Budget Materials for FY25

The Council has finished voting on the FY25 Budget. HERE are the Council’s calculations on School’s First additions to school budgets.

The FY25 initial school budgets have been released. The submittted budgets that will show the petitions granted have not yet been released. The Mayor’s budget book will probably be released on March 20th.

FY25 DCPS BUDGET data link

Spreadsheet of Initial Budgets coming

See betsyjwolf.substack.com. General education and at risk per pupil allocations are more equitable

FY25 Budget Testimony by mary Levy - 4-17-2024

Full testimony can be found here

FY25 Initial Allocations - from Mary Levy

DCPS local school budgets for next year: The good news is that general education/at-risk per pupil allocations are more equitable than in prior years, see betsyjwolf.substack.com. The bad news is that most schools--even some gaining enrollment--will have to cut staff. Why?

Not the loss of federal covid funds, which are not in school budgets. The main factor: DCPS has increased what it charges schools for teachers and administrators. First, four years of pay increases not in past budgets have been built into next year’s budgets.

 Second, these position costs are higher than contract pay increases (compounded from year to year): for WTU (teachers, counselors, librarians, etc.) 16.1% vs. 12.5% and for CSO (principals, APs, deans, higher level office staff, etc.) 17-18% vs.13.1%.

 These cost differences, even when adjusted for enrollment change, result in a 14.6% increase in staff costs for general ed/at-risk, compared to an 11.4% increase in total allocations. (Special ed & ELL costs are excluded from the shortfall calculation because they cannot be cut.)

A calculation of the cost of each school’s FY24 budgeted positions for general ed/at-risk education at FY25 charges, adjusted for changes in projected enrollment, shows 77 schools of 117 short on covering these new costs for existing staff.

This loss of purchasing power is over $1 M for 24 schools (range $1.0 to $4.5 M); 10 more lose $750K-$1 M. Average loss is $784,986, the equivalent of six teachers. Forty of the 77 affected schools are gaining enrollment. Making up all losses in purchasing power would cost $60 M. 

Offsetting losses in purchasing power to a limited extent is a 37.6% increase in total funds for at-risk students. This is the reason for the improvement in equity in the allocation of general ed and at-risk funds. But it is far short in enabling schools to keep existing staff.

Downloading and data thanks to Mary Levy