The oversight group Boston Municipal Research Bureau is calling for sweeping changes to the Boston Public Schools budget processes ahead of the School Committee’s upcoming vote on next year’s budget.
“The current process for presenting the Boston Public Schools budget is woefully inadequate,” the BMRB report reads. “It is crucial that the Superintendent and her team be forthright throughout the budget process so the School Committee, City Council, families, and the general public understand the proposed budget and its impact on students.”
The current BPS budget proposal for the fiscal year is $1.53 billion dollars, the largest single expenditure in Boston’s proposed operating budget, the report notes. The proposal was first presented at the Feb. 7 School Committee hearing and reviewed over several meetings and working sessions.
The upcoming budget marks the cut off of federal COVID-era funding and a 45% increase in city funding to partially offset the loss. The “transitional” budget, BPS staff said previously, includes cost-saving “trade-offs” — largely focused on staffing cuts — on a school-by-school basis, broad inclusive education investments, and first steps away from funding schools in a per-pupil enrollment basis.
The School Committee will vote on the budget proposal at their March 27 meeting.
The report critiqued the budget process so far this year, noting that School Committee members and the public have been given three PowerPoint presentations and a single Excel workbook.
“As they try to understand the budget, the public and School Committee members are left to interpret row upon row of spreadsheet data with little narrative to guide them,” the report reads. “The Superintendent presented the budget at a School Committee meeting during which committee members were not permitted to ask all their questions, being told to submit them in writing. Answers to those written questions have not been provided to members or the public.”
The report landed on a number of recommendations, centering on transparency and additional working and review mechanisms.
Under the recommendations, the district would resume releasing “budget books” every year, which were published every year up until FY 2020. The book would give a more comprehensive look at the proposal similar to the City’s budget proposals, providing “greater detail on funding, the rationale for proposed expenditures, and how it connects to district goals,” the report states.
The recommendations call for the School Committee to be allowed to ask all questions publicly and for public release of the district’s answers; more working sessions to allow for the Committee to provide oversight direction and vote throughout the process, not only at the end; more information from the superintendent on how the proposals “clearly connect” to things like district goals and initiatives; and for the Committee to take a more active role in budget review and approval.
BMRB also included a number of recommendations for questions School Committee members could ask. These touched on several current contentious issues, including giving numbers and details to the layoffs next year and clarifying the timeline for upcoming school mergers and closures.
The “urgently needed improvements,” BMRB wrote, aim to allow stakeholders to “be better informed about district priorities, the tradeoffs inherent in any budget and how the budget will lead to better student achievement.”