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PGCPS budget director explains Blueprint: '75% of funding must follow the student,' leaving limited flexible dollars
Summary
Director Siobhan Smith walked the committee through the state 'Blueprint' student‑based funding formula, explaining that at least 75% of funding must follow students, allocations are calculated using prior‑year certified enrollment, and structural gaps in special education, transportation and small‑school funding force the district to subsidize some schools from limited discretionary funds.
Siobhan Smith, Director of Budget and Management Services, told the committee the state "Blueprint" law prescribes a student‑based budgeting (SBB) approach: funding is formula‑driven, tied to prior‑year certified enrollment, and at least 75% of district funding must "follow the student" to the school (the Minimum School Funding floor). Smith said the district does not set per‑pupil amounts; the law does. She described the mechanics: certified enrollment (usually as of Sept. 30) is multiplied by per‑pupil weights, locked staffing costs (for principals, special education mandated positions, etc.) are subtracted, and the remaining net allocation is the school's SBB, over which principals have discretion.
Smith explained the district can use up to roughly 25% of funding flexibility to subsidize schools that would otherwise be underfunded, but those subsidies come at the expense of other district funds and do not apply to charter schools. She used a simplified example: three schools with identical total enrollment can receive materially different funding streams depending on concentrations of compensatory education, multilingual learners and students with disabilities; in the example a high‑need school received $2.0 million while another received $975,000 despite both having 100 students.
Smith listed persistent funding challenges: the flat per‑pupil rate for students with disabilities does not reflect varied individual needs; the federal government covers only a small share of special education costs ("maybe 5 to 10%"), leaving the district to absorb the overage. Transportation funding is also insufficient, specialty programs and athletics lack dedicated Blueprint funding, and small schools face "lumpy" fixed costs that do not scale down with enrollment declines.
To read allocations, Smith urged parents and community members to distinguish locked resources (positions mandated by policy or program) from discretionary SBB dollars and to check whether their school received a district subsidy. She encouraged local advocacy to raise state per‑pupil amounts, noting that compliance with Blueprint rules is fiscal and legal: noncompliance risks funding withholds.
Board members asked whether funding follows a student who changes schools mid‑year. Smith said it does not: allocations reflect prior‑year certified enrollment (a year in arrears), with charters treated as an exception. Rapid demographic change requires district general operating funds to bridge gaps until the formula updates.
