The Albuquerque Public Schools board unanimously approved an over-$2.16 billion budget Wednesday evening, almost a 12% increase over the budget they approved a year ago.
That total includes federal grants, capital funding and other spending. The biggest slice of the pie, the district’s operational fund, is almost $990 million, and the district plans to spend over $928 million in operational dollars. A year ago, the overall budget was closer to $1.94 billion, and the operational fund was about $869 million.
“There’s been years in the past where we were having to make substantial cuts,” Superintendent Scott Elder told the Journal. “This was a much more stable process, it was run in a way that aligns with what the board is trying to do, and it still needs further evolution … but I do think for all of us, it gives us a great feeling.”
APS has faced declining enrollment over the last 10 years. At the end of the 2012-2013 school year, it had 87,300 students. At last count this school year, the district enrolled about 70,400 students, but expects to be funded for just under 69,000 during the coming fiscal year. For every student the district loses, according to Wednesday’s budget presentation to the board, APS loses $11,000.
Even so, the district’s funding has significantly grown over the years, especially in those most recent. For the coming fiscal year, which begins July 1, APS estimates $904.6 million in funding from the state, just over $99 million more than last year. In fiscal year 2022, APS was allocated about $719.3 million.
Much of this year’s almost $100 million increase though, district officials pointed out, is going toward measures approved by state lawmakers — and, more specifically, toward paying employees.
Some of the most expensive of those legislative measures include 6% salary increases for public school employees, which is expected to cost APS over $40 million; upping the amount of time students must spend in school, another over $13 million; and raising the base salaries of licensed educational assistants, expected to cost almost $8.4 million.
In fact, the vast majority of the district’s operational budget goes toward salaries and benefits, Senior Director of Budget Julianne Hix said. APS currently has nearly 12,500 employees, down from about 15,300 employees in the 2018-2019 school year, Elder said.
“That’s through attrition, through the elimination of positions, through consolidating programs,” he said. “We’ve been correspondingly cutting the workforce, along with the budget.”
APS is also in the midst of a right-sizing effort, one that’s been percolating for some time. As part of that, district officials in March unveiled plans to move La Luz Elementary School students to nearby MacArthur Elementary and lease the La Luz campus to a charter school.
But that doesn’t mean the district is in the black yet.
APS is still expecting to spend some $4.5 million more than it has in funding, according to Wednesday’s presentation. In April, the district estimated a budget deficit around $6 million. Last year, the deficit was a little over $10 million. The deficit could be covered by possible funding increases, savings from vacancies or by dipping into the district’s cash reserves, APS Executive Director of Budget and Strategic Planning Rosalinda Montoya said.
In written responses to questions, Montoya said she didn’t know when was the last time the district didn’t face a budget deficit, but said it has since at least the 2016 fiscal year.
This year’s budget deficit, Montoya said, largely came from underfunding from the state, a factor she also cited in last year’s budget deficit. This year, Montoya said APS wasn’t properly funded to raise the base salaries of licensed educational assistants, as mandated by lawmakers this year. The state allocated only $3.4 million to the district.
‘Enormous’ budget
The district’s budget is due to the state Public Education Department by next Thursday, a PED spokeswoman said. The PED then has a month to sign off on it.
Last year, the school board balked at the budget proposal presented to them by the district, citing concerns over its growth and over not having enough information about how the money would benefit the district. The board tabled the budget just days before their deadline to submit a budget to the PED for review.
This year, the district broke down in percentages how its spending would address each of the board’s goals, which are largely centered around improving student achievement over the next five years.
Some board members still expressed concerns about how precisely aligned the budget is to their goals and APS’ current situation with regard to its declining enrollment.
“A $2.2 billion budget is enormous,” finance committee chair Crystal Tapia-Romero said. “Right now, you don’t see it exactly aligned the way it should be, especially with the decrease of enrollment that’s happened over eight years.”
The district’s budget won’t be this way forever though, Montoya said, pointing out that federal pandemic relief money will go away eventually.
Tapia-Romero also acknowledged that more alignment will come with time.
“We’re going to move there,” she said.
