As discussed in our newsletter of August 17th, USAC’s new Category Two Budget Tool is designed to calculate Category 2 budgets as of FY 2021. Under the new Category 2 rules, the five-year budget for any individual entity — school, school district, library, or library system — is determined by the following:
- For most schools or school districts, $167.00 per student.
- For most libraries or library systems, $4.50 per square foot.
- For any individual school or library, a minimum of $25,000.
As of FY 2021, the most significant change is that Category 2 budgets are calculated on a district-wide or system-wide basis. In most cases, this is a straight-forward calculation. A school district budget is the greater of $167 per student or $25,000 per school. Similarly, a library system budget is the greater of $4.50 per total square foot or $25,000 per library.
However, for school districts or library systems with 10 or less component schools or libraries, there is an additional hybrid option. The budgets for each individual school or library can be maximized individually then added together to determine the district-wide or system-wide budget. This requires a more complicated budget calculation algorithm. Fortunately, USAC’s new budget tool handles these situations well. The following three examples include districts, each with four schools, whose budgets are optimized with the three different budget options: $167 per student, $25,000 per school, or the hybrid model.

This is a little hard to read; each case is examined separately in more detail below. The key differences between the three examples depend upon whether the schools in a particular district have more or less than 150 students.
District 1 has the following schools, all with more than 150 students. |
|
School 1A |
529 |
students |
|
School 1B |
576 |
|
|
School 1C |
247 |
|
|
School 1D |
371 |
|
|
|
1,732 |
C2 Budget is $167 x 1,732 students = $287,741 |
District 2 has the following schools, all with fewer than 150 students. |
|
School 2A |
53 |
students |
|
School 2B |
81 |
|
|
School 2C |
121 |
|
|
School 2D |
20 |
|
|
|
275 |
C2 Budget is $25,000 min. x 4 schools = $100,000 |
District 3 has the following schools with more or less than 150 students. |
|
School 3A |
33 |
students @ the minimum = 25,000 |
|
School 3B |
1,806 |
students @ $167/student = 301,602 |
|
School 3C |
591 |
students @ $167/student = 98,697 |
|
School 3D |
247 |
students @ $167/student = 41,249 |
|
|
2,677 |
Total C2 budget = $466,548 |
Note that in the first two examples, the Tool’s data lines list the "C2 Budget Algorithm" as "School District Wide," whether the calculation is based on the number of students or the number of schools, but in the third "hybrid" example the "C2 Budget Algorithm" is listed as "Per Site Basis School District." The "Per Site" designation is used only for the hybrid calculation.
Note also that the hybrid example is the only one with data in the column labeled "C2 Per Site Basis Difference." The $19,489 shown represents the difference between the higher hybrid budget of $466,548 and what the budget would have been without a hybrid option (in this case. $167 x 2677 = $447,059).
Most importantly, USAC’s new C2 Tool calculates a school district’s or library system’s budget using the best possible student and school parameters. Based on our tests, USAC’s budget calculation algorithm is working perfectly.