The severe spending restrictions that Baltimore school officials imposed two years ago amid a financial crisis would be eased under a $1 billion spending plan proposed last night by city schools chief Bonnie S. Copeland.
Having reduced a $58 million budget deficit to $23 million by this summer, the school system would begin to restore some of the programs and jobs it had eliminated. Pupils in certain grades would see slightly smaller class sizes, more support staff in schools and new textbooks, and summer school would resume for more than a third of the city’s children.
Yesterday’s presentation to the school board was the first time in four years that a city schools chief has presented a budget proposal before mid-April. The proposed budget for fiscal year 2006 represents a 5 percent increase over the funds in this school year’s budget – an increase made possible by a projected $55 million increase in state aid under the Thornton education funding plan.
Although spending would be modest enough to allow officials to eliminate what remains of the budget deficit by June 2006, the proposed increases are a contrast to the budget-cutting in which officials engaged over the past two years as the system reeled from a financial crisis.
School board members seemed pleased with the overall proposal, but they raised questions about how special education, arts programs and summer school would be affected.
Board member Kalman “Buzzy” Hettleman and others said the inch-thick budget filled with charts and department goals needs to be made more “consumer-friendly” so that community members can understand the spending being proposed. A public hearing on the budget is scheduled March 21, and the school board is expected to vote on the plan and forward it to city officials early next month.
Last school year, in the face of cash-flow problems and a rapidly climbing deficit, school officials froze spending and laid off more than 1,000 employees. This year’s spending plan continued to be conservative, as officials increased class sizes, eliminated free summer school and reduced the number of support personnel in schools.
The budget cuts resulted in some problems in the fall, including an increase in disruptions at some middle and high schools that prompted the system to fill hall monitor and school police jobs that had been eliminated.
Copeland’s plan for next year indicates that the school system has found a little more breathing room, now that it has moved away from the brink of insolvency and expects an influx of state money.
“This will be the budget that brings us to a zero-dollar deficit … for the first time in six years,” Copeland said in an interview. “It’s always a difficult process because we want everything for our students, but we have limited resources. … We tried to maintain fidelity to [our] priorities, to propose spending increases almost exclusively [for] the schools.”
The proposed budget includes $6 million to reduce class sizes in kindergarten and grades four and five by an average of two pupils, and $14 million to hire resource teachers and aides who can free classroom instructors for professional development.
However, because city schools’ enrollment is expected to decline next school year by more than 2,000 students, to 86,300, money set aside for new staff members might not all be spent. In that case, it would be directed to other areas, said Rose Piedmont, the chief financial officer.
Taking into account the enrollment drop, school officials expect to add 192 teachers, resource teachers and noninstructional aides in schools. The central administration would receive 39 new employees, including financial analysts, recruiters and information technology specialists who will directly support schools.
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Copeland also is proposing to buy $3 million in new reading textbooks for pupils in kindergarten through third grade and math books for middle schools and high schools – the first major textbook upgrade since 1998. The plan also calls for $2 million more to be spent on cleaning and maintaining schools; $2 million for administrative costs related to five new charter schools; and $3.5 million for summer school.
“We are adding things back carefully, measuredly,” Piedmont said. “We are trying to focus our spending in support of the schools.”
In addition to the new spending in academic areas, the plan sets aside $10 million more in a reserve fund for contingencies, adding to an existing $9 million. But Copeland said the reserve fund may be reduced if the school board opts to spend more in areas she has not recommended, or if the system is forced to return part of $18 million in federal poverty grants it has been accused of misusing.
The school system also is on track to repay the rest of a $42 million loan it received from the city last school year when it faced a cash-flow crisis, school officials said. As for the deficit, officials expect to reduce it by $35 million by June. Copeland’s plan would eliminate the remaining $23 million by June next year.