What did you propose at last night's Worcester School Committee meeting?

 As we opened budget deliberations last night, I shared the following with my colleagues on the Committee: 

June 3, 2021

FY22 WPS budget transfers and additions of Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief funds

Finance and Operations meets Monday

It's the first quarter report! and more!
The agenda is here.

The first item on the agenda is the report closing FY19. First, note that on a $345M general fund budget, the district was left with a balance of $2312 at the year's close (that goes back to the city). That's a margin that is, well, stunning. Districts that are much much smaller don't manage their projections and budget lines that tightly.
The second thing of note (to me, anyway) is that over the course of the year, over $4M was transfered from salary lines to non-salary lines, with $1.6M going to Misc Educational OM, which I don't understand...as of May, $370K had been transfered into that line, so what happened since?

The second item is a response to the request for a walking path from St. Paul Street to Flagg Street School; the report notes that a pathway of 300 feet would cost between $25,000 to $30,000; there is a layout as the second page.
There is no report, because one was not requested, on if this is the greatest facility need of this level of cost, if there are other schools that likewise might need such access, and if this is the most equitable way of spending such funds.

The first quarter report of this fiscal year is on this agenda: the year thus far by cost center is here; the report with narrative is here. As always, I'd urge you to read it, but a few notes:

• part of the FY20 budget increase via the Senate was an increase in instructional assistants, focusing on kindergarten. That line is running higher that budgeted...and I don't understand why from this description, to be honest. Ah, okay: if you read to the end of the report, this gets picked back up: Title I came in $158K lower than was budgeted, so instructional assistants are being shifted off of Title I to the general fund. 
• facilities ordinary maintenance is running higher than budgeted, because contracted services are having to pick up for unfilled positions.
• personnel services is running over almost entirely due to $184K in outside contractor professional development 
• transporation over three lines is running nearly $500K, with almost half of that coming from the giveback negotiated by the superintendent and agreed to by the Committee in connection with their renewed contract with Durham. Some of the other lines are likewise Durham-related, though they are WPS spending: the overtime "to address vacant positions" is, I'd venture, at least in part due to the times WPS is having to pick up Durham routes when Durham doesn't have drivers. The district in total has added four routes--two WPS, two Durham, despite the issues there--and that's the increase in the salary line.
• I keep saying this: 

  Also, there’s a prior year payment on here for over $10K and it’s November and I keep wondering if anyone is going to bring these things up...

  — Tracy O'Connell Novick (@TracyNovick) November 7, 2019

  ...and it appears that part of the reason for the workers' comp line is that 10 of THOSE are for the prior fiscal year; what the heck is going on??
  
• the salary line funding is all vacancies: maybe we should be asking why all of these positions are not managing to be filled?

The recommendation is to add five adjustment counselors--three in elementary, two in high school--and a guidance counselor to managing the early college programs (is this the greatest need on the guidance end??) and half a million dollars in literacy materials "and related professional development."

There's also a report on how the grants came back (some lower, some higher) and what might be shifted there. And the proportionate share requirement--funding special education services at private schools--is included in the description. 

Finally, there is  a 73 page report on environmental management. That sounds like a lot (it is!), but it's also actually readable:

An EMS requires an organization to “Say what you do, Do what you say, and Prove it” as a way to ensure compliance and overall improvements.

and uses parallel structure...
It reports out that environmental management has not only included specific departments, but has impacts districtwide, runnng to 600 staff having been involved. There's a focus on preventing issues, rather than fixing them after they occur. There are sections on legacy building issues (including lead in water, for those interested; I found it very reassuring, as the issues found have been dealt with and are undergoing retesting); usage (including indoor environmental quality! including:

The Facilities Department, the WPS EH&S Consultant, the WPS Nursing Department and the Worcester Department of Housing have worked together with a city-wide initiative, the Prevention Wellness Trust Fund (one of nine projects funded by DPH to reduce chronic disease, including pediatric asthma) to pilot EPA’s Tools for Schools program. It included classroom IEQ training and “walk-through” assessments. The goal of this component of this project was to identify conditions that could cause or trigger asthma.

and toxic use reduction...and apparently we need a boiler somewhere?...working on Breakfast in the Classroom, types of waste disposal); a department by department review, with an interesting note coming from the art department:

The Art Department identified heavy reliance on donations that were not all certified for use in schools

(another reason to fund the budget!), the end of the use of bleach by custodial staff, and a new term to use something in cleaning WPS buses:

Protexus Electrostatic Sprayer! (There are YouTube Videos!)
I feel as though someone should mention in here somewhere that this is, of course, just the WPS run buses, not Durham buses.
There are sections on preparing for emergency managment..
There are also some impressive references to operating protocols and training.
If this is of interest, I'd recommend it! 

My plan is to be there for this, but I do have a meeting later that night, so I don't know that I'll make it all. 

Worcester FY20: building by building staffing changes

In the back of the Worcester Public Schools' budget book is a building-by-building budget, beginning on page 283. If you have children in the schools, you may want to take a look at your children's school budget. Do remember that, particularly in elementary schools, staffing can change over the summer, depending on enrollment; most elementary changes are due to enrollment changes yearly in any case. There is a formula citywide for how schools are staffed which begins on page 400.

Post-blog of the Worcester Public Schools FY20 budget hearing

I only caught the very end of last Tuesday's Worcester Public Schools FY20 budget hearing (I keep haunting this page in hopes the presentation will be posted), so I thought I'd take one of my train commutes to watch the video of the hearing and take some notes. Sharing below for what it's worth...

Mr. Allen: WPS budget will come out on May 10, as is past practice will be from House Ways and Means budget; though Senate budget will come out May 8, WPS budget will not be updated again until after the final state budget is agreed upon (in June? we hope?).
"it's been about fifteen years of kind of budget cutting in each of these hearings...first year since then that we've had modest growth in our revenue..."
"had really some robust conversations about the needs of the school district...truly hearing what the needs are of the school district are out in the schools"
House Ways and Means "aligns closely to Governor's"
increase "will not match all of the needs out there"

Themes of FY20: modest inflation growth (3.75%); overall enrollment growth; initial foundation budget formula proposals (in Governor and House)

foundation budget going up $21.7M:

• $18.1M in Ch.70 (a 7.2% increase)  
• $3.6M in local city required contribution (3.8% increase)

Change from FY19:

• inflation at 3.75%= $13.2M 
• enrollment change (overall 189) = $1M
• econ disadv (310) = $1.2M
• totalling a base foundation change of $15.5M "would be going up...anyways"
• new funding from FBRC changes = $6.1M

HWM budget uses Governor's goal rates but phasing in over a quicker period of time but end result would be the same

"it appears the House budget, anyway, is adopting the Governor's goal rates and just adopting quicker"

Biggest change between House and Governor for Worcester is adding back in English learner students (the Governor's budget had a lower count due to students who had higher English achievement not being counted as EL) 

HWM does not provide high needs increment and does not propose early college line

Change for Worcester between Governor's budget and HWM is $852,306; increase is essentially all English learner funding amount (due to change in count)

take out charter and choice of $1.8M (in $21.7M) plus loss of $300,000 of impact aid from Hurricane Maria

thus change over FY19 for Worcester Public Schools is $19.6M (5.8% increase)

level service cost increase:

• employee salaries $5.5M
• employee benefits $3.3M
• transportation increase of $0.9M
• tuition assessment $0.6M
• all other accounts $0.7M
• ...for a total of $11M

And the budget increase is $19.6M (better when it works that way than the reverse!);$8.6M available for new spending

HOWEVER: $21.6M in new spending requests from principals and programs:

• 42 secondary teachers; "primarily content area teachers, reducing/eliminating studies" ($5.6M)
• 30 ESL teachers ($2.6M)
• 23 special ed teachers ($2M)
• 19 elementary teachers "for class size purposes" ($1.9M)
• 21 student support positions "school adjustment counselors, wraparound coordinators..." ($1.8M)
• 38 special ed IAs ($1.5M)
• 11 guidance counselors ($1M)
• 9 assistant principals ($0.9M)
• 8 preK enrichment ($0.7M)
• additional Chromebooks; going 2-1 in K-2; 1-1 in 7-12 ($0.7M)
• 9 school nurse/clinical care ($0.6M)
• instrutional supplies and PD ($0.6M)
• "student information system" with an online grading access for parents and students" ($0.5M)
• 12 ESL tutors ($0.3M)
• 10 literacy tutors ($0.2M)
• 34 school and district support positions ($2.7M)

"as we mentioned we have $8.6M in new spending...not every one of these will be funded in the FY20 budget"

"hopefully the Senate version will be higher than the Governor and House version"

Worcester Public Schools budget released on May 10; hearings on June 6 and 20

(This time for sure) The Worcester School Committee meets Thursday WITH BROCKTON

I don't usually have musical accompanyment for these, but with the City of Champions coming, I can't miss the chance to add this: 



The report of the superintendent is "A Tale of Two Cities" (and we'll leave you to draw your own conclusions about revolution. BYO knitting. "It is a far, far better thing I do..."), which, as I understand it, are Brockton and Worcester in this telling. There is only one recognition Thursday (and a single item in executive session), so the report should start before 7:30. Come see the latest in Foundation Budget Review Commission analysis!

There are a number of recognitions and a few appointments.

There is a request for a prior fiscal year payment of (yikes!) $8,212.50.
There is a request for reception of a donation of $100 from Fidelity Charitable Gift4Giving Program

Mr. Monfredo offers a reminder of the annual City that Reads book drive, a request that the district create a community service program of snow shoveling, and a suggestion that students do math over the summer.

Mr. O'Connell offers a request that Worcester send a delegation to the July statewide Civics Education Institute, a request over multiple items that the district consider blizzard bags or the like (aka, some other way to make up snow days other than adding days), a request for an update on federal grants (in a paragraph), a request that the district submit a grant application for a grant from the Education Innovation and Research Program as well as one for STOP School Violence Act.

Miss Biancheria offers a request for a "a report on the cohort, conducted by the Worcester Public Schools"...which I have no idea what that means. 

Mr. Comparetto requests an addition to school adjustment counselors, the course of study for ELL students, and a report on community organization partnerships.
Administration asks that the dates for summer camp at South High be changed.
Administration also asks that the mission and focus statement of South High be changed (for which the only backup is the new statements and what appears to be a pie chart with no information explaining who is responding, let alone anything about where the mission or focus statement came from or why it is being changed).

There is also an executive session at 6 pm on negotiations with administrative secretaries.

Not-at-all liveblog: WPS budget before Council

Taken from my longhand notes, thus quite possibly less detail than usual; the Finance and Operations subcommittee (that's Foley, Ramirez, and me) joined Superintendent Boone and Mr. Allen at the table for questions this year

Where are we at with FY16?

as requested
We had our first update on FY16 from Mr. Allen at the March 5 meeting, but I haven't gotten back to do a summary. There's now an FY16 folder on the WPS website, so know that all of these presentations and eventually the full budget will appear there.

You'll remember that our foundation budget is based on how much it--at minimum--costs to educate the population of students we serve. So when you hear that the WPS foundation budget is going up, it's important to know why:

• our total enrollment has (as of our October 1 count) increased 497 students, to a total enrollment of 25,191
• Our English Language Learner population has increased by 834 students over last year.
• Our low income student population has increased over by 697 students over last year 

That, along with an inflation rate of 1.5%, is why our foundation budget has gone up. The student population we serve has not only increased overall; it has increased in need. That will mean an increase in costs.

The projected general fund WPS foundation budget for FY16 is $317,796,009; that's a $13M increase over last year.

While the inflation rate for the state is 1.5% for FY16, there is no area of our budget that, at a level service level, is going up by only 1.5%. Projected increases:

• salary and step increases 3.3%
• health insurance 7.5%
• out-of-district special education tuition 10.3%
• transportation 6%
• retirement 4.6%
• utilities 5%

This, incidentally, is what we mean when we say that the inflation rate of the foundation budget are unrealistic: it does not reflect actual cost increases.

Were we to do just exactly the same things we're doing this year--same number of teachers, services, and so forth--we'd, with some cuts in federal grants, be looking at about a $2M shortfall this year.

However, remember above: we aren't serving the same number of kids, nor are we serving kids with the same needs. If you flip through Mr. Allen's presentation, you'll see the numbers, but the short version is that you can't have the same number of teachers with 500 more kids and expect reasonable class sizes and good course distribution, to say nothing of the ELL teachers we need.

Adding those needs together, and adding other things that our kids need--hello, adjustment counselors!--plus the level service increase is a total spending increase of $30M.

Short commentary from me here: and that's only doing things like adding ONE librarian for Elm Park. That's still not restoring librarians, increasing the student supply budget (surely I'm not the only one buying copier paper?), increasing the facilities maintenance budget for 50 buildings, or trying to backfill the grants that were cut under the midyear budget cuts. We're still at "what do we HAVE to do" not "what would we LIKE to do for our kids." /end rant

So if you take the total funding needs of $30M and you subtract the net revenue increase of $11M, you get a net shortfall of $19M.

The usual March cavats apply here: this does not mean $19M in cuts (as the above includes the increased needs); we will need to move money. We don't know what the state legislature will do. We haven't yet heard about federal grants. We also don't know that the city will only fund the schools at minimum.

However: recall, also that the Worcester Public Schools remain, for FY15, $3M under net school spending by the city. Unless the city keeps pace with transportation increases in their funding, that could jump to $4M next year.
Note as well that the city is seeing a jump in local aid as well, to the extent that the Mayor and Councilor Bergman are requesting a police and fire class next year (see item 11A).

This would be a good year to see an item that requested that the City Manager build full school funding into the FY16 budget.

Note that CPPAC meets at 7 on Wednesday at Chandler Magnet for a budget presentation.