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District of Columbia Board of Education825 North Capitol Street, NE September 22, 2003 Honorable Anthony A. Williams, Mayor Honorable Linda W. Cropp, Chairman Honorable Kevin P. Chavous, Chair Dear Mayor Williams, Chairman Cropp, and Committee Chair Chavous: The D.C. Board of Education (Board) appreciates the efforts of the Council of the District of Columbia and the Mayor to address the budgetary challenge for Fiscal Year 2004 caused by the negotiated pay increases for our employees and the loss of revenue in the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) budget. In Fiscal Year 2003, Congress approved a $770-million-budget for DCPS. At the start of the fiscal year, the Board was asked to cut $30 million to help address the city's deficit as we began the school year. We made the necessary adjustments to absorb the cut, to pay $13.5 million back into the Tobacco Fund through savings in special education costs, and to fund a 5 percent raise for our teachers, which were included in the per pupil funding formula. Most of our cost savings was realized by delaying the purchase of textbooks, scaling back the non-capital maintenance and repair of our school buildings, and laying off employees in both schools and the central administration. We will end Fiscal Year 2003 without a deficit as we did for Fiscal Year 2002, the first full fiscal year that the Board was in charge. Unfortunately, the budget of $738 million (and another $9.5 million set aside for the cost of the No Child Left Beyond Act) provided by the Council and the Mayor for the new school year leaves us unable to meet our current commitments. The negotiated pay increases approved by the Mayor, the Council, and the Board alone for this year total more than $40 million. As we noted above, we did not receive the $40-million increase in our budget needed to meet this obligation. We appreciate your offer to address the shortfall by providing an additional $21 million. We are currently identifying expenditure cuts including long term measures sufficient to fund the remaining cost of the pay raises. As to the proposed conditions for the additional funding, we welcome your request to establish an intergovernmental task force to reach consensus on the cost of public education and how much our city is willing to spend to fund it. The task force should include the Mayor, the Council, PTA leadership, charter school leadership, and the Board. The task force must be charged with the authority to revise the "per-pupil funding formula". We hope this will enable us to speak with one voice about the needs of our students, parents, and instructional core. We disagree with the proposal to amend the Home Rule Charter (Charter) to transfer line-item budget authority to the Mayor and the Council. We believe it is unwise to bifurcate the responsibility of setting policy for the public school system. The District’s experience under the Financial Authority showed that diffused accountability cripples the superintendent's ability to manage our schools. That experiment left our school system in disarray from which we are still working to recover. Perhaps more important, enlisting Congress to amend the Charter sets a dangerous precedent. We believe the Charter belongs to the citizens of the District and should be amended only by the voters. The District’s Home Rule is limited in self-government as it is; it will become even more fragile - if not meaningless - if you ask Congress to amend it to resolve a local dispute. Finally, we cannot agree to your request to reduce the school system's budget by $21 million for fiscal year 2005 by leaving the funding for pay increases out of the "per pupil funding" formula. The pay increase for our employees is a continuing expense and will not end after one year. The Board is eager to work with the Council and the Mayor to include the increased cost of our employees’ raises in the District’s formula. It is important we maintain fiscal discipline now that we have eliminated the structural deficit from the school system's budget. Thank you for agreeing to work with us in the spirit of supporting and improving our public school system as a unified government. Sincerely, Miriam Saez, Vice President, Appointed Member cc: Members of the Council of the District of Columbia |
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