Balanced FY12 Budget Proposed for Boston Schools

This week Boston Public Schools Superintendent Carol R. Johnson presented a balanced budget recommendation to the Boston School Committee and the community for fiscal year 2012 (school year 2011-2012).

For the first time in Boston Public School's history, the district’s schools are being allocated funds under a formula known as weighted student funding, ensuring equitable funding for all 56,000 students. A 2007 BPS task force analyzed this approach and it was recommended in the Acceleration Agenda in 2009.

Essentially, under the new system, funding follows individual students, ensuring that no matter where a student goes to school or where they live they will have the same level of resources available to them.

This budget recommendation is expected to reduce approximately 250-300 positions within the schools. It is likely the majority of those reductions will be secured through regular attrition and retirements.

The proposed budget totals $829,533,000, an $8.1 million (or 1 percent) increase from the current fiscal year appropriation from the City of Boston.

“For the first time we are submitting a budget that is based on what individual students need and deserve,” said Dr. Johnson in a prepared statement. “This is a moral and just financial plan because it places kids – not adults or buildings – as our top priority.”

Despite a projected budget gap of $63 million for the fiscal year, Superintendent Johnson is submitting a balanced preliminary budget. The rising cost of health care for employees, and step increases for members of collective bargaining units, including the Boston Teachers Union, contributed to the funding gap. 

A cross-functional team of BPS employees, including academic and financial personnel, have been working for nearly a year to develop a comprehensive strategy that results in higher quality services for students while also identifying ways to close the budget gap. Among the steps taken to close the massive budget gap include:

• Redesigning academic services to be more efficient for students learning English and students with special needs while improving academic outcomes.
• Filling more than 1/4 of the 5,600 empty seats that exist in the school district through school closings/mergers. Class size management will further reduce the number of empty seats in the district by approximately more than 1,000 seats.
• Streamlining central support services, such as: transportation, food services and facilities management. BPS has also undertaken a review of central office practices to ensure alignment with the district’s master plan, known as the Acceleration Agenda.

Boston Public Schools will also benefit from last year’s $10.1 million federal education jobs bill. In addition, the city’s appropriation also increased by $8.1 million.

Moving forward, Superintendent Johnson will seek more ways to curtail costs to free up resources for classroom activities and student achievement. These include revamping the student transportation and assignment practices. Boston Public Schools is also currently engaged in collective bargaining negotiations with the Boston Teachers Union on a new teachers’ contract. Superintendent Johnson is seeking to reward the city’s best teachers with financial incentives that will benefit the students of Boston.

Working in coordination with the Chief Financial Officer, school principals and headmasters will review their school budgets and, where necessary, adjustments may be made to ensure no dramatic swings in funding from this year to the next.

The Boston School Committee will hold hearings throughout the month of March to hear community input on this budget proposal:

Wednesday, March 2
English High School
144 McBride Street, Jamaica Plain
5-6:30pm: Budget hearing
6:30-8:00pm: School Committee meeting

Thursday, March 3
Irving Middle School
105 Cummings Highway, Roslindale
6-8pm

Tuesday, March 15
Burke High School
60 Washington Street, Dorchester
6-8pm

Tuesday, March 22
East Boston High School
86 White Street, East Boston
6-8pm

The School Committee is scheduled to vote on a final budget recommendation on Wednesday, March 23. The budget will then be submitted to Mayor Menino to be included in the budget he submits to the Boston City Council for consideration.

For more information on the FY12 budget visit: www.bostonpublicschools.org/budget.

This information was submitted to Patch in a press release from Boston Public Schools.