Even with a nearly stagnant operating budget expected in the coming year, Prince George's County schools can expect big changes in how that budget is managed.
The proposed budget for fiscal year 2013 totals $1.6 billion, and represents only a slight, .0001 percent increase of $238,200 from last year.
"As bad as this budget looks, it's not as bad as it was for the last two years," Matthew Stanski, chief financial officer for the school system, said. "We're trending in the right direction … there's finally some light at the end of the tunnel."
A public forum at Laurel High Wednesday, Jan. 11, drew a crowd of about 20 into the cafeteria to hear a presentation from Stanski and Superintendent William Hite on the proposed 2013 operating budget – a flat budget, Stanski said, based on decreasing enrollment in the district and the state of the economy.
"A serious recession, to be perfectly honest (is affecting this budget)," Stanski said. "And we're losing students. When you lose students, you lose money."
The county is projected to educate 114,000 students in the 2012-2013 academic year, Stanski said —down from approximately 127,000 at the start of the 2011-2012 year. Projections show that student enrollment is expected to continually decrease until about 2016, as it has for the last six years, Stanski said, then "flatten out" and increase once again.
Even with fewer enrollees, the school system is increasing the focus on those students with a new, student-based budgeting plan, piloted in eight schools last year. Under the new plan, each school will be allocated a portion of the budget based on number of students and those students' needs.
Previously, schools would receive a pre-set allocation based on student enrollment, but now the individual school will directly manage those funds in the way the principal and school leadership team sees fit for the needs of the students. With the student-based budgeting, the principal and school administrators will decide how to spend funding, then submit their decisions to the central office, and then to the board, for approval.
"It's a simple fact that every school is not the same," Hite said in a letter sent to parents and community members in November. "For too long, however, our funding system suggested otherwise."
The central office is not in the business of funding schools, Stanski said, it's in the business of funding students, and students' needs.
"We're going to give principals and the school community a dollar value, not just on students," Stanski said. "Grade level, circumstances of poverty, how they're performing on state tests and how they're learning English (will impact the budget). We think this is a formula that lays out priorities and a definition of equity, which means the least get the most."
With the new funding formula, each school would receive $3,077 per student, then additional money based on students' grade level if they are in kindergarten, first, sixth, seventh, eighth or ninth grade. Students receiving free and reduced lunches also receive additional money for their school. Factors like low or high academic performance, and being an English language learner at any level, also increases funds. As a result, a school will more struggling learners would get more money than a school will fewer struggling learners.
Principals have undergone training in the last year to ensure they can be resource managers as well as principals, Stanski said.
Some funding would remain controlled by the central office, Stanski said. Special education would still be funded at the discretion of the special education department, as would transportation and pre-kindergarten programs.
Proposed budgets for each individual school would be made available on the school system's website on Friday, Jan. 13, Stanski said.
It's a proposal supported by Board of Education member Rosalind Johnson, who represents Laurel.
"It's exciting, and a good thing, because now, instead of the entire budget being driven out of the administration, it will be driven out of the schools," Johnson said. "When principals have more control over their budget, the budget is being driven by the characteristics of the school, and the educational needs of every single child in your building."