Testimony of Dr. Michelle J. Walker-Davis, Executive Director DC Public Charter School Board

April 11, 2024

FY25 Budget Oversight Hearing 

Testimony of Dr. Michelle Walker-Davis, Executive Director 

DC Public Charter School Board Hearing on FY25 Budget Oversight

Committee of the Whole 

April 5, 2024

Good [morning/ afternoon], Chairman Mendelson and members of the Committee of the Whole. Thank you for the opportunity to testify at today’s Fiscal Year 25 Budget Oversight hearing. I am Dr. Michelle Walker-Davis, Executive Director of the DC Public Charter School Board.

Supporting Schools

I would like to thank Mayor Bowser for the historic 12.4% increase to the UPSFF. This demonstrates that investing in our children and adult learners remains a priority, despite a fiscally difficult year for the District. We believe it is important to capture the full cost of education in the UPSFF, and we hope to continue to see such investments in students for years to come. I’d also like to thank the mayor for increasing the adult weight to 1.0 and the at-risk weight to 0.30. Adult schools provide programs which lead to successful careers within DC’s communities, and this investment will allow schools to support more students.

We also recognize that despite historic investments in education, many schools will face cuts due to the loss in federal funding and rising costs. These cuts will require school leaders to make tough decisions. Less buying power may mean personnel reductions for some schools and limited programming in others. While the end of ESSER does present challenges for schools, Mayor Bowser’s proposed funding increase will soften the impact.

Going into this budget cycle, we know students, teachers and families have many priorities, but the one we hear most consistently is safety. While schools are confident in their abilities to provide safe learning environments within their walls, leaders and families continually express concern about neighborhood safety and commuting. Safety requires that all agencies collaborate, hear the concerns of schools, and work to address concerns within their spheres of influence. If we want students to regularly attend school, we have to do more to ensure their safety getting to and from school. We also need to provide school leaders with the resources they require to support internal safety efforts, and we as agencies, need to make sure we communicate with them regarding daily safety issues and larger strategies. We hope to see the Council fund the School Safety Enhancement Group’s recommendations, especially grant funding for hard infrastructure and improved communication and information sharing efforts.

In addition, appropriate school facilities are key to keeping students safe. In an environment with rising costs and inflation, our LEAs depend on the increases in the facilities allowance promised to them to maintain and improve their campuses. By removing planned increases in the Budget Support Act (BSA), schools may need to hold off on necessary renovations which support both learning and safety. We hope to see the Council strike the promised language from the BSA in support of schools. Students in both DCPS and public charter schools deserve access to high quality facilities.

Families and school leaders are also concerned about mental health. School leaders report more students are missing school due to poor mental health following the pandemic, and that safety issues across the District are a strain on students mentally. DC PCSB supports restoring some of the cuts to the School Based Mental Health program to ensure more students have access to resources and clinicians at their campuses.

DC PCSB’s Budget

As you may know, DC PCSB operates within legislatively mandated accounting principles which are different from most agencies of the DC government. In practice, it means we must budget several years in advance while maintaining a fund reserve balance for anticipated and unanticipated expenses. DC PCSB receives funding from assessing an administrative fee to each public charter LEA instead of through the annual Council appropriation process. This funding allows us to support our mission to provide DC students a quality education that makes them feel valued and prepares them for lifelong learning, fulfilling careers, and economic security. To work toward our mission and vision in FY25, we plan to further invest in data security, meeting our Strategic Roadmap priorities, and implementing ASPIRE, our revised accountability system. These investments will complement increases to the UPSFF to further promote high-quality schools for our students.

We also hope to see the Council include a long-term funding solution for St. Coletta Public Charter School in the FY25 budget. The school has a mission to empower children and adults with intellectual disabilities to discover their full potential. Their program is unique and valuable to the District - serving DC families for almost two decades and is one we must ensure has the resources needed to holistically support its students.

Given St. Coletta’ s unique population and the additional staffing required to implement its programming, the District needs a new and sustainable method for funding this worthy program. We hope to see the Council implement the Level 4+ special education weight from the 2023 Funding Study or raise the Special Education School weight from 1.17 to 1.9. One of these methods should provide the needed long-term solution for the St. Coletta community as well as support River Terrace Education Campus students. Last year, funding was reappropriated from our budget to fill gaps for St. Coletta. We ask that you do not repeat this approach again in FY25. It is not only unfair to the 68 other LEAs whose fees went to subsidize a policy shortcoming affecting one LEA, but it is also financially unsustainable, and will severely impede our ability to fully implement our upcoming oversight activities.

DC PCSB’s Financial Oversight

Part of our role as the sole authorizer of DC’s public charter schools is financial oversight of our public charter LEAs. Schools create their budgets in compliance with the Common Financial Reporting Standards (CFRS), and they send their budgets to DC PCSB each July. Our finance team conducts reviews and produces reports to ensure financial stability and fiscal prudence. If our finance team identifies any areas of concern, they will reach out to the school for more information. They thoroughly examine school budgets for any loss or deficits in cash flow, reserve amounts, and expenditure patterns. In addition to budget submissions, our team also collects quarterly or monthly financial statements from schools to monitor fiscal responsibility.

DC PCSB produces a Financial Analysis Report (FAR) each year that details all schools’ financial stability and long-term solvency through a series of common metrics and narrative information. If a school does not meet certain financial measures, they can be placed on our monitoring list, which at any given time, usually only includes a few LEAs. Based on the financial measures an LEA missed, we may require monthly financial statements, conduct closer analysis of those statements, and/or request additional documentation. If our staff determines that an LEA shows an ongoing pattern of unreliable or untimely financials, we may issue a Financial Corrective Action Plan (FCAP) with the goal of helping the LEA get back on track with their finances.

Conclusion

Lastly, I want to emphasize that stable and predictable funding through the UPSFF supports LEAs to provide DC students with quality and equitable programming. Schools need quality teachers, nurses, mental health services, strong leadership, and systems to drive equitable change. Given the personnel required for such work, schools need to know that they can expect the UPSFF to capture the full costs of education. It is a challenge for schools when the city decides to allocate any education funding outside the formula.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak, and I am happy to answer any questions.