point five, Worcester

 When I posted about the Worcester School Committee taking up the FY27 budget projections for the first time, we didn't yet have the FY25 net school spending compliance report. The summary file of that is now available, and now we can see what impact the $3.8M the City Council transferred from free cash, as highlighted in yellow in Ms. Consalvo's presentation here: 

Note that part of the reason that the city had as much ground to make up as it did is that in FY25, the city underfunded the schools by $1.9M (99.6% of required). That gets carried over into the next year.

That puts Worcester at a projected point five percent over required net school spending for the current fiscal year (FY26). 

Statewide average (projected) for FY26 is 26.3% over required

Worcester School Committee starts talking about FY27

I'm not able to attend this evening--training another committee!--but I did want to note that the Worcester School Committee is receiving their first look at FY27 (next school year's budget) at tonight's meeting. You can find the presentation here. 

This has now become when we also get the first look at the cover art of the budget book, which I always appreciate: 

enjoying the spooky overtones here; are we foreshadowing FY28?

Now there's a headline you won't see most places

 I had to darkly laugh when I saw this headline in the T&G last week:

headline reads
"City Council passes 90-day parking ban near Worcester elementary school"

...I mean, do you like being an elected official?

and it isn't even 'everybody wants to be a school committee member' season

 Some of us have often referred to Worcester's election year as "everybody wants to be a school committee member" season, as very frequently in past years, city councilors show a sudden interest in creating policy1 for the Worcester Public Schools in a fashion that is WAY out of their purview.

They seem to have been late with their rounds this year, as observed by Mike Benedetti in his write up of tonight's City Council meeting:

Schools: There are a few items, both from the Public Works Committee and Councilor Ojeda, having to do with school cafeterias, food waste, and students providing meals to poll workers, possibly all of which are outside the purview of the City Council. I note these here because a few years back the Council frequently had items on the agenda that only the School Committee had authority over, but it’s been awhile since that’s happened.

If you check the agenda², these items include: 

FROM THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC WORKS - Request

City Manager request Chief Sustainability Officer work with

the School Department to facilitate a food waste study in the

schools cafeterias. Said study should quantify the

percentage of food waste created compared to the amount

of food distributed from the cafeterias.

14b. Request City Manager provide City Council with an outline

of a two (2) year plan to appropriate funding to work with

the Worcester Public Schools (WPS), supermarkets, and

local organizations to utilize food waste to help combat food

insecurity. (Ojeda)

14c. Request City Clerk work with the Superintendent of Public

Schools to determine the feasibility of Worcester Public

Schools students providing poll workers with meals during

each Election Day. (Ojeda)

While the inquiry--and let's be clear that it is no more than that--of the last item is under Council purview, as elections are (to a certain extent), now that the schools are closed for students on election days in Worcester, this seems a rather expensive (to put it mildly) undertaking. As most polling places are not in schools, I don't know why this would be the schools' problem to solve. 

But food waste studies of the Worcester Public Schools cafeterias and a two year plan on food waste in school cafeterias? Those are both totally not under the Council purview (nor on their committee on Public Works).

Further, the school nutrition program of the Worcester Public Schools is entirely funded through federal USDA funding. There isn't even any budgetary interest possible here. 

I'd suggest the City Council interest itself in things that are actually under its purview, and leave the oversight of the public schools' nutrition programs to the district. 

________________________________
¹Somehow this never seems to extend to the very much under their purview matter of funding the schools below the legal requirement. That would require their requiring something of their actual employee, the city manager, as opposed to making speeches about children on matters over which they have no control. Yet here we are.

²And cheers to whomever started posting it as a PDF that actually just OPENS on the city site, so we don't have to DOWNLOAD it to open it!

On the eve of Worcester's municipal election

On this eve of Worcester's municipal election, I offer the following thoughts, while looking back to what I wrote almost two years ago about the Worcester School Committee, though this is as much about Worcester City Council as it is about the Committee.

Please enjoy this fun "winter is coming" view
of Cannon Mountain last weekend.

when does it count as the ballpark taking money from the schools?

 

Yes, I made this myself in Canva

I had missed the initial publication of the latest coverage from Worcester Business Journal (thank goodness we have them) on Worcester's boondoggle, Polar Park. If you have been following this at all, you will not be surprised to learn that, no, it is not paying for itself: 

It isn't that Worcester doesn't have the money

 It was noted to me yesterday that one of the first thing one should do when a city says it simply can't make net school spending is look at their free cash report to the Mass Department of Revenue. As you might know, "free cash" is what is leftover for a municipality at the end of the fiscal year. While for our family budgets not spending all we have is good, free cash instead means that the community didn't budget effectively the funds it received (the city budgets allocations for what would be "savings" for a person). 

Because charts are handy, here's Worcester's for fiscal years 2018-2023 (which is as recently as DOR reports; FY24 would be last year): 

Because the Council, as I said last night, can't actually add money to the city budget unless they send the whole budget back to the City Manager (highly unlikely!), the only way that Worcester can "make up" for the not meeting required spending for schools is through moving free cash in the fall, as happened this year.

Should Worcester met required spending this current year (due to that transfer), note nonetheless: 

• a) as any district asked will tell you, a dollar in November or December isn't a dollar in July--you aren't, for example, likely going to hire a teacher in December!--and 
  
  
• b) this is just not good budgeting. The city has enough money to meet the legal obligation for schools. It just isn't doing so.

This isn’t free cash  it’s not paying your bills  

And let's note, by the way, that this isn't new, so this isn't a majority of the council question*. It just isn't brought up at all by anyone. 

_____
*Yes, this is aimed at those who might want to make it an election issue. If you've had a vote, you're on the hook.

Why do we always come here...on the FY25 WPS budget before Council

Why do we always come here

I guess we'll never know

It's like a kind of torture

To have to watch the show…
from "The Muppet Show Theme"

I had family commitments yesterday afternoon, so I was unable to make it to the Worcester City Council taking up the Worcester Public Schools' budget. Thanks to the wonder of recording, however, we can all relive it, and I think the only way I can bear this is to blog it. 

I post the above, by the way, not to call anyone a Muppet, but to note again that a) Worcester does this backwards, as school committees in Massachusetts send their requested appropriation to their appropriating authorities, and of course the Worcester School Committee hasn't yet met on the budget, b) the Worcester City Council, like any appropriating authority, has very little oversight of the Worcester Public Schools budget.
Both of that, incidentally, are per MGL Ch. 71, sec. 34:

Every city and town shall annually provide an amount of money sufficient for the support of the public schools as required by this chapter, provided however, that no city or town shall be required to provide more money for the support of the public schools than is appropriated by vote of the legislative body of the city or town. In acting on appropriations for educational costs, the city or town appropriating body shall vote on the total amount of the appropriations requested and shall not allocate appropriations among accounts or place any restriction on such appropriations. The superintendent of schools in any city or town may address the local appropriating authority prior to any action on the school budget as recommended by the school committee notwithstanding his place of residence. The city or town appropriating body may make nonbinding monetary recommendations to increase or decrease certain items allocating such appropriations.

The vote of the legislative body of a city or town shall establish the total appropriation for the support of the public schools, but may not limit the authority of the school committee to determine expenditures within the total appropriation.

And also, of course, the city charter in section 5-2 says:

 The city council may, by majority vote, make appropriations for the purposes recommended and may reduce or reject any amount recommended in the annual budget, but except on recommendation of the city manager, shall not increase any amount in or the total of the annual budget, nor add thereto any amount for a purpose not included therein, except as provided in section thirty-three of chapter forty-four of the General Laws.

There are very few questions the Council has purview to ask, and very little they can do, and that's even if they funded schools appropriately!
So when I say I don't know why we do this: I really don't know why this is what is done!
And this is not the first time I have said this.

Another reason to testify/call/email Worcester City Council this week

In addition to noting for the Council that they aren't traffic engineers and should listen to those who are on Mill Street (a bit outside the scope of this blog, so I will leave it there), you might also weigh in with the EAW President Melissa Verdier's petition to the Worcester City Council. While Council will probably have actually passed the WPS budget by the time they take public comment tomorrow at 6:30 ish, as apparently it's on their 4 pm agenda, not that those get posted, the budget isn't done until the whole budget is done.
You still could request that they not actually break the law again in how they fund schools this year.

What you can do on the Worcester Public Schools budget

By now, if you are the family of a Worcester Public Schools student or a staff member, you will have read the letter sent from Dr. Monárrez earlier this week regarding the FY25 budget and had a bit of a chance for it to sink in. If you haven't read it, I include the letter in full below at the end. 

You may also well have seen headlines from all over the state about school budgets facing real hardships this year.

Let's first note that it is not new information that the Worcester Public Schools are facing a budget gap. As noted in the links in the superintendent's letter (blogged about here), the district has noted the $22M budget gap since the release of the Governor's budget. We knew of the issue with the inflation budget as far back as the fall. 

There is a danger we run into this time of year, of the relative scope of the budget and budget issues being difficult to grasp. This isn't true exclusively of Worcester, but it is as true of Worcester as elsewhere. While, as noted, the gap is 4.4% of the WPS operating budget, that is a significant amount of money. 

This raises two related issues:

a few facts on MSBA and Burncoat Middle

I'll save how angry and concerned I am that the Worcester City Council last week put a hold their vote on Burncoat Middle's Statement of Interest for a second week running, and keep this to some statements of fact:

• Communities are allowed to submit a single core project (for a major renovation or rebuild) as their priority project to the Massachusetts School Building Authority each year. They may not "send in them all and have MSBA pick" (that's a paraphrase, to be clear).
  
  
• The MSBA has a very strong tradition of allowing districts only a SINGLE core project at a time. For a very long time, and in most communities still, if a district is still in the process of building a new building, they will not move a district forward with another core project.
  
  
• Worcester is an exception to the above statement, because we have a history of moving our core building projects forward in a systematic way, and the administration has a history of completing and paying for projects as needed. Once a new building has been close to completion, the MSBA has forwarded a second project. This is how we started South when Nelson Place was still going up and Doherty when South was still going up; it is how Burncoat High was admitted to the pipeline though Doherty is not yet done.
  
  
• They will not admit a third when we are any further along than that.
  
  
• The city doesn't have the capacity to fund two new buildings at the same time in that fashion, in any case.
  
  
• When the state organization that will be picking up more than half of the cost of a multimillion dollar project does the organizational equivalent of nudging a community in the ribs and tell the community to send in the school that is contiguous to and shares systems with a building that they have already admitted to the pipeline, they are telling you something important.
  
  
• MSBA is always watching communities with projects to see if they are committed to the projects and acting in ways that ensure that they will be completed.
  
  
  

If you are concerned about this, please share that with the Worcester City Council. 

a couple of notes on the Worcester preliminary election

 Hey, Worcester, we're having a preliminary election! You can even vote in it right now! 

First, please note that there is not a preliminary election for at-large School Committee, so while I appreciate the support, please don't think you're going in to vote for me this week or on September 5. Save that for November 7th!

There is a preliminary election in one of the new Worcester School Committee districts: District E. There are three candidates: 

• Nelly Medina
• John Patrick Reed
• Kathleen Roy
  

District E runs along much of the southern border of the city, like so:

Find that full map here. As always, you can find out what district you're in here.

You can view the one forum for this district (which Roy did not attend) here (Nicole's liveblog here); Medina and Reed were also at the Community Labor Forum earlier this month. 

Neal McNamara is posting responses to his questions; thus far he has ones from Reed and from Roy; [update] and now here's Medina.

There are also preliminary elections in City Council districts 1, 2, 4, and 5 (all but 3, in other words). 

I think it's probably good for people to know that one of the candidates in District 1 apparently doesn't support a new Burncoat High, one of the candidates in District 2 is combining the cost overrun of the ballpark with the pandemic-created (and at least partly state covered) increased cost of the new Doherty, and this whole mess is in support of one of the District 5 challengers.

Go vote! 

on tonight's Council

There's been active discussion in many places regarding many things about tonight's Council agenda. I just sent the following email: 

Good morning,

I find that there are several matters before you this evening that overlap with concerns I have as a member of the Worcester School Committee. I thus write to you in that capacity, cc'ing my own district councilor as well as the members of the Education Committee.

First, I want to applaud the city for moving forward with Complete Streets work on Mill Street. The "Speedway," as it has long been known, is a menace to pedestrians. We are, as a city, overdue for due consideration of our pedestrians, many of whom are children. As those on Education will recall, we took that matter up at our fall meeting, and I look forward to the city administration collaborating with WPS administration on making the streets of the city safer during all weather for our community on foot, on bikes, in buses of all kinds, as well as in cars. I urge you not to delay this work out of what is clearly a political display. We are all aware that campaigning during public meetings is barred.

Second, I note with interest that there are a number of items regarding lifeguards and access to water safely in the city during summer months. Would that this level of interest had resulted from the Parks committee meeting on January 9th, during which I and others  spoke during public testimony, noting the city's lack of structure, support, training, or adequate funding for lifeguards. The stabbing of a lifeguard resulted in no after action assessment by the city, and the ensuing years have only further weakened the department, as word has spread among guards that Worcester is not a safe place to work. Let me be very clear: as the mother of a former Worcester lifeguard, and as a current Committee member, I will publicly and vigorously oppose any collaboration to recruit our students as lifeguards until there is a top to bottom overhaul of the city aquatics department, including leadership, training, funding, staffing, support, and protocols and process. Until then, I will not endanger our students in this manner. 

Let me also be clear, though: We cannot, in the climate crisis we are in, stand by and not have safe access to water, either. Please make the changes necessary.

Third, the inclusion of "robot dogs" on the agenda is dismaying. We do not create a safer city for our children by adopting measures against which science fiction has been warning us for at least a century.

Finally, I have followed with interest the question regarding mock health clinics, in part because I have waited for other measures to come back from the city administration from the Education Committee without that happening. I hope the Council will take seriously the responsibility the city administration has to respond to Council items, whatever their personal opinions on the contents therein.

Thank you, as always, for your time and attention,

Tracy Novick 

The Worcester Public Schools before Council for FY24

 with a reminder of all of this

While we listen to the Fire Department, here are the images that I posted this afternoon on Instagram! 

And the presentation that the superintendent will be presenting is here. 

I'm not taking any notes on this, but here's a note you'll need:

"how can we work together as a city...to go to the state and say 'we want to find a solution that can work' and we need to do this together to find something that can work."

Colorio: asks what enrollment is
"it looks like we haven't been at 24,318 in over a decade"
argues that the numbers don't bear out an enrollment increase; which Allen notes our forecasting does
Colorio: how many new teachers? 75
How many new administrators? "the net increase is five"
Colorio: can you run down recent investments we've made in the schools in various areas?
McGourthy: don't necessarily have a comprehensive list
with that, the city carries debt; $15M capital debt service
(as a reminder, that is three cents of every dollar)
Colorio asks where the teachers are going

Russell: task hanging over the whole city's head
as well as the day to day operations, "from what I can see she's doing a great job"
"but that being said, it's not secret that I've been advocating for things for district 3 for a long time"
"I want to be perfectly clear that I'm not trying to micromanage anything" in city government 
"relaying concerns" from neighborhood
"but the question is where do we go...the question is could we doing something on a temporary basis"
"how many times do we look at a Parks Department construction...and get on a path to where we can correct these items"
going to request a detail report about traffic concerns 
has asked the principal, Mr. Allen, Mr. Hacker...for what it's going to take to rectify the traffic and parking around Roosevelt and Burncoat
Details around where the $3.5M would go
"and if that's the case, that's the case..."
"is there anything we can do on temporary basis"
asks if there is anything in the budget addressing these issues
Allen: looking at different options that wouldn't be those in the full ideal solution for the school
Russell: is there anything temporary thing, leasing spaces
Allen: can certainly look at that: believe the issue is the traffic loop and not the parking per se
Russell: elevate issues, look at options
"if we're going to put a number in multi-millions in the parking issue, it's probably not going to see the top of the pile"
Worcester East Middle School: how are we going with that?
Allen: cost of window replacement is for any window deemed to be inoperable
"where we will have funding struggles is where the project cost will trigger ADA upgrades"
Russell: how much is it?
Allen: will know when it fills that Gap
Russell: have you considered applying for a waver?
Allen: has been discussed
Russell: is the district going to spend the money on something else
Allen: the district is committed to doing the windows at Worcester East Middle
Russell: have there been specific asks?
Monárrez: have to come together and look at all of our needs
Look at enrollment changes 
"need to work closer with each other on all of the work"
"We need to have a strategy to ask our state to have other ways of funding districts as large as Worcester"
"a building will get to a point where the MSBA won't consider an accelerate repair" for a building because it is too run down 
Allen: "MSBA has told us that Worcester East Middle is a core replacement"
Monárrez: funds one core project at a time
Russell: "I agree with the superintendent, it's clearly something we need to work together on"
"what generation are we going to be talking about when we're building a new East Middle School"
and apply that to several others
Petty: seven millions sitting there...asks what one million in bonding gets us
I have no idea what he's talking about here
McGourthy: one million gets us ten million
Petty: I think working together we can get through this

Toomey: thanks superintendent
had a thought to use Stop and Shop parking lots which would mean even more students would walk across the street
safety audit: wondering when the Council will see them
Monárrez: once received, it will be shared with the School Committee, which will then make it public
"perhaps available at our July meeting or August"
Toomey: asking about fire alarm replacement and cameras (she's reading the capital budget)
Allen: those have been ongoing projects that we've been dealing with as they come up
expect these and others to be addressed in the findings
training, policies, practices, protocols
Toomey: repairs to Claremont front entrance
paving...could you let us know what that entails
Allen: Claremont walkway and driveway has been unusable for some years; has taken this long to get into the capital budget
Toomey: notice that fuel oil is going down due to 
Allen: still working through RFP process
Toomey: there's an increase in rent and quizzes both
understand that there is a dedicated gas station and how does funding work
Allen: Pullman Street, gas comes through the city
Toomey: are you using municipal aggregation?
Allen: have net metering credits; will defer to the ctiy
Toomey: can I get a detailed list of administrators and salaries?
Petty doesn't vote the request

Rivera: excited to see an increase of wraparound coordinators
overdue to look at a building maintenance plan
"what might have needed a bandaid needs surgery...it's really an equity issue"
concerned to see UPCS roof as late a date as that
Allen: most of the projects before this were windows, and now are roofs
"have to do bandaids until they get accepted into MSBA" (assuming they bring the program back)
Rivera: are we looking at growth for schools?
new housing by Canterbury, by Chandler
are we prepared, are we looking for the growth of children coming into these schools?
Monárrez: exactly what City Manager and I have spoken about a few times
housing development we know about, what is coming, so we're not waiting til our schools are bursting
Rivera: UPCS not equipped for any type of physical limitations
also concerned about our playgrounds: getting outdoors
hard if in the schools we don't even have that capability
Woodland has to take turns going out; "definitely a huge equity issue"
Allen: working with some community organizations to look at Woodland
the challenge there is the lack of space beyond what is on the footprint
the parking lot but creates traffic and parking issues
don't have a solution at this time
Rivera: these things weren't looked at when these spaces were created
vocational education: hope to shift it
shortage in the workforce
questions equity in AP access at Claremont and UPCS
have there been conversations with other colleges like Clark does
Monárrez: continuum of college and career a position now
formalizing some of these agreements that have been happening, now from district level
Rivera: work on diversity, equity, and inclusion
refugee population, including unaccompanied minors
speaks of a family that had a disheartening experience with a school
have seen labels put on our kids
"under the right administration, these kids just fly"
Monárrez: thank for sharing story
as part of the restructuring this school year, based on what the families said and best practice
hired directors of family and community engagement
very early on in conversation: what is WPS going to do for the needs for social justice
"will continue to train up people"
Chief Diversity Officer was to diversify workforce; moving forward, position has been reworked but will as Chief Equity Officer will be "guardian of equity" ensuring leading though an equity lens
training up leaders including on unconscious biases
equity doesn't sit with one person

King: last comments are music to my ears
talk a little bit about any cost savings that were realized
has cost savings on transporation been quantified?
Allen: about 3 and a half million a year
some put back into transportation for service improvements
King: families having piece of mind
looking forward to you guys being able to experience that
daughter at Chandler Magnet
wondering if there is any cost savings due to La Familia merging into Chandler Mag
Allen: saving the lease cost and the cost of a principal (if looked at in isolation)
King: ADA upgrades 
issue of equity: support Fair Share amendment 
"is there any sort of calculus going on or strategy currently in play for the cityside and schoolside to work on access to that funding?"
Batista: currently no strategy, but that would be a conversation 
King: have heard a little about capital funding, increases of SOA, ESSER, city contribution increase
"incumbent upon us...there are times we have to intersect to advocate for our kids"
what sort of staffing and costs will there be for the Chief Diversity Officer?
Monárrez: there right now are budgeted for four additional coaches, $350K
King: want to talk about administrative positions
outside of schools, we know waitlists for clinical resources
good to see nurses, psychologists
those infrastructure, coping positions, impact the public health outside
"that comes from this administration and the School Committee"
Worcester Tech "had become a prep school": concern about equity of access
Rec Worcester: school side took on some of that, as I recall
what that amount is
McGourthy: WPS provided support for Rec Worcester programs going on in their buildings
believe that is the number that is carried within the WPS budget itself
during the pandemic, that changed
Allen: on school side, it was $100, 000; now not allocating funds
King: not sure what happened with earmarks
Batista: trying to sustain and support what we were currently doing
expanded too fast without the structure in place to support it
King: expect some sort of intersection next school year
Batista: currently focusing on summer; next year would be part of conversation with superintendent and youth office
King: safety audit
asks what happened with prior safety audit a couple of years ago
Allen: the recommendations were not adopted
one of the reasons that we needed to reengage at this point
King: push for clinical support
Monárrez: four different providers in schools
ESSER funding; then SOA will come into play
King: resources for mental health for youth in community
Batista: ARPA dollars
million dollars for crisis response team
Shannon dollars for preventative measures and intervention work
think Rec Worcester itself is such a program
King: how many dollars are we providing over required, if you take into account the loan, OPEB contribution...(this isn't a thing)
is there a round number you can give me 
McGourthy: FY24: $124M; city is contributing $138M; debt service of $15M; doesn't include OPEB contribution
"there's not one clean number...when you look at it
"upwards of $30M above the required contribution...but because of the required contribution, that is expected to be $1.5M above required"
King: former city manager would decide a certain number of dollars over net school spending "and he would hang his hat on that"
Batista: am familiar, $1M, depending on resources
King: free cash, have in past given funding "for books" (when? what?)
When was the last time?
Batista: just done in October
King: once that goes over, the School Committee figures out what to do with that?
Batista: that's correct
King: kudos on middle school coaches
city has a lot of competing issues
appreciate joint committee last Monday; looking forward how we can all do better together
"I think Roosevelt is unique"

Petty: long night, where the issues are
"especially for the city to put more money into schools"
commend superintendent for the infrastructure you've put into place

account passes

And so to Council

 

The vote of the legislative body of a city or town shall establish the total appropriation for the support of the public schools, but may not limit the authority of the school committee to determine expenditures within the total appropriation.
MGL Ch. 71, sec. 34

While I haven't said anything about the recommended FY24 WPS budget this year--I think perhaps the longer I do this, the more leery I get about pre-deliberation--I do want to note a few things as the bottom line of the WPS budget is before the Worcester City Council tomorrow.

We’re now told: after graduation. 7? Maybe? 

The total appropriation for the FY24 WPS general fund (no grants, no revolving funds) recommended for adoption is $467,693,121. Of that, $129,215,192 is recommended to come from the city. 

from page 14 of the FY24 WPS budget

Thus of the increase, 90% of it comes from the state.

Should that be what is adopted, that would put the city at $1.4M over the minimum required spending. 

You can find that on page 418, by the way, which is always one of the first places I check with our budget. That outlines actual municipal spending on schools, including the cityside spending that "counts" as school spending. It looks like this for FY24:

That right there, plus the schools' capital budget as I mentioned yesterday, is really the only thing the Council has any purview to discuss tomorrow. They cannot, as MGL Ch. 71, sec. 34 notes, control in any way the allocations internal to the school budget; that is entirely under the purview of the School Committee.

FY24 in Worcester

 No analysis here, just sharing information:

The City Manager's recommended FY24 City of Worcester budget can be found online here. The Council will take it up, department by department, while meeting in Budget Committee (a committee of the whole, aka all of them) at 4:30 starting tomorrow (May 16). I have shared the preliminary schedule--sometimes things get shifted--here. The Worcester Public Schools' bottom line will be deliberated on May 30 at 4:30 (before police and fire). 

The Worcester Public Schools' proposed FY24 budget can be found online here. As required by law, the Worcester School Committee will have a public hearing on the budget on May 24 at 6 pm (at City Hall). The Worcester School Committee will deliberate and approve, cost center by cost center, on June 1 and June 15, in budget sessions beginning at 4:30. 

A couple of notes on the WPS budget

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

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

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

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

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

Let me show you what I mean. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

$4M. For everything. 

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

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

What happened at the last June Worcester School Committee meeting of 2022

 There were speeches and science awards and keys to the city, plus: 

Clock tower of Worcester City Hall at night
(Taken as I left last Thursday)

The agenda is here. Video of the regular session is here.

• We settled a contract with our 52 week secretaries (NAGE R1-156)
  
  
• We reported out on two subcommittees: the monthly F&O transportation update (which, note, is the final one at which there will be a "how short is Durham" report, as the contract ends on June 30); we also sent the transportation policies to subcommittee for redrafting, because they speak of contracted busing, and we won't have that anymore as of July 1.
  
  
• ...and the joint meeting F&O had with Council's Education committee. This was the meeting at which we took up the outstanding MOU between the district and the Worcester police department (we don't have one), as well as questions of salaries and district representation. Bill Shaner (scroll down; you are subscribing to Bill, right?) covered at the time here; the T&G covered it here. The Council recently sent the district question to subcommittee with what I will call decided lack of enthusiasm. 
  I do, though, want to say it was encouraging to have now-Acting City Manager Eric Batista show up at the joint committee meeting to talk about the MOU issue. 
  
  
• We renewed contracts with both of our legal district counsels; we have two: one for special education and civil rights, the other for labor law. And yes, they work for the School Committee, not the administration. 
  

Note that there are several items on there about the FY23 budget, which we passed at our 4 pm budget session. I want to take that up in a separate post. 

Also! Note that our transportation unit is currently voting on a two year contract; the School Committee has a meeting now posted for next Monday at 4:45 pm which will be just to respond to that ratification should it take place. That's to be sure it gets in before the end of the fiscal year Thursday! 

Joint Committee (Education and Finance & Operations) meets Monday at 5

 Part of the structure of the subcommittees of the Worcester School Committee is that the Finance & Operations subcommittee periodically meets with the Education subcommittee of the City Council "concerning issues of overlapping interest," as the item has it. Councilor Thu Nguyen chairs Education. We'll be having our first joint meeting on Monday at City Hall at 5, and the agenda for the meeting is: 

• gb #1-343 - To consider recommendations from the School Safety Task Force on the removal of the School Resource Officers. (the Education subcommittee also has a similar item)
  
  
• gb #2-60 – Request that the Administration evaluate and update compensation practices whereby school committee members are compensated at 50% of city council level.
  
  
• gb #2-115 - To request City Council ensure City Council and School Committee districts are parallel, so as to ensure public clarity.

Meeting link as follows:  https://us06web.zoom.us/j/96739569567

Hearings on Worcester's way to elect the School Committee start Thursday

 who knew? h/t Steve Foskett

The City Council's Municipal Operations committee will hold a series of hearings across the city on the three options the Council is considering for the election of the School Committee. The first is this Thursday. The full list of dates are: 

• 6 p.m. Thursday, November 4, Great Brook Valley Recreation Center, 33 Freedom Way

• 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 10, City View Discovery School, 80 Prospect St. 

• 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 18, Union Hill School, 1 Chapin St. 

• 6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 22, Belmont AME Zion Church, 55 Illinois St. 

• 6 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 1, Worcester Youth Center, 326 Chandler St. 

Please spread the word!

I haven't posted about this, because it would come off as trying to make it an election issue--which it isn't, beyond perhaps considering if you should vote for councilors who oppose a voting rights lawsuit--but I'll work on getting something up in the coming weeks.