May 5 Special Finance Meeting

Board members present were Committee Chair Abdul Abdi, Joyner Emerick, Chair Colin Beachy, and Vice-Chair Kim Ellison. This was a short meeting, and a conclusion to the April 28 Finance Committee meeting.

Of the $10.7 million to be added back into the budget this year, $1.6 of it will go to Adult Education. MPS Senior Executive Officer Ryan Strack said that we have a structural imbalance in this fund that the district will have to address. Racially identifiable elementary schools will receive $2.3 million, for student support and ESPs. Secondary schools will receive $5.1 million. If MPS receives compensatory funding this legislative session, this is where it will go.

$1.4 million will be allocated to the district’s Internal Service Fund. This is what covers insurance needs, and right now it has a negative balance. MPS will need to eventually restructure this fund. Longfellow Alternative High School will receive $270,000, which will pay for more teacher positions. Strack insinuated that this school’s funding model is unsustainable.

The staffing impact of adding these monies back into the budget across the district are as follows:

• ESP: +64.2

• Adult Ed: +17.7

• B22 teaching: +13.2

• Counselors, Social Workers, Librarians: +12

• 107.1 total reinstated positions

All of this data and more is available on budget.mpsschools.org.

Final budget resolutions will be presented to the board on May 12, with voting taking place on June 9.