Schools First In Budgeting- Cathy Reilly

My name is Cathy Reilly and I am the convener of the Ward 4 Ed Alliance and C4DC as well as the co-founder and director of the Senior High Alliance of Parents Principals and Educators SHAPPE. 

We share the Chairman’s concern for financial stability for the city’s DCPS schools.  They are the core of the public infrastructure. I believe DCPS’s survival, strength and growth are vital to our city’s civic health. 

What you are considering today addresses some of the most complicated and difficult parts of running a school system. I have served on Local School Advisory Teams pretty consistently for the last 20 years- mainly high schools as well as on DCPS budget committees and the USPSFF committee. 

The task has only grown more difficult even as the city has more money now. Enrollment is not steady.  There are more citywide seats and citywide schools then we can afford.  Policies prioritizing choice and competition mean the city has increased capacity unrelated to need.  This is a challenge for both sectors as new schools become dependent on recruiting students from existing schools.   This has created a structural instability that will become even more stressful as costs grow and enrollment declines which seem to be on the horizon. 

There is no silver bullet or simple budget fix especially in this environment.

So yes there are problems with the DCPS budget model.  It got some things right-– for the neighborhood high schools they were finally resourced to better address support and program needs. However, on others they missed. 70% of the DCPS schools require stability funds in at least one of the 4 categories regardless of whether enrollment is constant or growing.

There is no intermediate step before the DCPS budget gets to you, no public forum where more analysis of the ramifications and unknowns were required and reviewed.  The Council is both the policy board and responsible for oversight. This is also a structural problem.   

My concern is as you go into this prescriptive approach in permanent legislation, there are unintended ramifications that may hurt not help.  For example the bill as written does not fix the problem that Hardy experienced.  The January 1 date and using these figures freezes the inequities in this first iteration of a new model. The assumption that central can fund all that you require without reducing support and services needed by local schools has not been tested.  The calculation of how to increase and decrease enrollment focuses only on classroom teachers. 

This said I think there are things you can and should do to reduce harm along with requiring the Mayor and DCPS to provide adjustments to the current model to address its instability.   

The Council has a tool in the existing Bill 38–2907.01 that was passed to address stabilization.  There are issues that can be addressed to strengthen local school budgets.  What is included in the 95% has to be defined and clarified.  Here are two recommendations, there may be others. 

-----Require that the budget total calculation from year to year to guarantee the 95% includes an adjustment for the higher personnel costs in negotiated contracts.  Schools should not get the same amount of money but have to pay higher costs, forcing staffing cuts. Any funds to cover contracts should be provided in the UPSFF or by funds from the Mayor and passed through to the schools in their budgets.    

-----SPED and ELL funding are added and subtracted based on decisions from central office. This now affects the schools total funding. This is wrong, these funds are for required services for these students, they are not meant to serve the whole enrollment.    The inclusion of these funds in the total has led to reductions in staff for general education. This was not the intent. 

---Review how security will be funded and from where as it transitions away from MPD and the security guard contract is reduced.  It should not negatively impact schools based on location.

You also have the power to correct the structural instabilities noted above by considering a moratorium on citywide school and seat expansion and working on what is missing in the governance structure. 

I appreciate and applaud your understanding and willingness to work on how to ensure stability for our local DCPS schools and thus students and families. I look forward to continuing the work on the funding issues as well as on the necessity to address ways to bring more stability to the personnel in our system by reducing the turnover and thus strengthening the relationships.