Mary Levy: Bill 24-570 “Schools First in Budgeting Amendment Act of 2021” and Bill 24-571 “Schools Full Budgeting Amendment Act of 2021”

Thank you for introducing these bills. I have worked on the methodology and analyzed DCPS local school budgets for about 25 years. DCPS’ current system has multiple flaws and inequities. These bills do not purport to address them, nor do they address concerns about general underfunding, but that is all right. The sources of the inequities and insufficiencies are complex, and one cannot expect to solve all problems at once in one piece of legislation.

What the bills do seek, in a meaningful way, is to address the funding instabilities that have plagued schools for years. I have prepared simulations of the effect of both bills with the only data currently available: What would the results have been if either had been law governing the calculation of this year’s budgets?

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