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Alpine School District explains FTE allocation formulas and continues full "hold harmless" for FY26
Summary
District staff outlined formulas used to allocate teacher and specialist full‑time equivalents (FTEs) for FY26 — including a continued full hold‑harmless year for secondary schools — and described projection methods, rounding changes and procedures to handle late growth.
Alpine School District staff presented the district’s formulas and assumptions for distributing full‑time equivalents for fiscal year 2026 and told the board they plan to continue a full “hold harmless” policy for secondary schools in FY26.
Derek Barnes, director of analytics and projections, and Bea, the district budget presenter, explained that staffing allocations rely on Average Daily Membership (ADM) projections, grade‑level ratios and multi‑year averages to smooth year‑to‑year enrollment fluctuations.
Why it matters: the allocation formulas determine how many classroom teachers, counselors and specialty positions each school receives, and they affect class size, program feasibility (for example, dual language immersion or ALL) and hiring timing across the district.
Key elements of the FTE allocation presentation: - Funding basis: staff said state funding and the district’s internal allocation use ADM (not raw Oct. 1 head counts) and that projections incorporate a multi‑year (10‑year) average for secondary schools to estimate ADM differences across a school year. - Hold harmless: the district will apply a full hold‑harmless adjustment for FY26 secondary allocations; staff said the last several years produced about 17–19 hold‑harmless FTEs and that FY26 includes roughly 18 such FTEs to smooth declines for schools in transition. - Totals and movement: staff reported roughly 1,450 secondary FTEs projected for FY26 (net growth of about 8.29 FTEs year over year), with junior highs showing a projected growth of about 36.1 FTEs and high schools showing a net decline of about 27.84 FTEs. Elementary allocations were reported at about 1,560 FTEs, a decline of about 18.03 from FY25 allocations. - Elementary rounding and specialty FTEs: staff described a recent change in rounding that first rounds each grade allocation to the hundredth and then sums and rounds the total for the school; staff said the change yielded about four to five additional elementary FTEs district‑wide versus the prior method. Specialty positions (for prep time, specials teachers) are calculated from teacher counts and the minimum specialty allocation is 0.5 FTE; smaller fractions are provided as hourly positions. - New‑school and short‑history treatment: for schools without a 10‑year history, staff said they use a shorter local average (for example, three years or the closest school) rather than the district 10‑year average so that young, high‑growth schools’ projections better reflect local trends. - Hiring timing and held‑back FTEs: supervisors said they will hold back a portion of discretionary elementary FTEs (staff cited a supervisory reserve of roughly 50 FTEs and a practice of holding about half) to allocate after enrollment stabilization in late spring; the district also has additional FTE authority from Truth in Taxation totaling 45 FTEs the board authorized in the prior year.
Bea summarized the state funding approach: “When we receive funding from the state, it is based not on October 1 counts necessarily. It's on the average daily membership,” and she explained that the projection methodology attempts to translate Oct. 1 head counts into expected ADM across the school year.
Board members raised concerns about how the formulas treat high‑growth schools and schools with rapid declines. One board member said the 10‑year averaging can undercount recent rapid growth and suggested the board and staff consider how/when to begin tracking incremental allocations for the three future districts to avoid last‑minute disputes. Staff said large‑ticket, district‑specific capital items will be tracked and adjusted during the eventual split, and that the FTE allocation process remains under supervisory and DLT review.
Ending: Staff said they will provide more detailed school‑level spreadsheets that compare current year FTEs to projected FY26 allocations and that supervisors will continue to meet with principals about split‑grade options, hourly hires and held‑back FTEs during the spring hiring window.
