Understanding the DCPS Budget Worksheet Data Alongside the Mayor’s Budget Book

There are some differences between the DCPS school budget worksheet data and the Mayor’s Budget Book.

The DCPS submitted budget worksheets represent the full submitted budget for schools across all fund sources and program codes. This means the DCPS budget worksheets will reflect more funding on school budgets than the budget book. Below is a list of programs that move from school cost centers and onto the OSSE budget or into DCPS Schoolwide budget codes creating differences in budget and FTE totals.

To access the Mayor’s Budget Book, click here.

Reasons for fewer funds in the Budget Book: 

Budgeted Items at Schools Moved to Schoolwide 

There are costs itemized at the school level that are administered centrally and placed on the DCPS schoolwide budget codes. These do not show up in the CFO budget book at the school cost center. These items include:

  • Administrative Add-ons as part of the total position cost (including Substitutes, IMPACTplus bonuses, background checks, etc.)
  • Itinerant Teachers for Multilingual Learners (ML)
  • MOU with DPR for the Pool program including elementary pool programming
  • MOU with DCPL for library programming

Below is an example of an administrative add-on included in the DCPS worksheet, but not included in the Mayor’s Budget Book within the school specific cost center.

Schoolwide items administered centrally (relevant numbers boxed in black): Graphic A: Mayor’s budget book shows 1.0 principals at a cost of ~$230K. Graphic B: The DCPS worksheet shows 1.0 Principals at a cost of $235K. The ~$5K additional on the DCPS worksheet is cost of administrative add-ons. Thus, the DCPS budget worksheet reflects more funding.

Graphic A:

Graphic B:

While the focus of the above example was to demonstrate administrative add-ons, this same set of images also shows a nuance in split fund FTEs between local and at-risk for the Assistant Principal explained below.

At-Risk Fund Source (relevant numbers boxed in blue): In the Mayor’s budget book, at-risk and non-at-risk program codes are in different section. A position funded by both, will be split across those two sections. In the DCPS worksheet (Graphic B), the position is displayed only once with the different fund sources, including at-risk, displayed in columns.  In the example above, the budget book (Graphic A), shows the Assistant Principal funded with at-risk dollars in two places with one line of 1.7 FTE and another line with 1.3 Assistant Principal FTEs. The DCPS worksheet shows the individual Assistant Principals by type in three lines as 1.0 FTE. Both sources contain the full 3.0 FTEs for the Assistant Principals.

Interagency Funding Loaded At OSSE

Non-local, Title funding such as Title I, Title II, and Title IV-B is ultimately loaded onto OSSE’s budget (agency code GD0) and not DCPS’ (agency code GA0). These funds are included on the DCPS budget worksheets but in the budget book they are separated across sections under each school’s profile.

The below example shows an FTE funded through interagency funding (Title I) that will not be visible in the Mayor’s Budget Book in the same line item as other teacher FTEs.

Graphic C:

Graphic D:

Interagency Funding (relevant numbers boxed in green): This Title I funded reading specialist is visible in the DCPS worksheet, Graphic C, alongside other teachers at the school that are locally funded. Since Title I is an interagency fund loaded to OSSE, this reading specialist, will be found in the “Budget by Fund Detail” at the bottom of the school profile in the Mayor’s Budget Book (Graphic D). It will not be included in the same budget line item as the locally funded teachers in the Mayor’s budget.

Note that on the DCPS worksheet, the amount left in local funds in a black box (7.2K) is the administrative add-ons cost, explained in the first example, and will not be included in the school’s budget book total as these funds are loaded to a schoolwide budget code.

FTE alignment between the DCPS budget worksheets and the Budget Book

10-month instructional aides including aides supporting general education, special education, and multilingual learners historically have served a 32-hour tour of duty, instead of a 40-hour tour of duty. When displayed in the budget book, these positions are recorded as a 0.74 FTE (full time equivalent). The DCPS budget worksheets, however, itemize these budgeted positions as 1.0, to signify it is a single position. As a result, the FTE count in the budget book will be less than the DCPS budget worksheets. Both sources are sharing the same amount of budgeted instructional aides, each in their own way.

Positions on the DCPS school budget worksheets are separated and itemized, but in the budget book some positions may be combined into a single program code.

This next set of images contains two examples of how some positions are itemized on the DCPS worksheet, but combined in a single budget line, or program code, in the Mayor’s Budget Book.

Local Program Code Alignment

All of the RW-3s and RW-5s are combined into a single program code in the Mayor’s Budget Book.

Graphic E:

Graphic F:

In the Mayor’s budget book (Graphic E) there are 8 FTEs listed in the RW-3 program code. In the DCPS worksheet (Graphic F) these positions are itemized to show three RW-5s and five RW-3s budgeted. The total cost of $422K in the Mayor’s Budget Book aligns to the total cost of the RW-3s and RW-5s in the DCPS worksheet minus the cost of the administrative add-ons for each position.

ELL UPSFF and At-Risk Overage Fund Sources

FTEs funded by Elementary and Secondary EL UPSFF funds and at-risk overage are combined into a single budget line, or program code in the Mayor’s Budget Book and are itemized in the DCPS School Budget Worksheets.

Graphic G:

Graphic H:

On the DCPS budget worksheet (Graphic H), the 5 Kindergarten, 6 First Grade and 2 of the split funded Second Grade teachers at this Dual Language School are funded by the EL UPSFF fund source. In the DCPS Worksheet, all of these teachers are listed in the same section as other General Education teachers that are funded with local funds. In the Mayor’s Budget Book (Graphic G), however, these 13 FTEs are separated from the locally funded General Education teachers and combined with other positions that are funded by the EL UPSFF fund source regardless of the position type. In Graphic G above, these 13 FTEs are part of the 30.2 FTEs funded by Secondary EL UPSFF fund source, which is titled, ESL Secondary in the Mayor’s Budget Book.

In addition to this fund source configuration being true for Elementary EL UPSFF, FTEs funded by At-Risk Overage will be part of the At-Risk fund source in the DCPS worksheet, but in the Mayor’s Budget Book the FTEs will be combined with all FTEs in a single line item for At-Risk Overage.