Testimony Before the Council of the District of Columbia Committee on Facilities

at the Budget Oversight Hearing on the Department of General Services.

By Rachel Johnston

Chief of Staff, DC Charter School Alliance

Good morning, Chairperson Lewis George and members of the Committee. My name is Rachel Johnston, and I’m a Ward 4 resident and the Chief of Staff at the DC Charter School Alliance, the local advocacy organization dedicated to supporting DC’s public charter schools who serve nearly half of the District’s public school students.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I am here to speak about the importance of equitable funding for school facilities, so that every student in the District can thrive in a high-quality learning environment. School facilities play a critical role in student engagement and academic outcomes. State-of-the-art buildings with science labs, music spaces, areas for small group instruction, multipurpose rooms, playgrounds, gyms and fields help attract and retain families and enable schools to offer innovative programming that enrich students’ educational experiences. A strong body of research supports this connection. For example, the EPA found that test scores consistently improve as building conditions improve, with increases ranging from 3% to 17%. 1 Facilities funding is therefore not a luxury, but rather a fundamental component of student success across all public and public charter schools in the District.

But we face a tough reality of the affordability of operating these facilities. Utilities, both for schools and families, have risen drastically. In a recent survey, charter schools reported utility costs increasing by an average of 20% from the 2024–25 school year to the current year. While we appreciate a 2.55% increase to the UPSFF, it alone does not cover the cost of teacher raises because schools have to pay these rapidly rising electric bills. In this environment, school leaders are forced to make difficult tradeoffs—choosing between hiring mental health staff or academic interventionists, while also keeping the lights on. The Mayor’s budget proposal acknowledges this reality by moving $59.4 million to the Department of General Services (DGS) to cover DCPS’ fixed costs. This ensures DCPS schools can invest in staff and programs while keeping their buildings operational. There is no comparable support for public charter schools.

DGS plays a critical role in managing and maintaining school facilities across the District, including 116 buildings that house DCPS schools and 30 that house public charter schools. 2 Historically, this role did not extend to funding operating costs like utilities. These expenses were previously covered by the UPSFF, as a part of the District's intentional structure to fund school facilities:

• The UPSFF supports school operating budgets, including fixed costs like utilities.

• The charter facilities allotment provides per-pupil funding for rent, debt service, renovations, and major construction—designed to support similar needs as DCPS’ capital budget. The structure was intended to create equity.

Within this system, charter schools have consistently demonstrated strong stewardship of public dollars, leveraging limited resources to build and maintain high-quality facilities. But, strong stewardship should not mean students receive less. The challenge is that this structure is not being implemented as intended, and the growing amount of funding outside of the UPSFF has created a deeply inequitable system.

This year’s budget proposal is one of the most inequitable we’ve seen. It freezes charter facilities funding at FY2026 levels through FY2030 while increasing DCPS’ capital budget by more than $72 million in FY27 alone. DCPS is slated to receive $555.9 million in capital funding—three times more than the $187.3 million for charter schools—and an additional $59.4 million through DGS for fixed costs. In total, we estimate DCPS will receive $96 million more in operating funding, or about $2,000 more per student. Across operating and capital budgets, that gap totals $9,675 per student (see Appendix). How do you explain that to a parent with one child in a DCPS school and another in a public charter school? Is the child attending a DCPS school worth nearly $10,000 more?

I think we can all agree that the answer to that last question is no. So how do we fix this? Given the fiscal constraints facing the District, we recommend focusing on an equitable distribution of available funds. We urge the Council to:

• Return the $59.4 million allocated to DGS for DCPS’ fixed costs back to the UPSFF, the intended funding mechanism for these costs, one that equitably distributes the funds to ensure every student in DC has access.

• Reject the proposal to eliminate the annual 3.1% increase to the charter facilities allotment. This increase—estimated at roughly $6 million in FY27—is modest, especially compared to the $72 million increase in DCPS’ capital budget, and is a critical step to affording the rising costs of facilities maintenance.

By taking these two steps, this Council has an opportunity to tell charter students and teachers that they are indeed not worth less than their peers in DCPS. When we asked charter leaders what this funding means to their school, one leader shared that it would ensure they could afford assistant teachers to keep their targeted intervention groups small. Another leader shared they would not have to cut critical enrichment programming like world languages, arts, sports, and after-school activities. As you finalize the FY27 budget, we urge the Council to correct this growing inequity and reaffirm the District’s commitment to ensuring that every student—regardless of the school they attend—learns in a safe, well-maintained, and high-quality facility. Without making these two adjustments to the budget, we risk jeopardizing three decades of progress that have positioned DC as one of the fastest-improving urban education systems in the nation. Thank you for your time and attention, and I welcome any questions.