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School Committee approves new budget nobody really happy with
By adamg on Wed, 03/23/2016 - 9:53pm
The Boston School Committee today approved a $1.027 billion budget that is $13 million more than the current budget but which will still require cuts in special-education and some high-school programs.
The proposal, met with chants of "Shame on you!" from the audience, now goes to the City Council, which can either approve the entire budget or reject it, but not make changes.
Last minute changes include restoration of Charlestown High School's Diploma Plus program - thanks to a grant from Liberty Mutual. Earlier, Superintendent Tommy Chang said increased anticipated revenue from the state meant he could recommend restoring several million in cuts to high-school programs. At a hearig before tonight's vote, however, advocates said that still means some schools will go without librarians and other staffers. And the budget holds off on expansion of the advanced work classes that Chang had made a centerpiece of his efforts to increase diversity at Boston Latin School.
Officials said that cuts were required even with a $13 million increase because of the even larger rise in certain expenses, such as previously negotiated raises.
"Do I wish it was better? Absolutely." Committee Chairman Michael O'Neill said. But he praised Chang for his work and said he's optimistic the AWC and other programs can be funded later in the year once the state sets the amount BPS will get.
City Councilor Tito Jackson (Roxbury), who chairs the council's education committee, urged the School Committee to send a message to Mayor Walsh and vote the budget down. He said the city is bringing in $95 million more in property taxes thanks to the construction boom and said cuts forced on BPS were not because of any crisis with city coffers.
"This budget will harm our children," he said. "It's a conciscious choice not brought on by a crisis."
And he said an increase in state funding might be contingent on expanding or eliminating the cap on charter schools, which he said would lead to harming BPS by taking away funding. "That's like giving somebody water and a bunrning box of dynamite," he said.
Committee member Michael Loconto, who voted for the budget, said he did so on condition school officials begin to take a hard look at closing and consolidating some of the system's 127 schools. The city just has too many school buildings for the 57,000 students it now has, and withour some major restructuring, offiials will just face the same agonizing budget discussions year after year, he said.
Committee member Alexandra Oliver-Davila, who did vote for the budget, expressed frustration. "This budget is not sufficient, this budget is not adequate," she said.
"Some of the most vulnerable students are the most exposed in this budget." member Miren Uriarte, who voted against the budget, said. Member Regina Robinson also voted against the budget; the other five adult members voted for it. Student member Savina Tapia spoke against the budget proposal, but she does not have a vote.
O'Neil said that if the committee had voted down the budget, the City Council would get a budget initially proposed in February, which contained several million dollars in cuts.
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Comments
Boston largest
Employment agency. These kids should be walking on the teachers union hall, not city hall.
Boston's teacher residency is the gold standard across US
Boston public schools is the 49th highest in spending in Massachusetts-- total budget divided by total number of students.
Boston public schools is the best urban school district in the USA.
US education policy has been focused on two things, raising standards and closing the achievement gap. Boston more than any other urban school district has succeeded at closing the achievement gap.
For a city and mayor that pitched that hosting the Olympics would make us world class and be worth the billions of dollars of tax liability, it's hard to explain three years of cost-cutting in Boston schools, net of new spending.
I think Marty Walsh screwed the pooch
The mayor's budget doesn't make any sense. From existing contracts, the city will have $20m in new costs from benefits and pay increase. These are contractual obligations.
Walsh and Chang have new initiatives, which add costs, but the mayor is increasing funding only $13.5m. I don't understand why funding a $20m contractual obligation with $13.5m is not breach of contract, never mind the new initiatives.
So Chang has to reduce allocations to save money but it doesn't actually save money it just under funds real costs. Principals are left holding the bag, and in the end, students get screwed.
Are your underlying assumptions correct?
The costs assume "level funding". But BPS usually loses hundreds of students every year. As one example we have lost almost 10,000 students in the system over roughly the past decade but we have more teachers,more staff, far greater funding and about the same number of schools. BPS has been 35% of a budget growing almost twice the rate of inflation since the early Menino years. Ten years ago even the BTU head said the budget was "barely sufficient". Now per capita we have 20% more human, physical and financial resources AFTER inflation and the system is underfunded? That fails on the simplest of logic.
Naive Analysis
Do you understand that different students cost different amounts? The students lost represent charter schools skimming some of the cream, leaving BPS schools with a higher percentage of special needs students. You can't glibly make your statement contrasting enrollment with spending while making no effort to understand the cost structure.
Perfectly
Those sudents were there before and after the rise of charters even assuming none went to a charter.
Do the math.
If you were "barely sufficient" 10 years ago, it's logIcally impossible to have 20% more resources and now be underfunded unless the actual number of special needs kids materially increased, not just the proportion of special needs kids. Not only do you have what you used to have, but now you have lots more money to concentrate on those kids.
Unless the absolute number of special needs increased dramatically in the past 10 years, that's not an assumption. It's arithmetic.
No
Because you are also ignoring inflation, and added regulatory burden. The costs for special needs kids increases at a faster rate. Until you get your head around that fact, your analysis is going to miss the key issue.
now you are just making things up
1) virtually every comment i make says "even after inflation". Note that I even capitalized it for emphasis in my first post.
2) the school budget has gone up at twice the rate of inflation since early menino. Very few other districts in the country could match that. If what you say is true (and I've never heard that argument about skyrocketing per capita special needs costs here or elsewhere - Although lots of commentary about the percent of kids now classified as special needs that maybe shouldn't be) schools would be shuttering nationwide. That is simply not happening.
3) every organization in the world deals with and manages inflation. I don't see why BPS is any different or why we are that much different from other school districts. We have 20% fewer students and shrink most years. The only way we even maintain students is by expanding very low cost pre K seats. Yet more teachers, more staff higher salaries relative to inflation, the list goes on. BPS is broke, and I use the term loosely, because it was grossly mismanaged by Menino. Hopefully Chang and Walsh can rationalize it so we can focus resources where needed rather than trying to "level fund" a system that shrinks every year because fewer people are interested in what it has to offer.
Special education costs
As it turns out, the cost of special education is a major issue pretty much across the state, and I think it's fair to say that lots of school districts in Massachusetts are facing budget crises in part because of that cost. While schools may not be literally shuttering, there is plenty of analysis out there showing that special education and health care costs in particular are putting such a burden on school budgets that lots of districts are being forced to divert huge amounts of money from other programs to cover those costs.
A lot of this information is captured in the Foundation Budget Review Commission's final report from last fall. Here are a couple of relevant excerpts (emphasis mine):
Of course, the goal of the FBRC wasn't to look at problems specific to Boston, it was to determine whether state education funding is adequate and equitable. BPS is in a different situation from most other urban districts in the state, because most of its funding comes from the city budget rather than state aid and we spend a fair amount over our foundation budget. Still, the same dynamics are at play here. Some of the expectations built into the foundation budget about how much it costs to run a school system like Boston's are far enough off that just looking at our actual spending and comparing it to the foundation budget - or other districts with different demographics - can give you a false impression of how well the district is or isn't funded.
So Tito is running for
Mayor.
He has to
He can't compete against Keith Magni for grandstanding douchebag of the year.
“A vote for this budget says black lives don't matter.”
it's arguable
Walsh has cut expense in excess of new funding for two years prior to this year and he's doing it again, only this year his new revenue is about 1/4 of what it was in each of the two prior years.
The cuts go across the entire system but they hit special education students the hardest and high schools like BCLA. BPS population is high percentage low income, and high percentage people of color.
It is irresponsible to put Boston schools on an austerity budget and to drive cost control from the top down.
Boston spends 36% of budget on schools, the state average is 53% and Lexington spends 70%. It's arguable that cost cutting BPS is evidence of institutional racism.
And that concern that the US attorney took up about whether there are civil rights violations occurring in BLS after Marty and Tommy investigated and tried to shut the door and move-on in less than 6 days, there's the distinct possibility that investigation will be expanded.
I'm not sure the issue is too
I'm not sure the issue is too many school buildings, but rather where the existing ones are located. You have West Roxbury with three very high-performing elementary schools (Kilmer, Lyndon, Beethoven) and no other schools there. There are way more kids who cannot get into those schools than can just from a numbers perspective. The district should be looking to open more elementary schools in WR to deal with that. Same situation in Roslindale and Jamaica Plain. There are many more schoolchildren downtown now than 10 years ago yet no school for them.