The Superintendent’s Preliminary Budget Recommendations for the 2007-08 School Year present a budget of $428,245,930 for Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) — slightly less than the prior year’s budget of $428,554.470. This budget continues to hold the line on spending while directing the vast majority of resources to our core business: teaching and learning.
The 2007-08 budget focuses on supporting CPS’ five-year strategic plan, Building Futures, unanimously approved by the Board of Education in April 2007, by directing resources to best educational practices designed to strengthen academic performance. This budget also reflects continued reductions in staffing to balance expenditures with available resources.
Honoring a commitment made to voters in the November 2004 operating levy renewal campaign, the district undertook aggressive efforts to dramatically lower costs and bring staffing in line with enrollment over the past two years. To complete our rightsizing work, further personnel cuts were made in the 2007-08 General Operating Budget to bring staffing in line with enrollment. This budget also reflects reductions in non-personnel spending, including operational cost savings of $1.78 million achieved by two elementary school closures and two elementary school mergers.
Department heads used a zero-based budgeting process again this year for all non-personnel budgets in preparing centrally controlled budgets. Each budgeted expenditure was subject to a justification process to ensure the spending was necessary to support vital district operations.
Through these measures, the district is able to keep spending slightly below last year’s budget. The cost-reduction measures also make it possible for Cincinnati Public Schools to extend the life of its last new operating levy, which was approved in November 2000 and projected to last four years. However, the district’s financial forecasting indicates that, without additional resources or further extensive cost-cutting, a shortfall will exist in the 2008-09 school year.
These recommendations reflect a strong commitment to supporting the strategic plan through academic best practices and strengthened management efficiency, including several priorities to be implemented through continued, redirected or grant funding:
A pilot program through which federal funding is pooled with general operating funding to better support school strategic planning, eliminating a need for duplicate bookkeeping;
The Budget Commission contributed greatly to the development of this budget by its thoughtful consideration and input to the budget process. This advisory group, comprised of parents, teachers, principals, Central Office administrators and union leaders, provided valuable feedback on the Superintendent’s preliminary budget recommendations.