PGCPS outlines Maryland Blueprint per-pupil funding, flags special-education and reporting challenges

Prince George's County Public Schools officials presented a detailed walk-through of the Maryland Blueprint per-pupil allotment (PPA) and school-based budgeting at the board's May 29, 2025 meeting, laying out how demographics determine funding and highlighting major gaps between program funding and actual costs.

The presentation, led by Superintendent House and Chief Financial Officer Lisa Howe with budget director Siobhan (Shavon) Smith and other finance staff, explained that state Blueprint revenue is calculated using an eligible-student count and then allocated to schools by demographics — including free-and-reduced-price meal status (compensatory education), multilingual-learner status, special-education classification and pre-K tiers. District staff told the board that foundation funding is intended to cover basic school needs but does not account for programming such as art, athletics, small-school base costs or safety and security.

District staff said the PPA varies widely across school types and even within a single school depending on each student's bundled demographics: an example in the presentation showed individual student PPAs ranging from about $9,722 for a student with only foundation funding to more than $36,000 for a student who also qualifies for multilingual-learner, compensatory education and special-education funding. Staff emphasized that at least 75% of specified Blueprint program funds must be allocated directly to schools.

Why it matters: the Blueprint is a statutory change that alters how state funds flow and imposes reporting and accountability requirements. The district must reach full compliance by FY 2027, deposit monthly financial data into a new PowerSchool reporting system, and may seek a waiver to buy additional time while implementation work continues.

Key details from the presentation: - Enrollment and timing: Blueprint funding is based on the prior year's Sept. 30 enrollment; PGCPS managers said projected enrollment for FY26 (27,157 students) exceeded the funded count (25,706), creating a built-in funding gap the district must absorb in its FY26 budget. - Charter allocations: The district described a charter-allocation formula that begins with Blueprint revenue (foundation, comparable wage index, MLL and compensatory education) and transportation; the district calculates a net charter allocation after a 2% administrative deduction and potential allowable exclusions (for example countywide obligations such as certain debt service or other post-employment benefits). District staff said charters receive a combination of direct allocation plus centrally provided services (for example, special-education services provided on charters' behalf) and that the total charter school budget on the district's modeling was roughly $107 million (inclusive of services provided by the district). - Special-education funding gap: Finance staff presented a district-wide special-education “overage” (the difference between total SPED costs and SPED revenue) of approximately $265 million in aggregate; when the district excluded certain categories (nonpublic placements and SPED transportation) the conservative overage used for charter calculations was roughly $178 million. District staff said federal and other unrestricted revenue sources reduce but do not eliminate the overage and that guidance from the state still leaves questions about what to include in calculations. - Centrally managed costs and mapping: The presenters repeatedly noted that about a half-billion dollars of centrally managed costs currently sit in central-office cost centers even though they support schools (examples include district-level nurses, induction/mentoring, and other positions). Blueprint requires mapping budget and actual expenditures to the five Blueprint program categories at the school or program level; the district described this as highly manual and a major operational challenge that drove the decision to request a waiver for full compliance timelines. - Minimum school funding (MSF): The district model aims to deliver at least 75% of Blueprint program revenue to each school over the multi-year rollout. Staff said their initial goal for FY26 was to reach 72% in school allocations as they transition to the 75% requirement by FY27; changes to Title I and other federal grants and required investments in certain schools affected allocations during the rebalancing process.

Board members and the public asked several follow-up questions. Board members pressed the administration on teacher compensation and comparable-wage indexing; Chief Howe and labor negotiators noted ongoing collective-bargaining discussions and said the district built salary assumptions into the budget while reserving the ability to adjust after settlements. Board members also asked about charter facility costs (district staff said capital funding and charter facility costs are not covered by the district operating allocations and that most charters are responsible for their own facilities) and about whether centrally managed federal grants could be distributed directly to charter schools (district staff said that practice would require legal review and is not the district's current approach).

What remains unresolved: presenters and board members identified several items where state or regulatory guidance is still needed or evolving — specifically, exact COMAR interpretation on allowable countywide exclusions, whether nonpublic placement and transportation should be included in some spread-overage calculations, and the details of the waiver process the state will publish. Staff also said the district lacks an ERP and automated processes for dollar-level mapping and that implementing those systems will be labor intensive.

The presentation closed with staff offering to provide further details on specialty program costs, charter-specific breakdowns and the final MSF tallies after the district completed its FY26 budget reconciliations; no formal board action was taken at the end of the presentation.