ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Metro parents have an opportunity to have an open conversation with the state’s largest school district about how the district should spend its money.

APS officials say Monday night’s forum is all about giving parents more insight into deciding on a budget for the 2024-2025 school year, and how that money is spent. 

APS is holding that is open to the public. Officials say the total budget is about $1.9 billion.  

APS School Board Member and Finance Chair, Crystal Tapia-Romero, says the district has several main goals for the year that were chosen based on the public’s input. Those include early literacy, math proficiency, and skills for life after graduation. 

She says the public’s input has been crucial in helping them decide how they will dole out funding.

“Well, how many times do we hear people in our community saying, ‘Are they really listening?’ Well, we wanted to ensure that we knew that they were involved in the decision-making process. We have been very intentional in going out to the public and doing multiple community forums to really gather proper feedback on what they feel is best for their student,” said Tapia-Romero. 

Tapia says there’s also exercises planned for people who attend the forum on Monday night. The point is to give examples of what kind of tough decisions APS faces when deciding how to allocate funds.

Tapia-Romero says there’s always certain challenges that have to be taken into account. 

“Well, I think the big challenge that we’ve been facing as a district is the declining student enrollment and the increase of expenses going forward. Obviously, the extra funding that was given for COVID, that is coming to an end. So we’re having to focus on sustaining our funds and again prioritizing what’s important for our students,” said Tapia-Romero. 

She says the budget takes months to finalize. Once a preliminary budget is created, it will be proposed to the school board before being brought to the New Mexico Public Education Department. 

That’s expected to happen in the next few months. The finalized budget will go into effect in July. 

Monday night’s forum is from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Berna Facio Professional Development Complex.