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Leaving Children Behind:
The Underfunding of D.C. Public Schools Building Repair and Capital Budget Needs

A Parents United for the D.C. Public Schools
Civic Leader Advisory Committee Report
July 2003

THE PROPOSED BUDGET JEOPARDIZES SCHOOL MODERNIZATION

The foregoing pictures permit only one conclusion: schools such as Raymond, Stanton, Coolidge and Roosevelt, and the dozens of other DC public schools in a similar state of physical deterioration must be modernized or replaced as soon as possible -- precisely what is called for by the DCPS Master Plan.  Full funding for the  Plan – that is, the funding necessary to modernize the District’s schools – requires over $200 million in capital funds for DCPS annually for the next six years and beyond.  While actual capital expenditures for DCPS  in FY 2001 and FY 2002 were not at this level (in FY 2003 capital expenditures reached $222 million), they at least have been sufficient to permit DCPS to complete or nearly complete modernization of 10 schools and move an additional 20 into the design/bidding and feasibility study phases.

Unfortunately, the District government’s proposed FY 2004 Budget and Financial Plan (hereafter “Proposed Budget”) now pending before Congress provides far less funding than is needed to rebuild the city’s schools.  The Proposed Budget includes capital budgets for DCPS for a six-year period, FY 2004 to FY 2009.  As the table below indicates, the Proposed Budget for each year falls well below the amounts requested by DCPS as necessary to implement the Master Plan.  Most ominously, the Proposed Budget for FY 2007 proposes a paltry $21 million and calls for no capital funding whatsoever for FY 2008 and 2009.

MAYOR’S PROPOSED DCPS CAPITAL BUDGET FY04-FY09 (Dollars are in millions)

 

FY04

FY05

FY06

FY07

FY08

FY09

DCPS Request

$313

$401

$372

$294

$314

$320

Mayor’s Proposed Budget

$168

$173

$149

$21

$0

$0

Difference (shortfall):

($145)

($228)

($223)

($273)

($314)

($320)

Source: Mayor’s FY2004 Proposed Budget and Financial Plan, 2004-2009 Capital Appendices.

The shortfalls between the DCPS requests and the Proposed Budget amounts for FY 2004-FY 2006 and the virtual elimination of capital funding for DCPS in subsequent years severely impair the modernization of DC public schools that is so desperately required.  Although the Proposed Budget funds the next two rounds of modernization projects (but only these two rounds), it fails to fund essential health and safety work, including asbestos abatement, compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act, and critical heating, ventilation and air conditioning projects.  Moreover, the Proposed Budget’s de minimis funding for FY 2007 and elimination of a DCPS capital budget for 2008 and FY 2009 precludes even a ratcheting down of the modernization program’s current rate of ten schools per year.  Indeed, with the drastically reduced capital funding under the Proposed Budget, DCPS is now forced to consider abandoning the modernization program altogether and returning to the piecemeal projects of the past to attempt to ensure that its aging school houses can continue to operate in compliance with health and safety codes.  Given that the average D.C. public school is over 65 years old, with many schools built more than a century ago, this “band-aid” approach will condemn District children to continued dilapidated schools and end DCPS’s current progress toward the high-quality educational space envisioned by the adoption of the Master Plan.

To make matters worse, in addition to the substantial reductions in the proposed six-year capital budget, the Proposed Budget also calls for a reduction in DCPS’s maintenance budget for FY 2004 from $44 million to $17 million.  This portion of the DCPS operating budget serves as the source of funding for the performance of day-to-day maintenance in the District’s schools, as well as for the performance of its most urgent school building repairs, such as fire damage, asbestos abatement, and critical heating and ventilation problems.  Left with less than one-half of the funding it requested as necessary to these functions, DCPS will likely have to eliminate more than half of the most necessary anticipated school building maintenance for FY 2004.  This significant funding shortfall impairs DCPS’s ability to respond rapidly to threats to our children’s health and safety and will likely eliminate DCPS’s ability to respond to less dire facility problems, thus continuing the downward slide of our school buildings.