Community Guide to Understanding the School Budget


	- Community Guide to Understanding the School Budget (to view/download)

Our Mission: Mecklenburg Citizens for Public Education is an independent, community supported organization that mobilizes ideas, leadership, broad-based support and resources to bring about significant, measurable improvements in areas of policy, instruction, and management in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

Mecklenburg Citizens for Public Education
301 S. Tryon Street
Suite 1725
Charlotte, NC 28282

Telephone: 704-335-0100
Fax: 704-334-3545

Community Guide to Understanding the School Budget

This publication is designed for everyone who wants to learn about how we pay for Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools. It will serve as a tool to help the community better understand how our schools, the state's largest district, are financed and to ensure we are getting the best possible return on investment for our children.

The Community Guide to Understanding the School Budget explains the two sides of school funding, each with its own source of funding: operating funds covering day-to-day expenses and capital funds covering large expenses such as building, computers, major maintenance. The Guide makes very large numbers concrete. For example:

CMS is a large complex enterprise whose annual operations budget of $772 million exceeds the annual revenues of Samsonite International.
CMS has the 2nd largest number of employees in the county, and has more square footage than 10 Bank of America towers.
Serving 13 million meals a year, there are more CMS cafeterias than there are McDonald's, Burger King, Bojangles, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and Wendy's restaurants in Charlotte combined.
From January 2000 to August 2001, CMS laid 1,755,262 feet of data cable - enough to wrap around Lowe's Motor Speedway 221 times.

Well-informed citizens are key to bringing about sustained school improvement. The Community Guide to Understanding the School Budget includes a budget calendar, sample letters and e-mails, addresses and web-sites of organizations and elected officials directly involved with the budgeting process, and a list of additional resources. With this information voters can stay informed about school budget issues throughout the school year and can let their voices be heard in key budget decisions.