New DPS budget plan advances

By Nancy Mitchell, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Denver Public Schools board members on Wednesday informally approved a new way of budgeting that gives more money to poor kids and cuts the funding gap between elementary and high schools.

Formal approval of the 2008-09 budget will come this spring, but DPS leaders sought the go- ahead on major shifts in how dollars are allocated to schools.

DPS is adopting student- based budgeting, where dollars follow individual students wherever they go, and abandoning its old method of funding schools based on classrooms of kids.

Under the old way, a school received resources based on a set number of students, such as one teacher for every 25 students. But that hurt schools when, for example, a class increased to 38 kids, still 12 pupils short of getting teacher No. 2.

Under the new system, principals would receive an amount per student, based on factors such as grade level and free lunch status, and would have greater flexibility in spending it.

Most changes are contingent upon DPS successfully refinancing its pension plan, expected to bring in $15 million to $18 million more per year. Among the changes getting the green light:

* High schools would receive $157 more per pupil while middle schools would receive $58 more per pupil. That's to bring them in line with the base funding amount of $3,403 that elementary schools receive per student. In 2007-08, elementary schools received 22 percent more than secondary schools.

* Elementary students qualifying for the federal free lunch program, an indicator of poverty, would receive $256 each while secondary schools would receive $290 per pupil. The higher amount for older students is intended to offset the decline in free lunch participation seen in secondary schools.

Also, 16 of the lowest-performing and highest-poverty schools would receive $100,000 each.

* Students identified as gifted and talented would receive $95 per pupil, while high-performing magnet programs, such as the International Baccalaureate program, would see funding boosts of more than 30 percent.

DPS Chief Operating Officer Tom Boasberg said the district is attempting to balance the needs of children living in poverty while also increasing resources for programs that attract middle-class families.

DPS is banking on its proposed pension transaction, expected to be completed by early March, to supply the extra dollars. Even without it, though, Boasberg said the district will be able to balance its budget for a second year, after cutting $83 million over five years.

The district also is counting on slight enrollment growth, projecting an additional 62 students in grades kindergarten through 12 and an extra 185 students if preschool is included. Only grades 6 through 8 are projected to decline, by 468 students, as DPS middle schools continue to struggle academically.

Principals will receive their budget figures on Feb. 8, and Boasberg said staffers are compiling budgets with the extra pension dollars and without them. With the pension money, schools are expected to receive between 5 and 11 percent more per student. Without it, their budgets would stay much the same.

While the new budget attempts to right some inequities, Boasberg said few schools would lose money. That's because new dollars would go first to schools that have received less in past years. Schools that have received more would not get as much. For example, a school that has received extra dollars for a special program would subtract that amount from any new money it is due.