To Survive the Funding Cliff, Save What’s New by Trimming the Old
While school districts enjoyed record budgets over the last few years thanks to CARES, ESSER, and ARP dollars, district leaders are now wrestling with the challenge of reduced funding. The reality is that students’ increased needs persist as budgets are decreasing while costs are continually increasing. And, for districts facing declining enrollment, the funding gap is even larger.
Given this, returning to pre-pandemic budgets is not an option. Taking a strategic budgeting approach can help districts navigate and survive the funding cliff while preserving much needed services for students. This following post is part of our series, “Navigating—and Surviving—the Funding Cliff: Strategies for Maintaining ESSER-Funded Services Despite Declining Resources and Increasing Costs,” which shares best practices and actionable strategies for continuing to meet post-pandemic student needs and maximizing the impact of every dollar despite declining resources.
NAVIGATING—AND SURVIVING—THE FUNDING CLIFF
To survive the funding cliff, save what's new by trimming the old
While school districts have enjoyed bigger than usual budgets over the last few years thanks to CARES, ESSER, and ARP dollars, district leaders are now wrestling with decreased budgets and growing costs while increased student needs from during the pandemic persist. Having observed many hundreds of school districts tighten their budgets, I have seen two common approaches districts take when faced with shrinking budget dollars:
Cut grant funded positions when the grant runs out
Cut the new stuff and keep the old
While seemingly uncontroversial, are these cuts really strategic? What if the ESSER granted-funded and the newly hired positions are more impactful for addressing learning loss and the pandemic trauma than some spending decisions made before the pandemic?
In many districts, rethinking all the preexisting line items, from custodial, to staffing, to bus routes, or even special education—could free up many of the dollars needed to keep the high-impact mental health counselors, behavior specialists, instructional coaches and reading teachers hired with ESSER funds.
What does custodial staffing have to do with paying for reading teachers, you ask? A dollar is a dollar, and every dollar saved in one line can be reinvested in another.
A different way to approach spending cuts, and a free tool
Identifying opportunities to shift resources that have long been part of the budget can be a powerful tool for maximizing the impact of every dollar, but it can be tough to know where to look for savings. That’s why I partnered with the Smarter School Spending Initiative, now led by the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA), to help create a tool that can suggest areas that might be trimmed to free up funds; the Smarter School Spending Screening & Sizing Tool.
The Screening & Sizing Tool helps identify potential opportunities to reallocate resources to the district's strategic priorities. To use the tool, the district answers a few straightforward questions that do not require data collection. The tool helps review a long list of potential opportunities worthy of a deeper dive. The tool can help districts consider opportunities that at first glance may not seem to have high potential but are in fact worthy of further investigation. It’s easy to use, and it’s free! Check it out here.
Shifting resources in action
Here are two examples of how districts shifted resources to better support their strategic priorities:
In looking at historical spending, one district of 5,000 students realized that reconfiguring the traditional bus routes could save $350,000—enough to fund four much-needed reading teachers.
Another district realized that rethinking how students with special needs are served could raise achievement and reduce spending by millions that could be reinvested in general education supports to better serve both general education and special education students.
Navigating and surviving the funding cliff
As your district seeks to tighten spending, consider taking a more strategic approach to what gets cut rather than the common practices of ending what was grant-funded or new. In many cases, these grant-funded or new programs were introduced to meet a critical, previously unmet need, and that need persists. Instead, take a closer look at where there may be opportunities to shift resources from past spending decisions to continue investing in your district’s current priorities.
To learn more, check out Nathan Levenson’s book:
Smarter Budgets, Smarter Schools: How to Survive and Thrive in Tight Times, 2nd Edition.
