FY26 Budget Frequently Asked Questions

A: The FY26 BPS budget is $1.58 billion. 

A: Yes, the FY26 budget represents a $53.4 million increase over FY25 or 3.5% and includes $22 million in new investments and $31.4 million in anticipated maintenance costs. 

A: In the coming year, BPS will continue to focus on key priority areas that support students and schools including:

• Implementing Inclusive Education across our schools 
• Expanding access to native language through dual language, Transitional Bilingual Education and multilingual programming
• Continuing long term facilities planning that will lead to important structural changes and long-term savings
• Strengthening the district’s secondary school ecosystem, with new and expanded early college and career pathways
• Growing the Hub school model

A: The vast majority of our funding - or 93% - is allocated directly to school budgets and student services. The remaining 7% goes to student services budgeted centrally, including transportation, specialized services, facilities and benefits as well as non-BPS student services and central administration including constituent services support. In the coming year, BPS will continue to focus on key priority areas, while continuing to identify important efficiencies and cost savings.

A: Student services budget centrally are programs, initiatives and other supports that are administered and managed by the BPS central office and benefit all schools and students. This includes transportation, facilities, special education and regional support teams. 

A: When the BPS Finance team began its FY26 planning process in December in collaboration with school leaders, they looked closely at existing investments and the outcome of that spending. They applied a zero-based budgeting approach to the districts central budgets and prioritized all available funds for schools while strategically eliminating what is not providing the desired student outcomes.

A: First, inflation continues to impact our maintenance costs as well as  budget obligations including health insurance, collective bargaining agreements, out of district costs, and special education services. Second, after several years of decline, BPS student enrollment has stabilized. Although the district’s total enrollment is lower than it was a decade ago, the number of students with disabilities and multilingual learners has steadily increased. These factors mean that BPS needs to change the way staff and resources are allocated while continuing to consider the highest needs students first. Last, FY26 will be the first year entirely without ESSER funds.
 

A: Thanks to strong fiscal stewardship and careful planning over the last two years, BPS has been able to sustain the investments that are showing a real impact on students, after transitioning these costs over to our general budget last year. 

A: The district expects to see $21 million in savings through its long term facilities planning, which will go directly into schools and classrooms to benefit students. The savings has allowed us to add positions to support expanded multilingual programs, increase the number of dedicated bilingual instructional coaches and grow our secondary school programs - to name a few.  

A: The FY26 budget supports the continuing implementation of inclusive education districtwide. In the coming fiscal year, BPS will expand the district’s inclusive programming for students with disabilities in grades 1, 2, 8 and 10 for the 2025 - 2026 academic year. In addition, the district will extend the plan slated to end in 2026-2027 by one year to ensure schools have the planning time and resources to eventually serve all grade levels. 

This strategic expansion builds upon the historic work BPS has done and on the foundation of K0/K1/K2, 7th and 9th grades. As BPS adds grade levels, the district remains focused on enhancing student outcomes, ensuring that all students are educated in the least restrictive environment, and strengthening capacity for teachers, paras, and support staff to do this work effectively.
 

A: FY26 BPS transportation budget is $189 million. Last fall, the district introduced the Zum app to BPS students and families, which provides real-time transportation data including systematic tracking of student ridership across our operation for the first time. So far this school year, over 2,000 students have been identified as consistently not riding the school bus using ridership tracking in Zum. Through multiple rounds of outreach conducted throughout the year, over 1,000 of these students have been proactively opted out of the school bus. These student opt-outs are anticipated to result in over $1 million in cost savings.

A: Over the next several years we are working to update our data systems to better reflect the staff we have.  The BPS Financial system has a legacy account code titled “Bilingual Teacher”. Staff coded in this account were not required to be bilingual, but taught in a BPS SEI or Dual Language programs. 

As we are updating our systems and adding more bilingual opportunities across our schools specific staff positions are being re-coded to better reflect requirements of their job. Currently, the majority of our positions are not required to be bilingual or multilingual so unless it is part of the job requirements we will not use the “Bilingual Teacher” code. 

This technical change may look like cuts in the budget but the majority of changes are due to a re-coding of positions not eliminating them. 

A: No, we’re not cutting bilingual staff. Staff are not impacted by these re-codings, but the positions are re-coded to accurately reflect the programming offered.

A: There are no cuts to SLIFE programs; these are expanding. What was previously titled BPS SEI are converting to a number of different English Learner Education programs, including Inclusive SEI, Transitional Bilingual Education, Dual Language Bilingual Education and Newcomer Programs.

A: Service mapping ensures that all English learner students receive ESL direct instruction from a licensed ESL teacher for the required minutes. For students who are at the foundational stages of their English proficiency, this is 90 minutes daily. For students who are at their transitional stages of English proficiency, this is 45 minutes daily. Service mapping is a way for schools to think about which students can receive their services together AND, based on student need, the staff who will deliver the required services while following the Department of Justice successor agreement. 

Service mapping is one tool used to plan and support our multilingual learners but it is not the only approach educators take when thinking about and planning for our students.

A: Centrally allocated Title I funds are used to expand opportunities for students through increased capacity for central departments to support schools and direct programming for students/school communities. Examples of this programming include, but are not limited to: science materials, 5th Quarter summer programming, professional development around intensive math and literacy instruction, and technology for students with disabilities. Unused Title I funds for Multilingual Learners (MLs) at the school level are pooled at the end of the year to use for summer programming specifically for MLs. Additionally, there are $4.5M in benefits budgeted centrally for all employees in Title I funded positions.