Chairman Mendelson and members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Soumya Bhat, and I am the Education Finance and Policy Analyst at the DC Fiscal Policy Institute. DCFPI engages in research and public education on the fiscal and economic health of the District of Columbia, with a particular emphasis on policies that affect low- and moderate-income residents.
I am here today to ask the Council to renew its commitment to improving the transparency of public education funding in the District of Columbia and to provide some suggestions on how to do this. A transparent education budget ‘ one that provides accurate, clear, and timely information ‘ is critical to allowing the DC Council to fulfill its agency oversight functions, and to empowering parents and other residents to hold public officials accountable for the delivery of public services.
This past budget season, DC Public Schools (DCPS) released a new budget guide that included valuable information in a user-friendly format on the distribution of DCPS funding by funding type (central, school support, and school), school type, revenue source, and administrative office. This was a big step in the right direction. But, DCFPI believes there are several other transparency issues with the DCPS budget that the Council could address: 1) continue to press for a common sense budget for DCPS, 2) get clear answers for the fiscal year 2013 special education budget, 3) better engage stakeholders in funding decisions, 4) reinstate a Council committee on education, and 5) launch a community stakeholder group to get their input on how to improve school budget transparency.
Continue to Press for a Common Sense Budget for DCPS: A major obstacle to transparency is the fact that the numbers in the Chief Financial Officer’s (CFO) Budget Book do not seem to really reflect how DCPS is organized or how its spends funds. The figures in the budget book are vastly different from the DCPS Budget Guide, including the fact that the budget book suggests the DCPS budget for fiscal year 2013 is $17 million more than what DCPS reports in its Budget Guide. Also, each year the proposed budget for the upcoming year is also hard to assess, because the budget figures for the current year reflect the initial approved budget and not any of the many revisions made by DCPS after the budget is adopted. This leads to inaccurate comparisons of how funding for particular divisions is changing from year to year. The budget document for DCPS ‘ and for every DC agency for that matter ‘ should include the revised current-year budget in addition to the proposed budget for the upcoming year. Notably, DCPS did not offer a budget briefing during the FY 2013 budget season, leaving DC residents even more confused about how dollars were being spent in education.
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