Being happy with what you have is a difficult lesson for any child but a nearly impossible lesson for a Baltimore public school. The Baltimore School for the Art’s budgeting season is never easy but this year comes with special challenges. 

Despite new demands and a growing student population, money feels scarcer than ever before. 

Balancing personnel, equipment, and facility needs with the budget given can often feel like a magic trick that students don’t hear much about. But every year, BSA’s own School Family Council takes parents and students alike behind the curtains to see how it all unfolds.

BSA’s budgeting process takes about two months each year and involves a whole host of stakeholders. The next Community Budget Forum is Tuesday, March 12 at 6 p.m. on Zoom. Principal Cauthen emailed students and staff to come hear about the updated budget for the 2024-2025 school year.

While BSA receives money from the public school district, BSA must also supplement that money in other ways to help keep its art programs running. Fair Student Funding is per capita funding given out by Baltimore public schools based on need and student population. 

Fair Student Funding pays for full time faculty like academic instructors or administrative positions. Fair Student Funding also includes targeted funds which are funds given to schools for improvement to specialized programs. 

While it’s no secret where BSA’s targeted funds go, other schools in the city rely on these funds too. Baltimore Polytechnic Institute uses this money to help fund the Ingenuity Project and other offerings related to math and science. 

One big question about Fair Student Funding are the ESSR funds. ESSR funds are emergency funds first inaugurated when the pandemic started to help school’s continue operating. 

But as the pandemic comes to an end and emergency funds across the country start drying up, questions have been rising about the future of ESSR funds. 

Schools aren’t sure how much longer they’ll be seeing the extra money. As Principal Roz Cauthen said, “No one is clear on how long the ESSR funds are going to last. It’s just rumors.”

The final major funding source is BSA’s Memorandum of Understanding with the Baltimore public school system. This agreement is outlined in BSA’s charter and guarantees BSA over a million dollars in extra funding for the purpose of carrying out BSA’s mission. 

The Memorandum of Understanding must be renewed every five years. This year marks the end of one of those cycles. 

As Cauthen explained, when the last Memorandum had to be renewed, Baltimore public schools were very hesitant and BSA required members of the community to speak out. 

This year administrators are worried about a similar conflict, but with BSA student Jamir Lawson on the school board as student commissioner, BSA is already in a better position should a budgeting battle arise. “We can raise other money but this sort of money is part of our charter and is unique to BSA.”

BSA has a lot of needs but it’s not a given that any of those needs will be met. One hope for the future is more full time art teachers. 

Dance and film are both departments with only one full time position as Cauthen explained, “I would love to see us have a full time film teacher. Bea [film department head Beatriz Bufrahi] is the only full time film teacher. Iris [dance department head Iris Anderson] is the only still full time dance instructor. I just don’t know what the budget numbers are going to look like.” 

But it’s not just teachers, custodians are needed just as badly as instructors. BSA is located in a historic seven floor building with multiple large classrooms and performance spaces. 

For all of this, BSA still only employs three full time custodians. But all of these future positions are only hopes. 

For Principal Roz Cauthen, even the budget remaining the same would still be a huge win.

To contact this writer, email Muse Newspaper at musebsa@bsfa.org.

Featured image is a screenshot of BSA’s virtual School Family Council Meeting.