Centrally Managed Funding

Starting in FY27, DCPS will no longer include centrally managed items as part of a school’s initial budget allocation.

What are centrally managed items?

Centrally Managed Programs:

Centrally managed items are programs and services that are coordinated and managed at the district level. At DCPS, these include school library materials, pool management and maintenance to support the 3^rd Grade Swim programming, grade level academies’ non-personnel and administrative premium costs, and centrally funded positions, such as itinerant ESOL teachers. 

Centrally Managed Administrative Add-ons:

Centrally managed items also include the costs of administrative add-ons associated with each union, such as costs for fingerprinting, substitutes, and department chair stipends.

What does this mean for schools?

These centrally managed positions, programs, and services that were previously included as part of school budgets will continue at schools. Centrally managed programs and services have always been budgeted in Central Services within “schoolwide services” and not directly on school budgets. However, schools’ initial allocation worksheets included these costs, which made school budget totals higher during budget formulation and inflated when compared to the OCFO budget book. However, starting in FY27, centrally managed programs and services will no longer be listed as line items on initial school budgets and worksheets, nor will administrative add-ons be included as part of the total position cost. This will result in the DCPS school submitted budget worksheets posted online  aligning with the budgets published in the OCFO budget book.

Why is DCPS making this change now?

DCPS is continuously working to increase clarity and transparency when it comes to school budgets. In past years, DCPS included centrally managed items as part of schools’ initial allocations to represent the programs and services at individual schools. Central Services manages these services and programs, such as pool programming, to remove the administrative burden of execution, coordination and day-to-day management of these contracts and programs.

While funding for centrally managed programming was included in the initial allocations to represent these services and programs, this funding never sat on final school budgets. As a result, the display of schoolwide services funding for centrally managed programming on school initial allocation worksheets led to discrepancies between the DCPS published school budget worksheets and the OCFO Budget Book.

DCPS initial allocations have historically appeared to be higher than the OCFO Budget Book as a result of representing centrally managed funds on school worksheets. To reduce confusion and align better with our city partners, DCPS is removing centrally managed items from initial allocation worksheets. Schools and communities will now see budgets that are consistent across published budget materials. There will be no changes to the services and programs schools receive as a result of this.

How will this be represented in the FY27 budget?

For FY27 schools will not be required to use their allocations to budget for centrally managed programs, services, and personnel. FY27 will be a transition year for this change, and therefore initial school allocations will have an estimated total cost for centrally managed items. For comparison purposes, the budget change will reflect the change in the school allocation, year-over-year, without these centrally managed items. All references to centrally managed items will be removed in FY28.

The Average Position Cost will only consist of salaries and benefits.

Despite not seeing allocations on their budgets, schools will continue to receive their typical centrally managed programming.