And with the Governor's signature, we have a budget. As a result, DESE has released final Chapter 70 and Net School Spending numbers (including, yes, a new complete spreadsheet: download away!).
Also, because Governor Healey did not make any changes to the budget, the conference committee numbers on the cherry sheets--for municipal and for regional schools--are now final.
Happy fiscal new year (ten days in)!
I broke with my usual tradition of turning first to the net school spending page* when cracking open** the FY27 Worcester Public Schools recommended budget, because, as I've been noting, the looming end of the Student Opportunity Act implementation is high on my concerns. Worcester, as part of adhering to the requirements of the Meritorious Budget Award, does a projection of three years forward. That's on page 32 of the PDF, and it looks like this:
That's a $7.9M gap next year, rising to $20.2M in FY30.
This problem is not the Worcester Public Schools' nor the city of Worcester's to solve. The requirement to ensure children have a public education belongs to the Commonwealth.
_______________________________________________
*Net school spending is on page 386 of the PDF and, I am somewhat stunned to find that the city is projected to meet required spending. That's at least in part because cityside claims for school services continue to rise (it's over $10M just for administration for FY27) and because WPS transportation is holding down non-net school spending costs.
Nonetheless, that's a positive number at bottom right.**metaphorically; one does not crack open a PDF.
I literally have done nothing else with this book other than check those two pages, but the flip through shows another year of a tour de force, so congratulations to Sara Consalvo on heading up what I know to be a massive effort for her first time!
I took some time this past week to update some slides from work, and there are two that I thought might be of general interest.
As you may or may not know, the state school funding system is based on an underlying split of 51% of the foundation budget coming from the local communities and 49% coming from the state. Now, that's foundation budget level state aid and required local spending, so both of those aren't what actually happens. It continues to be the local part that's really different, though. Here's what FY25 (which the state recently released actual spending data on) was:
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| Green is chapter 70; blue is local spending Now, please keep in mind that this is reported net school spending--it doesn't include grants, and it also doesn't include things like transportation (which regional districts have heavily reimbursed). It is however most of what is spend on schools in Massachusetts, and chapter 70 is 38.5% of the above total. |
Dartmouth, which has much less need in its district, and much strongly ability to contribute than Southbridge, as seen above...
...is, due to minimum per pupil increases adding up over time, now required by the state to spend more than Southbridge through state-supplied funding. In other words, the state gets both Dartmouth and Southbridge schools to foundation, and then adds funding to Dartmouth's state aid, lest Dartmouth's aid be less than before.
As always, I post this not to pick on Dartmouth, or indeed anyone; we could easily do this with a large number of districts across the state. I am, however, going to continue to note that this isn't equity
*yes, there are three charts, but it's the first and the third I thought you'd find of interest
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:
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:
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| enjoying the spooky overtones here; are we foreshadowing FY28? |
MORE ON THIS COMING BUT, some links for you:
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| 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:
This is of course and as always coming from me who posts on here as me
First off, cheers to the Boston Globe (yes, you did read that right!*) for this piece which interviews a lot of the right people, who point to many of the important things on this state budget and education! Huzzah!
The Department of Revenue did issue FINAL (because the budget is signed) cherry sheets for FY26 at the end of last week, and DESE has similarly issued FINAL chapter 70 and net school spending information. Remember, the only way that any of this is changing at this point is if the Legislature decides to overrule vetoes. If you hear anything on that one, let me know.
Let's turn then to the budget we just got.
It can be found here.
Please enjoy the snail* on the cover, the work of Worcester Arts Magnet student Miguel Andrade.
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| and despite the cover: it's always only a proposed budget until the School Committee takes action on it |
Lowell Sun today, in coverage that the city surprised the schools with the information that they're getting $4M less than they'd planned:
In addition to Chapter 70 funding, every year, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education publishes the net school spending requirement for school districts, which sets the adequate funding for a school and comes from the local municipality.
DESE recommends municipalities give districts a cash amount of about 22% of their net school spending amount. Fiscal 2025’s net school spending for Lowell was $64.9 million, and 22% of that was $14 million, which the city level funded.
The fiscal 2026 amount is $68.9 million, of which 22% would be $15 million. Instead, the city has budgeted a cash amount of $10 million, which brought the district’s proposed school budget to $271,489,114.
Emphasis mine
That isn't a thing. DESE doesn't recommend that. I don't even know where that would come from. It's also nonsensical, because how much funding local districts get from their communities is first, about the municipal wealth formula, and second, a matter of local discretion for anything over.
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:
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.
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*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.
In City Manager Batista's letter opening the FY26 city budget document, there's sentence I haven't seen in a city budget document before:
Despite the increases, the proposed FY26 education budget, built based on long-standing City and WPS practice of determining education contributions, may not achieve net school spending depending on the final State budget and final WPS expenditures.
I am not sure how much credit to give for acknowledging it up front rather than letting us wait a few days to find out from the schools' budget.
As a reminder, net school spending is REQUIRED (in fact, I generally call it "required net school spending") by Massachusetts General Law chapter 70. It isn't optional; it isn't a nice thing to do; it is done by nearly every single city and town in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts every single dang year without a blink.
If your "long-standing...practice of determining education contributions" is (I'm going to be blunt here) breaking state law, your practice should be re-determined.
Insert levels of exhaustion here.
UPDATE: which I said tonight at Council, about 12 minutes in.
The FY24 net school spending report was released yesterday.
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| 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."
with apologies, of course, to Clement C. Moore.
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| (not that kind of spin) |
'Twas the Friday before Christmas
And all through the city
Not creature examined
A press release so pretty.
"Ten million!" it said
On every channel,
"For a difficult budget
we must work to handle!"
"More children," it said
"They must be supported,
"And our new Burncoat High
"we're funding!" it purported.
(Not mentioned as yet?
The head-scratching omission
From MSBA's list:
Burncoat Middle's addition?)
While free cash to schools
Is better than none
And planning for schools
Is better when done
The municipal spin
On this was nearly transcension
And lest we be left
Under misapprehension:
Our city, like all
throughout our fair state,
Is required
To pull its fair weight.
This 'foundation budget'
Most far exceed.
Worcester, alas,
Does not follow this lead.
Cutting so close
Puts us in constant peril,
And this year, indeed,
The shave was too narrow.
Yet to be sure the students'
Highest needs were met
Buses are sent
To a greater extent.
Out-of-district tuition
May count; buses don't.
And so the dollars moved
Where the press release won't.
It may not make headlines
As nicely as that,
But being unclear
The reasons fall flat.
When the public is not given
The facts of the case
We cannot make good decisions
And we're aren't in our place
Of being good watchdogs
And being prepared
For FY26
And all that entails.
Let me give here a nod
'Fore I close out this verse:
Worry less about spin
More about what you disburse.
...to the first of the city of Worcester needing to cover Polar Park payments coming at the same meeting as the first round of borrowing for a new Burncoat. While the memo regarding the stadium is full of assurances that all will be fine, the one from the Manager on Burncoat closes:
Borrowing for this project will potentially increase the municipality’s current debt by 25%. The municipality must carefully consider ways to reduce borrowing and increase both revenues and reserves to mitigate the potential impact on the City’s taxpayers.
Framing is an interesting thing, isn't it.
There's also an interesting note in the free cash allocation:
$7,585,935.00 to the Worcester Public Schools: For FY25, I am proposing that the Worcester Public Schools and municipality divide the remaining funds to support operating and capital expenses. As you know, FY25 was a difficult budget year for Worcester Public Schools due to increased students and rising City of Worcester obligations. While the municipality provided more than $1.8 million at the close of FY24 to address Net School Spending shortfalls, the Superintendent and I have been in communication about additional Worcester Public Schools costs that we believe will not meet Net School Spending requirements and therefore will exacerbate the existing shortfall. This appropriation should bring the City above the required Net School Spending amount of $127.7 million, as long as the funds are used to support Net School Spending eligible activities. I am working with the Superintendent to determine the highest and best use of these funds that will ensure the City meets its financial obligations to public education.
The flag that goes up in my mind from the first quarter report is out of district transportation, as transportation doesn't count towards NSS, but it would be interesting to know. In any case, Worcester appears to once again be walking the line on meeting minimum obligation, though at least now it is being attended to.
We could, of course, not minimally fund schools and then we wouldn't have this issue.
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.
____________________________________________________________
If you watched the first Worcester School Committee, you saw opening statements in which Member Binienda extemporized on publicly approved (by the prior School Committee) contracts of central administrators (as opposed to the internal changes she made as superintendent to administrative contracts not approved by School Committee, without letting anyone know) and Member Biancheria making the classic motion of the late Brian O'Connell: to cut half a million dollars from 'somewhere' in administrative spending. She did this out of order--they weren't on the administrative cost center; that will happen tonight--and she didn't have a motion on where to then move the funding.
The press, of course, obediently trotted out headlines about motions to cut administration that failed, lacking even the context of past history to tell us that this is precisely the aim: the headline, not any meaningful budgetary decision.
There is, however, a section on administrative spending that should be getting--dare we hope?--headlines, but that's in the back of the book.
This year, the city's spending on schools calculation is reported on page 377 of the budget book; I noted in my review when the budget came out that it was the first place I check, as it's where we see if the city has met net school spending requirements. Of course, the city hasn't.
Not every dollar spent on public education, Worcester or anywhere, is allocated by the school committee; there is money spent on behalf of the district by the municipality. On page 377, you can find that on in section 9:
For example, in Worcester, the school district doesn't get a water and sewer bill; the city tracks that, and reports it at the end of the year as school spending; for FY25, that is projected to be $735,399.
We have talked about this before when we talk about police, which is projected for next year as $542,304.
It's the third item here, the top line, that I'd like to call your attention to. There is, in any municipal district, things that only the municipality can do. They have (unless delegated) purchasing authority, for example. As anyone who has ever received a Worcester Public Schools paycheck can attest, they send out the actual checks. You can find the list of what the city and district have agreed upon as "allowable expenditures" on pages 378 and 379 of the budget.
Notice anything about the past several years? Namely, that jump between FY23, when it was $6.6M to this current year, when it is $9M?
Yeah.
Now, let me be entirely honest: when I saw this in this year's budget, I was kicking myself, as I was on the Committee last year, and I, in my study of this page, didn't catch it! Well, there's a reason for that; here's the same section in last year's budget book for FY24 (the last column is FY24, which is the second to last above):
Between last May and this May, the projection on cityside administration spending increased by $2.4M.
And no one has talked about that.
Because I always have Excel open, anyway, I ran us a little chart on what this line now looks like going back to (remember, both FY24, which is the current year, and FY25, which starts in July, are projected, not actual):
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| Cityside Administration Spending on WPS FY17-FY25 (FY24 & FY25 projected) Source: WPS budget FY21, FY24, FY25 |
I'd suggest that someone should ask about this.
Oh, and yes: even with this claimed increase, the city is still under required net school spending.
UPDATE: When this was asked during the budget deliberation:
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| non-testifying attendee at City Council tonight |
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