Budget Analysis
We partner with C4DC on the Budget Analysis. This Invest and Grow document below give the foundation. For the FY20 budget we worked with communities from across the city to advocate for more equitable funding particularly for those schools in wards 7 and 8. Please refer to the C4DC website for more information and for the Budget tool.
This is a good current description of the budget issues. The Final FY22 Budget has not yet been voted on.
TESTIMONY BEFORE THE COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COUNCIL
Budget Oversight on the District of Columbia Public Schools
Mary Levy June 24, 2021
As an education finance lawyer, a budget and policy analyst, and a DCPS parent, I have studied DCPS budget, expenditures, data and policies for 40 years, including the period when both our daughters were going through DCPS, from pre-kindergarten through graduation from grade 12.
Summary:
· Thanks to the addition in May of $39.4 million in federal Covid relief (ESSER), no DCPS school will lose funding in nominal dollars next year, but when higher staff charges and non-staff inflation are taken into account, 16 schools will have less money in real dollars.
· DCPS appears to be preliminarily out of compliance with ESSER Maintenance of Equity requirements, limiting reductions in per pupil state-local funding in the highest quartile of poverty schools to the overall average. Thirteen of 28 are losing more than the DCPS average, some by well over $1,000 per pupil.
· DCPS continues to use at-risk funds to supplant, not supplement, services provided to all students, and the percentage syphoned off is up from 40% in prior years to 50% next year. Most schools with 75% or more at-risk students lose from 75% to 91% of their at-risk money to pay for services covered by regular funds at other schools.
· Allocations to individual schools are a crazy-quilt. Though general education per pupil funding should be similar other than some extra for small schools, some schools with similar size enrollment receive per pupil general education allocations that are hundreds, even thousands of dollars different.
· The Mayor’s Proposed Budget deserves further analysis, particularly as to central office vs. local school services, and where central office money goes. However, allocation of ESSER funds is announced to be in error, other federal funding data is historically unreliable in proposed budgets, and the budget, despite its volume is not immediately informative. Such analysis therefore requires more time than is yet available.
Based on numbers in DCPS version of local school budgets (rather than the Mayor’s version), total local school budgets for FY 2022 increased by $58.5 M over the current year, from $807.9 million to $866.4 million, much more than needed to stay even overall, but there is wide variation in the experience of individual schools. Most of the increase comes from $39.4 million in federal Covid relief (ESSER) and a local fund “Stabilization” allocation of $10.4 million outside the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula. No schools have lost funding in nominal (paper) dollars.
The local Stabilization funding was intended to cushion a decrease of about 1,600 students in projected enrollment below that on which current year funding is based, as opposed to audited October 5 enrollment, which was about 3,000 below projections. It was included in the original allocations to local schools in February and identified there as Stabilization. The basis for school selection has not been stated.
Lower enrollment projections were a prime driver of lower initial allocations, and cost schools $9 million in allocations under Comprehensive Staffing Plan ratios. All but 30 schools were projected to lose enrollment from this year’s projections, the basis of this year’s funding, and every ward but Ward 2 was projected to lose enrollment. Losses were especially large in Wards 7 and 8, 7% and 4% respectively. These projections may or may not prove accurate. Data are not publicly available on DCPS post-October 5 enrollment, but it is historically hundreds of students higher as the year goes on. Moreover, as of October, a considerable number of low-income households in the District did not have internet access to the virtual schooling that was all that was open, and so could not have been counted in the audit.
Although no schools have lost funding in nominal (paper) dollars, despite the extra federal money, 16 schools do lose dollars when their budgets are adjusted for inflation, i.e., rerun to translate them into this year’s dollars. Three of these are schools in upper Ward 4 that lost their last middle school grade to the recently opened Ida B. Wells Middle School and so lost funds specific to middle schools. The rest are distributed all over the city, including two in Ward 3 and three East of the Anacostia River. Most amounts representing a loss of buying power are not large, and all but one were projected to lose enrollment.
Federal Covid recovery funds, ESSER for short (Elementary & Secondary School Emergency Relief) were allocated to schools in May.
· ESSER III, part of the American Recovery Plan (ARP) totals $20.8 million. Schools were told they could use ESSER III for whatever they wanted. The DCPS spreadsheet given to C4DC shows that schools have used these funds to budget all kinds of items, including teachers, social workers, aides. Some had not finished the job when budgets were submitted, in which case the unbudgeted amount in their budgets was “ESSER III Recovery Funds.”
· The original ESSER II allocations are those announced in the Initial Budgets but not included in the February totals. They are to be used this summer, i.e., the current fiscal year. The restrictions announced—no permanent staff—are still in force, but summer employees, apart from 12-month staff such as principals, APs, and custodians, are always temporary and paid by the hour.
· Schools also received ESSER II additional allocations totaling $18.7 million. They are included in the FY22 budget totals (along with ESSER III), but DCPS is still formulating spending policies, so have not been budgeted to specific items
Unfortunately, DCPS appears to be preliminarily out of compliance with federal Maintenance of Equity requirements: school systems may not reduce state-local funding per pupil in schools in the highest student poverty quartile by more than the average per pupil funding reduction. Based on the Mayor’s proposed budget, DCPS’ average state-local funding reduction from FY 2021 is $112 per pupil, and 13 of the 28 schools with the highest at-risk enrollment are losing more than that in amounts from a few hundred dollars per pupil to $3,647 per pupil. Five of these schools are losing over $1,000 per pupil, and another four are losing over $400 per pupil. Since the rule applies to state-local funding only, the problematic federal funding data in the Mayor’s budget are not relevant. The final determination would be based on next October’s audited enrollment, but federal guidance urges preliminary determination and correction before appropriations are final.
DCPS continues to use at-risk funds to supplant not supplement services provided to all students, contrary to D.C. Code law. Next year a full 50% of at-risk funds are to be illegally diverted, up from the 40% in preceding years. The percentage of at-risk funds syphoned off varies enormously by school: 0.4% to well over 90%. Schools in well-to-do neighborhoods (less than 25% at-risk students) lose most of their at-risk funds but have relatively little to take. Schools with more than 75% at risk students have more to take, and most lose from 75% to 91% to services that are funded with regular money in other schools. This is classic supplantation, and it cheats low income students of services to which they are entitled by District law.
Part of the reason that supplementation occurs, however, is that DCPS does not have the funds to cover both full deployment of at-risk funds as supplemental to other expenditures, and the core program itself, plus special education and ELL. Services for the latter two are as required by law, and my research has found that DCPS core program staffing is less than recommended by the 2013 Adequacy Study commissioned by the Mayor and comparable to or less than that provided by budgets in our surrounding suburbs. Schools should not be forced to choose between a basic program for every student and the more intense services that could enable us to overcome the large achievement gap between at-risk and other students.
Finally, DCPS allocations to local schools are arbitrary and non-transparent. This year’s problems have been covered over by the influx of federal Covid funds, but they cry out for correction for both effective education and equity. “General education” consists of services that are provided to all students regardless of their identification as English Language Learners, special education, and at-risk students. With the exception of higher amounts in smaller schools, one would expect these to be similar in per pupil amount. They are not: there are pairs and triads of schools at the same level and with virtually the same enrollment that show big differences in general education per pupil funding. Schools of this kind show, even small ones where a little money makes a big difference, have $2,000 and more per pupil gaps. Not only are there big differences among schools, but variations for the same school from year to year. This instability is damaging. In addition to variations arising from inconsistent diversion of at-risk funds, $37.5 million of next year’s allocations was allocated in mostly unexplained categories of discretionary funding, including Stabilization, Per Pupil Funding Minimum, Chancellor’s Budget Assistance, Specialty Schools, special programs, and last-minute adjustments, apparently in response to school petitions and perhaps parent pressure.
DCPS says that methodology will change for FY 2023 allocations, but has provided no indication of how, let alone sought feedback from parents, community, and school staff. I urge the Council to monitor this process. Correction of current inequities is urgent, but at the same time could lead to instability in many schools.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
April 14, 2020
Dear Mayor Bowser:
Our educational needs will be more acute in FY21 as our educators grapple with learning loss and the need for social and emotional supports from the pandemic disruption this school year, particularly in schools serving students most vulnerable due to poverty and the digital divide.
We appreciate the burden you carry during this unprecedented moment. But as you craft your proposed FY 21 budget, we hope you will keep three key things top of mind:
First, high concentrations of vulnerable students, predominately African American and Latino, attend DCPS matter-of-right schools. Securing every student's right to an education should be the top priority in your budget planning. DCPS schools of right should be stabilized and appropriately funded for the students they have.
Second, after decades of DCPS enrollment declines, the city has made significant long term educational and capital investments in DCPS and we are starting to reap the benefits of those investments. If this progress is to continue, strong educational programs and supports for all students must be prioritized.
Third, in what could become a period of increased austerity, the District of Columbia will need to capture the maximum value and savings from fully utilizing the multi-billion dollar investment in DCPS school staff and facilities in order to ensure equitable, efficient, and high quality schools for students and families across the city.
Meanwhile, given rising costs, the net result of the previously proposed 4% UPSFF increase for DCPS was a modest decline in per student buying power. See here. DCPS cannot and should not be asked to sustain a cut.
If, as appears to be the case, you conclude it is necessary to move away from a 4% increase to the UPSFF in the FY21 budget, we hope your new approach will be strategic. It could include the following steps, which are fully consistent with the governing law.
1) Base the DCPS LEA budget on enrollment of at least 54,833. The proposed school budgets predict October enrollment of 53,033. DCPS enrolls close to 4000 more students after the October enrollment and sees net growth of 500. The charter sector sees enrollment declines of over 1300 students after the October count, but keeps the funding, including the facilities allocation, for the departing students. DCPS should be funded for at least 1800 more students than are expected in October to brace it for arrivals and for the churn and put it on equal footing with the charter sector. See here (second blog post).
2) Pay for DCPS utilities outside of the UPSFF. In recent years, charter LEAs have had to use around $500 per student in UPSFF dollars to fund building maintenance and operations, while DCPS has been required to use over $1000 per student in UPSFF dollars for the same functions. If DCPS utilities were paid outside of the UPSFF, the two sectors would be placed on more equal footing with both using approximately $500 per student for building maintenance and operations. See here (first blog post).
A successful DCPS matter-of-right system is critical to the long-term future of our city. The public has consistently stressed that as a priority. See here at page 6 and here at page 18. It would be a huge loss to the city, if this crisis resulted in a worsened, structural disadvantage for DCPS, just as it has been making progress both in terms of improved performance and enrollment growth in the sector.
Thank you for your time and attention to this matter. Our thoughts and best wishes are with you as you lead us through this difficult period.
Sincerely,
Ward 3/Wilson Feeder Education Network
Ward Five Council on Education
Ward 6 Public Schools Parent Organization (W6PSPO)
Ward 8 Education Council
DC Empower Ed
Senior High Alliance of Parents Principals and Educators (S.H.A.P.P.E.)
Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights
C: DC City Council Members: Chair CM Mendelson, CM Silverman, CM Grosso, CM Bonds, CM R. White, CM Nadeau, CM Cheh, CM Todd, CM McDuffie, CM Allen, CM Gray and CM T. White; Deputy Mayor for Education Paul Kihn and DC City Administrator Rashad Young.