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DC education officials are in front of the DC Council saying, essentially outright, that they don't intend to follow a new law about school budgets. It's shocking and brazen, and frightening to those of us at public schools who worry they will face cuts when the DC Council passed a law saying they can't make cuts.
The DC Council is not an advisory body, it's the lawmaking body, and it by design has power over the executive branch. Yet Deputy Mayor for Education Paul Kihn and DCPS Chancellor Lewis Ferebee are saying things like, they plan to try to follow the "goals" or "intent" of the new law rather than just complying with the law.
DCPS rolled out a new budget model and there were lots of problems with it, and lots of questions DCPS refused to answer. It was so bad the Council passed a law overriding significant parts of the new model. The executive must now accept that some of what it did was overridden and it can't do those things.
DCPS budget officials have also rebuffed repeated efforts by me and others to have a dialogue with them about this model. They even canceled a promised Ward 2 Ed Council meeeting in December at the last minute.
Ferebee has further confirmed that they plan to comply with the old rule that schools could be cut 5% plus inflation, which was overridden by the new law, and said “it is not the time” to change to follow the new law.
Charles Allen quizzes Chancellor Ferebee on whether DCPS will give schools any time after Feb break to respond to budgets, or whether they will, say, release them Friday and demand responses during the break. Ferebee refuses to answer.
Mendelson says this is why the community finds it hard to believe their statements about transparency.