected to be needed or to that already awarded.

The Governor's office also rolled back the projected bottom line of this year by a billion dollars.

What you may have missed in that news what the consensus revenue figure for FY25 that was released at the same time. That figure is what the executive and legislative branches (both House and Senate) have agreed will be the bottom line for the coming fiscal year budget.

For FY25, that is $40.202 billion. That's $208 million LESS than was passed last year for the fiscal year we're in now. It will be more than what this year's budget is projected to be now that they've rolled back the bottom line, but it's crucial to understand: it will be LESS than what we used for this year during budget deliberations.

They've also agreed on $1.3 billion in surtax revenue; that's the Fair Share money. This year, it was $1 billion dollars, so this is $300 million more. As the Senate then released on Thursday that they're looking to put $170 million into community college, that's more than half spent. 

Buckle up. This isn't going to be a good budget year. 

Yikes! State revenue still down from projections

Hey, I don't want to unduly alarm you all, but state revenues are still down. 

A primer to the 2024-25 Worcester School Committee

 as requested

As I regain today what Justice Louis Brandeis referred to "the most important office,"¹ I offer here in that capacity² a primer to the 2024-25 Worcester School Committee. 

This does not pretend to be exhaustive, but to, as the title notes, present some foundational elements on which to build.

FOR THE ELEVENTH CONSECUTIVE YEAR

 Worcester Public Schools earns the Meritorious Budget Award!

ELEVEN TIMES IN A ROW!

Congratulations to Brian Allen, Sara Consalvo, Mohammed Siddiqui, Ivanna Then, Nancy Blomstrom, Akshay Guru Rajkumar, Liam Young, Stephanie Carrasco, Kate Ota, and Emma Kearney (that's the budget office). 

As I have said many times: it is a great pleasure to get to work with such a well-prepared document, and none of us in Worcester should ever take that for granted. 

FY25 Joint Consensus Revenue Hearing

 hearing will be going up here (updating as we go here!) 

As reporter Katie Lannan notes:

✨three fiscal years at once✨ https://t.co/TYO13qYM98

— Katie Lannan (@katielannan) December 4, 2023

Senate Ways and Means Chair Senator Rodrigues notes that the Senate is in session, subject to the call of the chair and "I need to put fiscal year '23 to bed before I start talking about FY25"

Things the Worcester School Committee did in November

I'm not including this below but I am not going to miss a chance
to once again brag about the fact that both Mr. Hennessey and Mr. Allen
got national awards because of our fabulous transportation department.
Photo by Dan O'Brien from our November 2 meeting

Before we move into December, in which you'll see some important things being voted complete--strategic plan! rules!--I did want to highlight a few things that the Worcester School Committee did during November that will matter:

I regret to inform you that we are going to need to talk about FY25

 And we're off! 

The Swifty Swine Racing Pigs from the Eastern States Exposition (photo mine)

While I usually consider the "official" start of the next fiscal year discussion to be the Consensus Revenue Hearing (this year scheduled for December 4 at 1 pm; mark your calendar!) when the Joint Committees on Ways and Means together with the Secretary of Administration and Finance from the Governor's Cabinet hold a hearing to discuss how much money the state will have next year, I'm going to kick off the blogging  on this a little early this year, because, all, we need to have a discussion about what we know so far. 

Note, incidentally--check where you are!--that this is offered not in my professional capacity at all.

MSBA Board for October: big news!

as reported on the MASC page

The Mass School Building Authority met this morning, and made some significant changes to the programs they oversee, funded by the Fair Share amendment and changes made in the FY24 budget.

The first set of changes was to the cost funding limit per square foot that the MSBA will cover in a core project. Going forward, the Board voted to raise this amount from $393 per square foot to $550 per square foot. Additionally, going forward, the Board voted to include up to $55 per square foot for sitework. Overall, then, starting with the projects moved into Project Scope and Funding today, the total construction cost funding limit will be $605 per square foot.  

Additionally, the Board approved adjustments to the total facilities grant available for projects approved prior to October 1, 2022, moving to $393 per square foot and $39 per square foot for sitework; this includes 30 projects. For projects approved after October 1, 2022 and before October 1, 2023, an increase to $516 per square foot and $52 per square foot in site work was approved; this includes nine projects. 

Finally, the Board approved plans for an accelerated repair program, with applications opening in January 2024. This program will run biannually, with $150M allocated each year. It will be open only to window and roof projects; roof projects will include a study of feasibility of roof repair in the requirements. The MSBA will seek a contractor to study funding heat pumps moving forward, as the program will no longer include boilers. The MSBA will also be reviewing accessibility requirements and eligibility determinations for expanded  HVAC items. 

The above was made possible by action within the FY24 state budget, including an the increase to the annual MSBA cap, the removal of the accelerated repair program from the cap, a $100M supplemental grant, and the increase to the allowable rate of growth. 

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Inquiring minds want to know: What does this mean for Worcester? Excellent question!

First, let's note that EVERY aspect of this is related to work that the Worcester School Committee specifically asked for: back in January, we had three asks for the budget:

1. That the cap on the MSBA be lifted. It was in the state FY24 budget, and that allowed for much of the above.
2. That the accelerated repair program be restored. Via Senator Michael Moore's budget amendment (filed SPECIFICALLY because we asked), accelerated repair was placed outside the MSBA cap, and thus restored.
3. That the inflationary increases due to the pandemic of the current building projects be state covered (at least partly). Of the FY24 budget Fair Share allocation, $100M is for these inflationary increases. 

So GO WORCESTER!

What will it do for us?

• On inflation: the Doherty building project experienced $24M in inflationary costs. The city will need to submit documentation, so we don't know yet how much it will be, but at least some of that cost is now going to be covered.
  Maybe this means we get the solar panels back?
  
  
• On accelerated repair: remember the budget always has a facilities plan, and that includes projected accelerated repair submissions: 
  
  
  
  

  This will need to be tweaked, of course, now that the MSBA is no longer taking boilers, but yes, we have a plan ready to go.
  
  
• On upcoming projects: it makes a Burncoat project a lot more do-able if we have this increased square foot rate. 
  

Good news across the board! If you worked for any of the above, YOU DID THIS! 

September Board of Ed: FY24 update

 Bell on the FY24 budget

third year of Student Opportunity Act implementation
weighted to districts with greater need
increase in minimum aid to $60 per students; costs about $16M to the Commonwealth
"basically halfway through the investment called for in the Student Opportunity Act"
commitment to support districts with extraordinary special education costs (circuit breaker): to about $500M
impacts of increased tuition rates through special education private schools
$5M to $20M for assistance for the current year (as circuit breaker is a reimbursement), plus $75M sent by Governor to Legislature in supplemental
increase in almost $10M in rural aid
transportation reimbursement accounts funded at highest levels:
regional and non-resident students funded at high levels
homeless transportation significant strains as it relates to families needing services; working with administration to identify what those additional costs will be
remains to be seen what those homeless transportation costs will be
universal free school meals started last year through supplemental budget; effectively state's wraparound payment (additional to USDA) "we think that's a good thing"
a lot of new things happening in the budget, too
continued investment in other programs, mostly through grantmaking
assist schools with green schools; "not an activity we're familiar with"
digging in in consultation with the MSBA; new initiative we'll be working on

ESSER: closing in at end of spending authorization for ESSER II
85% of funds claimed (about $115M not claimed) in ESSER II; "certainly doesn't mean it won't be claimed"
"late liquidation" process on a project basis; obligation has to occur, but 18 month reconciliation side
ESSER III (good through end of next September): 55% claim rate (roughly $1.1B still available)
actively engaged with school districts that still mathematically still have a lot of funding unclaimed on the spreadsheets
roughly $1B is out to be claimed