APS holds community budget workshop as enrollment decline tightens $2.2 billion budget

Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) held a public budget workshop in which district leaders outlined the $2,200,000,000 budget and gathered community priorities as enrollment-driven funding declines and voters decide on capital bonds.

CFO Renette Apodaca told attendees that "school budgets are complicated," explaining that APS funding comes from multiple sources with legal limits on how money may be used. She said the district's operational budget represents about 48.5% of the total and capital funds about 29.3%, and that roughly 97% of operational dollars come from the state.

The meeting focused on how to allocate limited resources and what to preserve as enrollment — the basis for most APS funding — falls. Apodaca said enrollment decline over the past decade "directly affects our funding, which is largely based on student headcount," and noted that about two-thirds of operational funds are directed to individual schools.

The community was invited to a table exercise to simulate budgeting trade-offs. A district survey of more than 5,300 respondents released at the session showed 47% of respondents identified…