APS Board Approves $604 Million Budget

Albuquerque parents will not see any funding cuts to their children’s schools next year, based on a $604 million budget passed by the Albuquerque Public Schools board Friday morning.

The plan trims $4.7 million – a cut of less than 1 percent of the district’s total operating budget – but will make those cuts by finding savings outside the schools. The district may also dip into its cash reserves to cover part of the shortfall.

State allocations for schools rose this year, but not enough for APS to keep pace with rising costs of utilities and teachers moving upward through the three-tier licensure system, entitling them to more pay. APS also had to contend with an enrollment drop of about 780 students, most of whom went to charter schools or left the district.

School-based budgets will shrink at schools where student enrollment dropped.

The budget plan was passed by the school board Friday, with one dissenting vote from board member David Robbins. Robbins said he thought the district should have looked into cutting school-based administrative positions, like secretaries and assistant principals.

Robbins said that increasingly sophisticated technology should allow the district to cut down on staff. Specifically, he said, with computers for processing grades and sending emails, clerical work should be easier and require fewer employees. He also said schools, especially high schools, have far more assistant principals than they used to.

“I know you can always say that things are different now, but 30, 40 years ago high schools had a principal and an assistant principal. Now they have a dean of students and activities director and all these things,” Robbins said. He said he would like to see all assistant principals required to teach a class.

Several board members disagreed with Robbins, contending that school-based administrators are important and directly support student learning.

Board member Kathy Korte said schools are now required to do more than ever.

“We need those secretaries, we need those assistant principals, because of the burdens that we are placing on our schools now. And that’s not just academic burdens,” Korte said. “There are other issues we need them to be handling, and that includes discipline and bullying and all the paperwork that we’re required to do now, and the testing and this, that and the other.”

The district made some modest increases to school-based funding, such as hiring more math teachers. Those teachers are needed because students must now take an extra year of math to graduate. The district also absorbed the cost of a middle school JROTC program that lost its previous funding from the National Guard.

The budget also eliminates furlough days that had been in the budget for the past two years. Non-school staff had been required to take unpaid days off, and teachers had to give up a paid training day.
— This article appeared on page C1 of the Albuquerque Journal