[Ed. Note: A few weeks ago, the Post ran a story on how DCPS has cut funding for student computers and tech, essentially ensuring that all upgrades are on hold for at least a year. Behind that story is a tech tempest of sorts, with the deputy mayor for education blaming the DC council for the tech cuts and the chair of the council blaming the mayor. Here, DCPS budget analyst Mary Levy cuts through the politics to put the tech cuts into a larger budget context, in what is mostly a reprint of her tweet stream on the subject. All illustrations, copyright 2023 Mary Levy.]  

By Mary Levy

The Post article is largely right. To be exact, the CFO said it is too late to spend this year’s DCPS covid money, so the city moved $20 million to next year and DCPS retracted its solicitation for school technology. The DC council did NOT cut next year’s DCPS budget, but did rearrange it to cut central and better fund schools.

Here’s the fuller story:

In January, the DC council adopted the Schools First in Budget Act (SFIB), guaranteeing schools at least as much money next year as this year, except for enrollment loss that would justify loss of staff as long as WTU [Washington Teachers’ Union] contract minimums are kept. But even the loss of 1 or 2 students in a grade can do this.

For example, the contract cap is 25, so 2nd grade with 27 students gets 2 teachers, but if it loses 2 students the next year, money for 1 teacher position is cut, all of which is still OK per SFIB.

As it is, DCPS never cared about WTU contract caps, but SFIB built in partial protection, where they count in calculating the minimum budget for each school. Reduction in the number of full-time teachers must respect the caps.

But DCPS said it wouldn’t follow SFIB and cut budgets at almost half the schools, including some where enrollment went up.

In response, the DC council rearranged the DCPS budget to move money and full-time employees out of the DCPS central office to bring all schools to at least the SFIB minimum. Some schools did lose money per pupil—mostly schools with few at risk students or very small enrollments that also received large amounts of extra money in the prior fiscal year (FY23).

On central versus school budgets:

DCPS budgets omit major grant amounts, including covid money for FY23 and FY24, but the table above includes estimates of these and adjustments for amounts in the DCPS central budget for direct student services and in schools for central, both estimated and subtracted. Official numbers are less granular.

My analysis shows record number of people in DCPS central offices for the same functions over the years, even as enrollment went down. Question: What will DCPS cut and will it affect needed services like procurement or recruiting/background checks? (Slow onboarding of new employees is a big problem.)

The next challenge is to refine the SFIB to diminish the inequities that it baked in. They used to be random and probably bigger, but now with the randomness gone, we do need to adapt the legislation to level up the lower-funded schools.

Now, on the tech cuts:

The CFO said it was too late for DCPS to spend this year’s covid money, so $20 million was moved to next year. DCPS then stopped the late-posted solicitation for needed replacement technology. It had nothing to do with SFIB or the DC council. By law, that choice is a DCPS decision. [Ed. note: See here for a letter on this subject, sent to all DCPS principals at the end of SY22-23 from Chancellor Ferebee.]

And it is already too late to get replacement technology for DCPS students for next school year. Maybe it was already too late when DCPS waited until June for its now retracted procurement. This affects test scores as well as instruction, since computers are used for the all-important annual tests.