Schools First in Budgeting Bill 2022- Analysis
The Schools First in Budgeting Bill: Simulation of Effects
This is the current draft of Bill 24-570 Council Chair Phil Mendelson’s bill “Schools First in Budgeting Amendment Act”
This is not the final version of the bill
Mary Levy
To test the Schools First in Budgeting bill, I have done a simulation of what might have happened if the September version of the bill had been in effect when this year’s local school budgets (FY 2023) were prepared.
· The bill protects stability of dollars at some level, but not necessarily staff. DCPS can cut the cost of an FTE teacher position if projected enrollment decline in any given grade or subject “warrants” elimination of an FTE teacher position. Forty-eight of 116 schools would have lost about $108,000 per FTE position eliminated this way. Most of these lost 25 or more students, but a dozen had only decreases that were small, but would have combined two small classes into one larger. (E.g., 2 classes of 15 in 3rd grade last year, with 4 fewer projected this year means 1 class of 26.)
· On the other hand, DCPS’ New Model cuts every school about $6,000 for each fewer projected student—adding up to the funding for one teacher per 18 students lost. Most of the schools losing money under the bill would have lost even more money under the New Model.
· The simulation also finds that due to the loss of these positions attributable to enrollment decline, the bill’s results in total dollars would have added up to the amount actually allocated by DCPS in FY 2023. Central offices would not have lost any money. In addition, the amount actually given to the schools was considerably inflated at many by “stabilization” allocations, some of which are to be discontinued, threatening losses even without enrollment decline.
· One concern about the bill is that we cannot know how DCPS will decide that teachers are not needed. As of September, it simply directs DCPS to increase or decrease funding for classroom teachers as “required … (such as required per the collective bargaining agreement with the teachers’ union.” “Such as” is not a clear directive, and DCPS has never allocated teachers by that standard.
REMEMBER:
· The simulation is based on the September version of the legislation, not the version to be released shortly.
· The calculations are a simulation, based on a set of assumptions that may not hold in reality.
DETAILS:
Most of the simulation is simple. ESSER (Covid) funds are not included because Mendelson has said he will remove them from coverage under the bill. The amounts included in budgets as submitted are reduced by DCPS’ additions for substitutes, background checks, etc., to reflect what DCPS actually submits to the Council. The amounts in each school’s base budget are increased by the increase in the UPSFF, which is greater than the CPI or the WTU contract (currently $0). Amounts for special education and ELL education are changed as DCPS actually changed them, on the assumption that they match legal requirements.
The non-simple part is calculating the number of teachers “required” for purposes of increasing or decreasing the budgets. This was done in a separate file with results copied into the main simulation file. I took the enrollment projections for both SY22 and SY23 and calculated for each the number of teachers “required” at each grade in each school in both years. I used the old CSM standards for elementary and middle schools, caps of 28/1 for the former and pupil/teacher ratio of 22/1 for the latter. In elementary schools, pupil/teacher ratio generally equals class size because the related arts teachers cover planning periods. Secondary schools are a different matter because the CSM never recognized planning periods. So 22/1 in middle schools means average class size of 24 or 25 assuming a six or seven period day. The high school allocations in CSM have been a mystery. Selective schools were allocated at 24/1 (average class size about 27), and neighborhood high schools received more, often inversely related to size of enrollment, but with exceptions. I devised a formula based on graduation requirements and an assumed average class size, allowing for planning periods, assuming block scheduling, that came as close as possible to DCPS’ actual allocations. High school calculations are shown in the tabs with the teacher calculations. None of these are necessarily the number actually allocated in SY 2022, though they are close; DCPS did not allocate teacher positions at all for SY 2023, leaving it to schools to fund them, along with many other positions from “flexible” fund allocations.
Simulation 11-2022 Mendelson’s bill by Mary Levy
11-2022 Grade Full Time Equivalents for Simulation by Mary Levy