CCPS finance staff flags roughly $826,000 staffing shortfall in charter applicant's budget

Finance staff presented the board with a side-by-side comparison that, when positions listed across the Cecil Classical Charter School application are priced at CCPS FY27 salary-plus-fixed-charge assumptions, produces roughly $4.0 million in staffing costs. The applicant's budget lists salaries and fixed charges at about $3.2 million.

"When you add up the teachers that or the positions that were in the staffing chart ... the total using the numbers from the chart that we provided, is a little over $4,000,000," Associate Superintendent Denise Sopa said. "Their budget line salaries and fixed charges from their budget on page 156 is 3,200,000. So that shows a difference of $826,000." Sopa added that FY28 cost-of-living and fixed-charge increases (health care, pension) were not included in the FY27 numbers used for the comparison and that substitute and overtime lines were not visible in the applicant's budget.

Board members asked whether contracted services for related-services providers (occupational therapy, speech, PT, mental-health clinicians) and special-education transportation had budget lines; Sopa said those items were mentioned in narrative sections but not clearly budgeted. The staff presented estimated contracted-services costs of about $198,000 for related-service providers that did not appear elsewhere in the applicant's spreadsheets.

CCPS staff cautioned that the staffing reconciliation relied on assumptions (FY27 step and fixed-charge rates, step-6 teacher salary assumptions) and that the gap could grow when FY28 increases are applied. Board members said the discrepancy and absent contingency lines would need resolution before approving an application or entering a charter agreement.