Cincinnati Public Schools Board of Education is considering three different paths to reduce spending and finalize its operating budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
The upcoming budget is smaller: nearly $7 million less than the previous year. Last summer, the school system's operating budget totaled just over $634.6 million. This time, the district aims to whittle it down to $627.9 million.
So far, CPS has already allocated $142.7 million across its central office departments to cover the foundational cost of lawfully operating the school district. That leaves around $485.2 million for the Board of Education to spend across the rest of the school system.
Board members were presented with three potential pathways to guide their cost-saving strategy over the next few months.
The first pathway would focus on decentralizing certain support services, which would cut down on some central office costs by shifting those responsibilities to individual school buildings. District leaders did not elaborate on which services schools would be responsible for managing.
The second option would reduce staffing and programming to pre-COVID19 levels. During the pandemic, CPS received an influx of additional federal funding to assist with student learning loss after schools shifted to remote learning. It used that money to hire teachers and fund various student programs that have remained in the district despite federal funding sunsetting in late 2024.
District leaders say the third option would be to outsource certain services and programs by leveraging its relationships with community partners to run them with lower costs.
Board President Brandon Craig says all these options would lead the district to its budget target; it's just a matter of what district leaders choose to prioritize.
"Each one of these pathways would be toward a balanced budget. Every single pathway would require us to get to that same number," Craig said. "No cost differential will be done between the pathways. It's really about how do we use those dollars."
The district did not provide any further details on these three options, but more specifics are expected to be shared with the school board at their next meeting on April 6. CPS plans to finalize its budget by June 22.
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