The Board of Education has approved a request for an $8 million budget increase from the city, with details to be hammered out in the coming months.
At a meeting Wednesday night, school system operations chief Will Clark unveiled what he called a “typical, keep-the-lights-on” budget for fiscal year 2017 – 2018 to Board of Ed members — most of whom hadn’t seen the numbers up until then. Mayor Toni Harp said she will include the 4.39 percent increase in her proposed city budget for fiscal year 2018, which she is presenting Tuesday afternoon.
“What I took into consideration was the difficulty that the New Haven Public School System had in balancing the budget this year,” Harp said. “So when we were told that just to keep the lights on would take $8 million, in spite of the fact that we don’t really have it, I agreed to put it on my budget.”
The school system gets much of its budget from the state. The document voted on Monday night concerned just its overall city funding.
The new just-the-essentials budget doesn’t add or cut any services. But part of the jump from $182 million to $190 million stems from adjusting to a loss of grant funding for essential positions the district plans on retaining. More broadly, the $8 million factors in expected inflation, settled contract negotiations with teachers and paraprofessionals and rising special education costs.
Add to that the operating costs involved in opening three new schools — Engineering and Science University Magnet School (which is opening Tuesday), New Haven Academy and the Dr. Reginald Mayo Early Learning Center.
To an extent, the district is playing catch-up in closing a $4.6 million budget hole for this year’s budget. (And in dealing with $2.55 million less than expected this year, after city alders whittled down Harp’s proposed $4.55 million increase to $2 million.) Clark told the board that Interim Superintendent Reggie Mayo and his budget team were still working diligently on that process, promising updates in further meetings.
The education budget hinges not only on city funding, but also on a revolving slate of state and federal grant monies that have tightened recently, especially given Gov. Dannel Malloy administration’s cuts to school aid .
Clark sought to assuage the doubts of any eagle-eyed board members checking line items for cuts. What looks like an $883,000 cut in the general fund budget for paraprofessionals is actually a shift in using more available grant funding, Clark noted.
But upon discovering that the city budget, as a whole, was due the next day, board member Darnell Goldson had other concerns. Deeming himself “confused and disappointed,” Goldson addressed Harp, pointing out that in the board’s two finance committee meetings that month, the budget had not been brought up.
“It appears to me that everybody’s had their hands on it except for the Board of Education,” he said. “I suppose it’s supposed to be our budget but we don’t know anything about it.”
Was the board expected to approve the education budget at the meeting? Goldson asked.
Clark acknowledged that he hoped the board would approve the $8 million increase, with “continual discussion and debate” over the specific line items in the coming weeks. The district does not present its detailed budget to the Board of Alders until late April.
Resigned to the idea of approving the budget without much further discussion, Goldson said he hopsd the board — or at least its finance committee — could have input in the future.
Meanwhile, counter to Clark’s claims that nothing was being cut, board member Che Dawson zeroed in on a line item: “Teacher stipends looks as if it were zeroed out,” he said. He noticed a drop from this year’s allocation of $90,586.
“There’s work to be done on that,” Clark said. He attributed this to the loss of a federal Teacher Incentive Fund grant. He said that while the district is using “carryover” funding from the grant, the budget will not carry over the stipends. Which means that to keep the stipends, the district will have to find another revenue source.
Dawson requested a budget narrative in coming weeks. “I don’t want to sit here and ask about every line item,” he said.
Mushroom Budget Notes: