Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) leaders presented their proposed budget for the 2023/2024 school year to the school board.
Included in last week’s presentation were numbers for a baseline budget that allows MNPS to maintain this year’s services, along with requests for additional money to fund new programs. The baseline budget called for an extra $55 million to account for inflation and raised the needed funding to just over $1.1 billion.
MNPS spokesman Sean Braisted told The Tennessee Star in an email, “As we have done for the last few years, we’ve included a large menu of options based on stakeholder feedback over the years along with the costs to fund those programs. We do not expect or anticipate they will all be funded, and the continuity of federally funded initiatives will continue to be funded with ESSER through the end of next school year.”
The Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding will end next summer, requiring MNPS to increase its annual budget request or find alternative grants to continue programming. Nashville schools received $425 million in ESSER money and have used it to invest in tutoring, summer learning programs, reading support, mental health resources, teacher bonuses, laptops for students and staff, and putting school nurses on every campus, to combat the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Employee salaries are again at the forefront of the aspirational budget.
In previous years, district leaders have secured increased salaries for support staff while making MNPS teachers the highest-paid in the state. This year’s focus is on administrators, substitutes, and longevity pay. The additional amount needed to boost pay for school administrators is roughly $5.9 million.
This would be the first pay raise for principals and other school administrators in nearly a decade.
An additional $1.9 million is included for longtime staff topped out on the pay scale.
There is a funding request to incorporate “classroom associates.” These associates would be assigned to individual schools in general assistant roles but could also be utilized as substitute teachers. They would be employed full-time and eligible to participate in benefit and professional development programs. MNPS has requested a $12 million budget for this strategy.
The district is pursuing further funding of $11 million for student success centers, $5.1 million to reduce counselor-to-student ratios, $2.4 million for college and career readiness and advanced academics, and $700,000 for visual and performing arts. The proposed budget includes just over $1 million for family engagement specialists who would work to connect with communities around schools and encourage enrollment.
Braisted told The Star, “As Dr. Battle has noted at meetings about the budget, we do not total the aspirational items because we do not expect them all to be funded, and there may be strategies that cancel each other out if one is funded”
In summing up the proposed budget, the district spokesman said, “In order to maintain step increases for teachers and support employees, as well as cover increased inflationary costs such as insurance, utilities, and required increases in charter funding, the district will require additional funds to maintain the existing continuity of operations.” Braisted added, “We also provide an aspirational budget, or menu of options, for the School Board, Mayor, and/or Metro Council that include programs or initiatives that would seek to improve our current operations
The budget now heads to Mayor John Cooper, who will review it and decide how much he wishes to include in his city budget, which he is scheduled to present to Metro Council by April 30. MNPS will hold budget hearings and then approve a final budget by the end of June for the upcomming fiscal year, which begins on July 1.
The mayor and council can only approve a funding total; the city charter prevents them from directing funds to individual line items.
– – –
TC Weber is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. He also writes the blog Dad Gone Wild. Follow TC on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected]. He’s the proud parent of two public school children and the spouse of a public school teacher.
The term “base line budget” translated means that that is the BARE minimum that the new budget can be. It provides for built in year over year increases regardless of school population decreases or other pertinent changes. This blatantly inflationary provision in the state law should have been killed as part of the new state funding formula. You know, the formula that Einstein himself could not interpret. Of course that fits the purpose of keeping taxpayers in the dark on school funding.