D.C. Public School Budget 2017

The following was taken from the April issue of the Citizen Reader, which focused in part on this year’s school budget. 

DC auditor’s comments on the Fiscal Year 2016 budget

“30 percent: That is how much the District’s local funds budget has grown, adjusted for inflation, since the fiscal year 2006 budget was approved…” according to DC’s auditor Kathy Patterson in an opinion piece in the Washington Post on May 21, 2015. “Local funds budget,” she went on to say “means the dollars raised from taxes—sales, property and income—and excludes federal grants and fees raised by utilities and other special sources.”

The FY16 budget was $7.3 billion of local funds compared to the FY06 budget of $5.6 billion. In addition, the number of DC government employees increased 13.5 percent from 2006 with 27,708 full time equivalent employees or 35,835 if part-time and temporary personnel are included.

The median salary, she said, is $63,600. And 4,352 earn more than $100,000. “The three highest earners, hovering around $300,000, are the [then] interim president of the University of the District of Columbia, the new city administrator and the chancellor of D.C. Public Schools.”

Fiscal year 2016 also includes $600 million for the cost of borrowing. “That number,” the auditor stated, “is, in part, the price we are paying for all the new schools and recreation centers. In 2006, the council opted to spend annual tax revenue to rebuild schools, but that lasted just three years. Since then, it’s all been borrowed money.”

Highlights from the FY 2017 Proposed Budget and Financial Plan, “A Fair Shot”

“This is the first budget that recognizes our authority over our locally raised funds, and is submitted to you within a week of the historic decision of the Superior Court, upholding the lawfulness of the Budget Autonomy Act.”

Mayor Muriel Bowser in her budget transmittal letter of March 24, 2016, Executive Summary

● Total amount of the proposed budget and financial plan: $13. 4 billion

● FY 17 Local funds increase $222.4 million or 3.4% over FY16 Six largest “coat drivers” of the increase:

Pay-As-You-Go Capital: $54.3 million
District of Columbia Public Charter Schools: $46 million* Department of Human Services: $31.1 million
DC Public Schools: $28.9 million*
Repayment of Loans and Interest: $28.6 million
Teachers Retirement System: $12.3 million

*Explained in the text as due to increased enrollment in both systems and to 6 new schools opening in SY16-17, 2 in DCPS and 4 new Charter Schools. These figures are from pages 5-7 of the CFO’s transmittal letter to the Mayor at the beginning of Volume 3.

● From Volume 3, Agency Budget Chapters-Part II, Public Education System:

*Note: PCSB does not use the District’s financial system. For gross funds actual expenditures, please refer to PCSB’s annual report located on the agency’s website at http://www.dcpsb.org/report/pcsb-annual-reports. List compiled of figures at beginning at each agency’s section. FTEs are full time equivalency employment positions.

● At-risk funds:
DCPS: 24,858 students • $2,120 per pupil • $52,707,859
Charter Schools: 18,148 students • $2,120 per pupil • $38,473,760

● Number of students served: Audited enrollment total public school students: 87,344 for SY15-16, up 2.3% from 85,403 in SY14-15
DCPS: 48,439, up from 47,548 in SY14-15
Charter Schools: 38,905, up from 37,684 in SY14-15

osse.dc.gov press release February 11, 2016

• For much, much more on the budget for DCPS see www.c4dcpublicschools.org/blog