Budget Advisory Committee

Building a Sustainable Budget with Community Input

In line with DPS’ commitment to engaging our community, investing in values-aligned priorities, and building a fiscally sustainable budget, DPS formed the Budget Advisory Committee (BAC) to advise the Denver Board of Education in all aspects of the budget development process. The BAC will serve as a standing committee that will meet throughout the year to review key budget assumptions (such as enrollment and economic forecasts), and collaborate with the board on the formulation of budget development principles and development of the Proposed, Adopted and Amended Budgets, among other key tasks.

Budget Advisory Committee Mission

Inform	Consult	Involve	Collaborate
Key economic assumptions	Budget development process and timeline	Evaluate budget trade-offs and present those to the Board of Education	Budget Guiding Principles
Enrollment projections and October Count	Support other district groups related to budget as necessary including Collaborative School Committees (CSC) and DAC	Progress monitor actuals and adjustments (quarterly or through the adjustment period June-Jan of a school year)	Proposed, Adopted and Amended Budgets
	Consult regularly with other district committees and task forces, such as Special Education, ELA and others		Provide oversight on mill levy funds received by the districts

Resource Links

Meeting Schedule for the 2021-22 School Year

Date	Topic
Sept. 13, 2021	Review enrollment, mission of BAC, overview of DPS budget, DPS budget outlook.
Nov. 8, 2021	Areas of focus for addressing budget challenges, review Student Based Budgeting, preview Amended Budget.
Jan. 10, 2022	Financial State of the District, review Amended Budget.
Mar. 14, 2022	Mid-year budget update of 2020-21 budget, review strategic budget proposals
May 9, 2022	Review Proposed Budget

Share Your Thoughts at BAC Public Comment

We welcome feedback and ideas from our community at each Budget Advisory Committee meeting throughout the year. Please review our meeting schedule and projected topics, and email BAC_Comment@dpsk12.org if you’d like to sign up for a time to speak. The deadline to sign up for Public Comment is 5 p.m. on the business day before the day of the BAC meeting.

About the Budget Advisory Committee

The BAC functions as an advisory committee to the board, providing community and staff perspective around budget topics that will lead to recommendations to the board. The board has final decision making responsibility for the annual district budget and provides guidance on how DPS staff implement the budget.

Committee Membership

Name	Role/Representing
Scott Esserman	Denver Board of Education, Treasurer
Tay Anderson	Denver Board of Education, Vice President
Michelle Quattlebaum	Denver Board of Education, Secretary
Chuck Carpenter	Chief Financial Officer
Alise Kermisch	District Accountability Committee
Leslie Cordova	Denver Classroom Teachers Association (DCTA)
Robert Giron	English Language Acquisition District Advisory Committee (ELA-DAC)
Christina Finnesy	DPS Employee Associations
Pam Bisceglia	Special Education Advisory Committee
Abigail Sifuentes	Student Board of Education
Bobby Thomas	Denver School Leaders Association
Nadia Madan Morrow	Executive Director, Multilingual Education; Non-Bargained Employees
Katie Hechavarria	Executive Director of Finance; non-voting member of BAC
Jim Carpenter	Deputy Superintendent of Operations; non-voting member of BAC

Composition of Budget Advisory Committee

The committee is composed of the following individuals:

Three members of the Board of Education (one of whom is the Board Treasurer)
A representative from the District Accountability Committee
A representative from the ELA DAC
A representative from the Denver Classroom Teachers Association (DCTA)
A representative from other employee associations, to be selected jointly by those associations
A representative from the Student Board of Education
School Leader Representative from the Superintendent’s Principal Council
A representative from the Special Education Advisory Committee (SEAC)
The district’s Chief Financial Officer.
In addition, the Deputy Superintendent for Operations and the Executive Director of Finance will participate as non-voting members

Budget Advisory Committee

Building a Sustainable Budget with Community Input