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.

Budgets: Beyond Spreadsheets and Powerpoints (MASBO)

DESE is coming up with post-assessment guidelines for PDPs for SBOs: being piloted today, so there is a quiz on the back of the evaluation
And yes, this one is WPS's own Brian Allen

to use as a policy document, to use for information within your community, for transparency
ASBO's Meritorious Budget award process to consider within the budget document, even if not to do in full
the presentation is using Poll Everywhere for those in the presentation
how important is a transparent budget to you?

when people review your budget, how clear is it to them?
is the budget solely a district administration tool (for superintendent, finance, but that's it)? Is it only for school committee (if you've been on for some time)? is it something that those who follow town finances (FinCom, selectboard) can follow? is it something that your parent groups can understand? or is it something that anybody new to your community can understand?
as it happens the group is divided pretty equally in thirds from extremes

transparency "is in the eyes of the beholder" with town administrators saying that they don't need all that information

Your budget is a policy statement
"it's the school committee's most important policy statement that they approve every year"
it's an accountability tool: public can hold school committee accountable for, school committee superintendent, superintendent administration
evidenced-based decision making tool: shows that "decisions based on some level of logic and equity"
record of the past: "all the decisions that have been made in the years before us" "capturing the history of your district"
builds confidence in resource allocation within the district and within the community
reductions of future actions, financial planning
signal of district preferences and priorities: "there's no money left: well, it went somewhere!"
provide solid answer to public questions about spending
shows authentic leadership: "[some] don't want to share the full information...that's the power of having the budget information" "I challenge that; being transparent is being a true leader for your community"
decentralizes budget authority: greater information shared by all
"There is strength in numbers...I have found it to be actually valuable to have your parents know your numbers...they can walk the walk, they can talk the talk."

how is your budget linked to your school improvement plan?
how can you do an improvement plan unless you identify the resources that you're going to use?

those who write the budget are "largely number crunchers"
but many who use the budget are not
people who like to see things visually, some like to see lines of numbers reconciling, some want to see words
so: use charts and graphs
use narrative
"numbers without narrative is just modeling and narrative without numbers is story telling"
"budget numbers are bound together by a coherent narrative....and I missed the rest of this part...will update if I can get it...

use infographics: SHOW IT
suggestion from group: use a dollar bill

The below swiped from WPS's FY17 budget book:

a bit of disbelief from the group on seeing WPS's 416 page FY17 budget...

ASBO Meritorious Budget award requirements that could be used: 

Executive Summary: a couple of pages that anyone can read

Divisional Organization Charts

Goals and Objectives: how resources will be aligned with goals district is attempting to achieve

Fiscal Policies: school committee approved policies

Budget calendar: so everyone knows what happens when

All funds budget: every dollar should be approved by school committee, all dollars included

What has changed from previous year and what are the key drivers

Budget trends and forecasts: three years actual, current, projected, and three additional projected years 

Enrollment trends and forecasts: (three years prior, actual, three years projected)

Student demographics: some history, current 

Tax rate and impact on community: impact on collection within municipality 

Explanation of changes that are in the budget

Capital budget spending

Debt obligation and fund balances (and show it!) 

Personnel: five year history and up to the current level

Staffing allocation: how are decisions about placement of staff made?

Student performance data (though what is included can be chosen)

Glossary of terms: "that we all know, that your superintendents know...but that the general public may not know"

Spreadsheets and Powerpoints are important but they shouldn't be all that's included
including this information also can be included as part of the evaluation of the SBO (and would, it is argued, be part of qualifying for exemplary status)

Speaking of the foundation budget

This is the chart you need to see how the foundation budget is underfunded:

You can click to make this bigger. From last night's budget presentation.

So what does this mean?

The foundation budget is based on budget categories: it says that to educate each given student, it costs X in each of the above categories.
What the chart above shows is the comparison between what the foundation budget for FY16 looks like by what the foundation budget would say we're spending, and what we actually need to spend.

Because the bottom two categories are so large, and because Worcester is funded just below the minimum foundation amount, money must be pulled out of the other categories to fund those two. 

It gives a much more realistic view of where the money comes from and goes than many other sound bites you may hear.

There are a number of horrifying percentages up there--maintenance at 63%?--but the real nadir of this is instructional materials and technology at 28.2% of foundation.

And yes, parents: that's why you're sending in reams of paper!

2% of what?

with apologies to my regular readers for a bit of a re-run...

So I see that Worcester Magazine has recognized that the Worcester School Committee settled a contract with most of our unionized and non-represented employees earlier this school year. In most cases, these contracts include a 2% (or a 1% then 1% split over the course of the year) cost of living increase for this year.
And now we may have layoffs and budget cuts. How could this have happened?
I feel as though I say this ad nauseaum, but the Worcester School Committee (and, indeed, the Worcester Public Schools administration) does not control the revenue that comes into the district. We are at the mercy, and the decisions, of those in Boston, in Malden, in Washington, and in City Hall.

Our budget is projected based on the best information we have, and the increases in our budget are predicated almost entirely on two things:

• the inflation rate
• school enrollment

You'll note that we don't control either of those things, either.

However, the inflation rate is something that we have some records on. Here's what the state-issued inflation factor has looked like for the past several years:

With the very marked exception of FY11--which is when the federal government, recognizing the economic downturn, kicked in ARRA funds--we've been pretty steadily around 2%. In fact, the average of the above is 2.7%. Based on that alone, a 2% raise is entirely a reasonable proposition.

The second factor that influences our revenue stream is how many kids we have (and what needs those kids have). Here's our enrollment, both known and projected: 

Those projected figures are from NESCEC (enrollment figures are what they do) and MSBA (who of course are building buildings based on their numbers). No slouches on numbers, in other words. 

Yet, rather than the 25,022 or 25,032 that were projected as our population for October 1 of this year, we instead have an enrollment of 24,777. That's a LOT of kids that we were expecting that we don't have!

And that changes our foundation budget accordingly.

Now, I don't expect that everyone is going to know this. This was, however, part of our budget presentation back in February, so this isn't "news" in terms of the budget gap and the possible impact it has on programs. We already knew this, and we've known it for months.

I can't help but notice that this is coming up just as the pressure is on for the city to fulfill their fiscal responsibilities and fund education appropriately. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, by any means, but rather than having a real conversation about what we should be doing for our kids, we're going to have another round of discussion over administrative salaries--the raises of whom, I should point out, wouldn't even fund half a teaching position.

The athletic budget of the Worcester Public Schools is $444,242 for this year. That's 0.14% of our general fund budget. If there is any discussion about cutting that line item, it should make everyone extremely concerned, and not only because of the impact it will have on students.

If we are in such dire straits that we're looking at a line item that is such a tiny amount of our entire budget, then we are in dire straits indeed.

And we are.

It is high time that we recognized that and started having serious conversations about funding, rather than getting distracted by sound bites and grabber headlines. 

Superintendent's evaluation standard by standard

As I said last night, I think the indicators are what is really most indicative in this process. Thus I'm posting here--the old fashioned way, as I don't have the presentation!--the performance goals and the standards, with each indicator assessed by each committee member. 

UPDATE: the presentation is now up online here. 

You can click on each photo to make it bigger. Thanks to Mayor Petty and Dr. Friel for the charts.

Performance goals (which are jointly agreed upon by the committee and the superintendent):

And Standard by standard (standards are set by the state):

Apples to apples

When you're comparing data points, it's important to make sure the categories are actually parallel. Thus I was troubled yesterday at the forum on out-of-school suspension by a chart comparing Worcester's out-of-school suspension rate with other districts.
The Worcester Public Schools do not expel students. We haven't for years. The most harsh punishment we met out is a long term out-of-school suspension (for, say, a year or half a year) with alternative placement (meaning that the student is placed in one of the alternative programs).
Thus our out-of-school suspension rate is equivalent to expulsions PLUS out-of-school suspensions for the districts that do expel students, like Boston.
That comparison wasn't made yesterday, nor in today's headline.
______________________________________
None of which is to say, incidentally, that we don't have problem. The percentage of students that are out-of-school suspended is skewed off from the makeup of the student body; Latino boys are most often suspended, entirely out of proportion to their percentage of the student body. The number of students in the younger grades--that we even have students being suspended in the younger grades!--is definitely a problem.
There have been conversations in the past about this. They haven't gone anywhere. You'll be hearing more.

The chart that says it all: Worcester capital budget

Given a $36.6 million capital budget, here is how the City Manager is recommending allocation:

...and I thought I was exaggerating when I commented on how much we spend on asphalt.

Where do the additional Senate Ways and Means funds go?

Here's your chart: That's, left to right, lowest to highest quintile of wealth.

Where does Worcester fall in funding education?

These is a repost of charts that I had up in March. Given the current conversation (and the growing outcry) around the city's funding of the Worcester Public Schools, I thought it would be useful. Click to make them bigger.
This first one compares how much Worcester funds over the minimum for public education compared to other Gateway cities. Worcester is in red. The state average of 15% over foundation is in yellow.

Also note that due to Worcester funding under foundation for the past two years, the chart goes down to -10.

 Because it's a bit difficult to see at the end of the first chart, here, scaled from 1.5% to -0.2, is Worcester's contribution above foundation from FY03 to FY12.

As per always, all numbers taken from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education website.

Charts and charts!

If you were watching Council tonight, you may have seen me testify in response to this item from the city administration on Worcester Public Schools funding. I've posted the charts that I put together and handed out to the Council below. (As per usual, if you click on them, they'll get bigger.)

WPS funding sources for FY12. The bulk of the funding comes from the state via Chapter 70 funds, as per the Ed Reform Act agreement that the state would pick up the bulk of school funding for urban districts. The city funds 29.4% of WPS operational funds this year.

Most of the state aid provided to the municipality for FY12.
Steady and increasing.

...due to this: increased enrollment in the Worcester Public Schools.
Not only that, but more students with ELL and special education needs, thus higher rates
 of funding needed to meet their needs.

The next two charts were from the Mass Budget and Policy Center presentation: Figure 11 and 12 here. These demonstrate the gaps in the foundation budget (that funding does not meet costs) for most accounts, and that costs of health insurance and special education have greatly exceeded the foundation budget assumptions. The second chart demonstrates how most districts have met their needs: by funding over foundation. Leading to:

...a comparison of Worcester's spending above required minimum compared to several other Gateway Cities.
You'll see that Worcester is below all, and in fact below zero for two years running.

In case you couldn't see the Worcester line clearly, a chart of Worcester's spending above required minimum.
We're at -0.1 percent for the second year in a row.

You can find these charts as PDFs here.

Wholly unuseful chart, Batman!*

You may have seen this chart on the front page of today's Telegram & Gazette, accompanying an article on education funding.
Wow. I'm not clear on what some of those columns even mean.
The first column seems to be some sort of per-pupil required average minimum, something which would vary widely by population, as it costs more to fund the education of children who have special education, English language, or other needs, and the state acknowledges this in their requirements. Worcester thus would have a higher number in this column than Weston, having, as we do, significantly higher numbers of higher need pupils. It's thus a fairly meaningless number, as all it's really telling you is that Worcester has higher numbers of more expensive educational needs, which I think we all knew.
The second number, actual average spending, takes the above not-really-relevant comparison, and compounds the error by tossing the grant funding in on top of our per pupil funding. Grant funding always sounds like lots of fun money, but public voting of grants has (I hope!) demonstrated that much of this money is extremely encumbered. We can't take Title II money and use it for elementary nurses, or Title I money and use it for science labs. Money for particular things has to go to those particular things, and grant funds are going to after school programs, teacher training, school nutrition, and instructional assistants.
This is different than municipal funds, which are not restricted. If the city decides it wants nurses in every elementary school, or languages more widely taught, it can pay for them out of municipal funds.

For the point of this article--is the city doing enough when it comes to education funding, in the opinion of those running for School Committee?--a chart making the comparison of this graph would be useful, one which shows how much the actual municipality is doing when it comes to education funding. This would include, certainly, what the state requires; it would also include what the municipality does VOLUNTARILY.

How much does Worcester spend over foundation? For FY11, 0.1%.

The chart you need to make this comparison is here. (If you can't get the dropout menu to work, Worcester is LEA number 348.) The column all the way to the right, "Percent Over/Under" is the one to read down. You'll see that Worcester has only broken 1% over foundation once in the past nine years (and plenty of us have clear memories of the work we did to get the city contribution up to that 1.5%, too).

To make the comparisons the T&G did:
Weston (LEA # 330) was at 80% over foundation last year.
Cambridge (LEA # 49) chose to spend 86.2% over foundation.
Boston (LEA # 35) was at 9.9% over.
Springfield (LEA # 281) was under last year, by 2%.
Fitchburg (LEA # 97) was at 1.9% over last year.

A few more of possible interest:
Framingham (LEA # 100) 41.8%
Pittsfield (LEA # 236) 12.7%
Fall River (LEA # 95) 3.2%
Lowell (LEA # 160) 1.7%
Holyoke (LEA # 137) 2%
Southbridge (LEA # 277) 9.7%
Chicopee (LEA # 61) 1.9%

My point with this last list is this: you don't even need to go after the high numbers in the wealthy suburban districts. Compare us with other urban areas, who face the identical fiscal challenges, state budget cuts, and balancing acts on taxation.
We don't come close to measuring up on what we do for our kids in Worcester.


*the pun is not as painful as the chart. Honest.

How to lie with statistics

...though more accurately, this is more like "how to completely mislead your audience with something that resembles statistics." For the data geeks.

It has been awhile since I sent you over to the excellent Bruce Baker's blog. This blog entry, on the latest "ed reform" graphs, is a classic of explication of how throwing some numbers on a chart makes people believe whatever it is you're saying.