When DCPS posted next year’s local school budget allocations, a small group of us downloaded, copied, and combined them into one big spreadsheet.[1]  Cleaning after the conversion process took time, but we now have preliminary results.  “Preliminary” is important because we know that numbers are being changed for some schools, either to correct mistakes or to oil squeaky wheels.  When we have final numbers we will revise our results.  These will probably change little for DCPS as a whole, but they may for some individual schools.  Meanwhile, this is what we see:

 Overall, many schools are having the usual problem:  not enough money to keep up. 

 Three significant factors drive the situation this year:

 1.       Schools are, as usual, losing buying power because costs for almost all staff are up, as is inflation for non-staff costs.  Every school has lost buying power, with small variations depending on their mix of staff positions and non-personnel funding.  Overall, school buying power is down by 2.2%.  [See Preliminary Analysis, FY22 at FY21 Cost]

2.       Enrollment projections for next year are down compared to those on which this year’s budgets were based.  This is a hangover from a decrease in actual enrollment this year, at least actual enrollment as of October 5.  No information is available on how many returned or transferred in after that date.  Projections are disproportionately down for at-risk students, which means that their schools are losing money disproportionately. [See Preliminary Analysis, FY21&FY22 web]

3.       As happens every year DCPS diverts about 40% of the money designated by law for services to at-risk students to pay for basic program services available to all students.  This is particularly unfair because schools with low numbers of at-risk students have little at-risk money to divert, while schools with many at-risk students have a lot syphoned off, leaving at-risk students without the kinds of services to which they are entitled.  [See Preliminary Analysis, pdf DetailxSch]

Important categories:  Compared with the current year allocations, next year’s allocations include [See to Preliminary Analysis, pdf DetailxSch]

·         A few less classroom teachers than were allocated this year:  2,935 vs. 2,971

·         Three more psychologists, social workers and counselors:  424 vs. 421

·         A few more special education teachers:  929 vs. 903

·         Many fewer teachers for English Language Learners:  381 vs. 438

·         Supplies & materials:  $15.7 million vs. $15.6 million (less than current inflation)

 The effects of all this differ among schools. 

·         Forty-nine schools are actually losing money compared with last year’s final budgets, while 66 are gaining, though most are not gaining much.  Fifty-nine schools are losing allocated positions.

·         When DCPS diverts at-risk money into basic services, it does not take it evenly even among schools with similar demographics 

·         On top of Comprehensive Staffing Model basic program and at-risk funds, DCPS awards separate amounts of money to selected schools for special programs and undesignated purposes.  The basis on which these are selected is not explained.  [See Preliminary Analysis, pdf DetailxSch]

·         CSM cutoffs of 300 or 400 for staff allocations create contrasts between schools with projected enrollments close to them.  For example, a school of 295 has higher pupil staff ratios than one of 305.

4.       Due to all of the above factors, per pupil funding for general education varies greatly among schools.  General education is the remainder when at-risk, special education, ELL and federal funding are filtered out.  One would expect general education per pupil funding among schools with the same grade levels to be similar except for adjustments for size, since small schools have higher costs.  Yet some schools of similar size have general education per pupil funding differing by many hundreds of dollars.  [See Preliminary Analysis, pdf DetailxSch]

In considering remedial measures, these factors mean that schools do not all start in the same place.  Some have more money than others for the same services due to arbitrary cutoffs and allocation practices that at least appear to be random. 

As of mid-March, 2021, we do not know the Final Initial Allocations to schools, nor how much money DCPS will have in total.  The amount in central accounts will be announced only when the Mayor releases her proposed budget in late April.  That amount will include some services at local schools, for example, food service, utilities, athletics, some special education services.  Central offices, which I define as people who do not work directly with students is the rest.  As of January, 2021 that number is 705, which compares unfavorably with that of years ago, when DCPS had almost twice as many students—about 500.  The number started soaring after the mayoral takeover in 2007.

Finally, whereas this year’s budgets are pre-pandemic budgets, next year’s are non-pandemic budgets.  Although federal Covid funding will be available, DCPS does not permit it to be used to save staff positions.  It may be used for non-personal items such as technology and staff paid by the hour.

--Mary Levy March 18, 2021

Downloading, compilation, conversion, and initial cleaning of DCPS Initial Allocation Worksheets was done by Mary Filardo and Sean O’Donnell of the 21st Century School Fund.  Matt Frumin of C4DC and Qubilah Huddleston of DCFPI prepared the initial version of the FY21&FY22 web sheet.

[1] References are to two files, Preliminary analysis FY22 DCPS local school budgets [LINK] and the similar file for the current year, FY 2021 Final Initial Budget Allocations Analyzed [LINK].