Laura Glesby photos
U-ACT protesters, including Mark Colville (second from left): "Where, then, shall we go?!"
Alders Caroline Tanbee Smith, Sarah Miller, and Kiana Flores advocated for additional school funding, but did not succeed.
Three alders tried in vain to direct an additional $1.425 million to the Board of Education — on top of the $5 million schools bump already proposed by the mayor — during a Board of Alders meeting that saw local legislators overwhelmingly approve a new $703.7 million general fund budget.
Their vote means that spending next fiscal year will increase by 3.63 percent and the local tax rate by 2.3 percent, just as Mayor Justin Elicker originally proposed in March.
The alders convened for a special meeting Tuesday night to take a final vote on the city budget for Fiscal Year 2025 – 26 (FY 26), which begins July 1. In addition to approving a $703.7 million general fund budget, they also signed off on a new $60 million two-year capital fund budget.
Fair Haven Alders Sarah Miller and Frankie Redente were the only alders on the 30-person board to vote against the budget, which now heads to the mayor to be signed into law. (The final vote was 26 – 2, as Alders Honda Smith and Henry Murphy were absent from Tuesday’s meeting.)
Dissent erupted in spurts throughout the meeting — first from three alders proposing further education funding, and then from a protest of unhoused advocates and allies seeking more resources for New Haveners sleeping on the streets.
Neither funding plea gained enough support to change the course of Tuesday’s budget vote.
Alders ultimately left the high-level numbers proposed by Mayor Elicker in intact. They approved a FY 26 general fund budget that amounts to $703,765,049, a $24.6 million increase from the current budget.
Consequently, the FY 26 mill rate will increase by 0.9 to 39.40, which translates to a property tax of $39.40 on every $1,000 dollars of assessed property value.
Included in the now-approved budget were two amendments recommended by Finance Committee alders at a separate meeting earlier in May.
In one amendment, alders nixed three of the mayor’s proposed 13 new jobs for City Hall and instead allocated the funding for those new positions toward both the food rescue organization Haven’s Harvest ($50,000) and a pool of funds for nuts-and-bolts constituent services such as tree trimming and sidewalk repairs ($248,959). According to Finance Committee Chair Adam Marchand, the exact use of those latter funds will be determined by the city’s Resource Allocation Committee (RAC).
In another amendment, alders distributed an unexpected $1,770,439 surplus in the mayor’s proposed budget that surfaced when calculation errors were discovered and revenue projections were updated. The alders voted to allocate $345,439 toward the Coordinated Food Access Network (CFAN)’s anti-hunger initiatives as well as $1,425,000 toward an expenditure reserve account. The reserve account would be useful, argued Morris Cove Alder Sal DeCola at the earlier meeting, “due to the unpredictable nature of our president,” referring to Donald Trump.
Reserves Or School Resources?
Majority Leader Richard Furlow: More school funding would be "fiscally irresponsible."
On Tuesday, a trio of alders proposed another use for that unexpected $1,425,000 surplus: a transfer to the Board of Education.
The budget passed on Tuesday reflects a $5 million increase in funding from the city toward New Haven Public Schools. The state’s allocation toward the school system has yet to be determined, and will likely hinge on whether the state legislature and governor decide to loosen “fiscal guardrails” and adjust the Education Cost Sharing formula to account for special education costs.
Even with the city’s $5 million funding bump, Supt. Madeline Negrón estimates a $16.5 million deficit in the school system’s next budget — and has warned that 129 layoffs are likely to come, affecting 56 teachers and 25 librarians among other primarily student-facing staff.
So at Tuesday’s Board of Alders meeting, East Rock/Fair Haven Alder Caroline Tanbee Smith moved an amendment to reallocate the $1,425,000 slated for expenditure reserves toward the school system.
“These funds could prevent imminent cuts to roughly 20 student-facing staff,” she said, adding that “while our city’s education budget looks bigger on paper, inflation has quietly eroded its value.”
Smith argued that the city’s investment in the school system has remained “relatively flat” over the last ten years when inflation is accounted for.
“This $1.425 million isn’t ‘extra,’” she said. “It is what it takes to keep our commitment on pace with the reality of our economic conditions.”
Smith was supported by Fair Haven Alder Sarah Miller and Downtown/Yale Alder Kiana Flores.
“Our schools have been severely underfunded for more than a generation,” said Miller. Having served on the Board of Education Deficit Review Committee nearly a decade ago, Miller said, she believes that the school system isn’t as “bloated” as many critics contend. “That process taught me how lean our district actually is.”
“It breaks my heart that the schools I attended and enjoyed are quite literally falling apart,” said Flores. “Funding schools must come first.”
While echoing calls from her colleagues for more funding from the state and Yale University, Miller spoke to an urgency of the school system’s needs. Long-term campaigns aimed at wealthier institutions are important, she said, but “we don’t get to press pause on our kids. … We have to do as much as we can, as soon as we can.”
“In a choice between placing these unexpected funds in a reserve account while our kids potentially lose art and library programs, I think we should put them to work… I would love for our kids not to wonder if they are going to have an art teacher when they return in September,” Miller said.
Four alders spoke out against the amendment, while stating that they support student-facing staff and more resources for children as an overall goal.
“I strongly oppose it,” said Majority Leader and Amity/Westville Alder Richard Furlow. “I think it would be fiscally irresponsible.”
He argued that there was not a sufficient guarantee that those funds would be used toward retaining teachers. He suggested instead that alders form a committee of some kind to review the schools’ budget more thoroughly. (The Board of Alders’ Education Committee meeting scheduled for May has been canceled.)
“$1.4 million is just a drop in the bucket,” argued Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison. “At this point, they could take $1.4 million and put it anywhere they want to.”
Alders Anna Festa and Evelyn Rodriguez also spoke out in opposition.
In the end, only Smith, Miller, and Flores voted for the additional school funding. (Redente abstained due to his role as a school employee.)
U-ACT protester Ena Fisher outside City Hall, prior to the alders' meeting: "There's no toilet on the Green. They go next to a tree."
Toward the end of this debate, about 15 protesters from the Unhoused Activists Community Team (U‑ACT) marched into the Aldermanic Chamber with a proposal they had brought forward during a prior public hearing on the budget: a $4.5 million allocation toward resources for unsheltered people, including Pallet shelters, public restrooms, public storage, and year-round warming centers. The activists argued that these initiatives could be funded by reallocating police funds associated with clearing street encampments; it is unclear how much money the city spends on those clearings, though, as there are no dedicated staff members or materials dedicated to encampment clearings in the budget.
They heckled at alders; sang the question “Where, Then, Shall We Go?”; chanted; and carried signs calling for “year-round warming centers” and an end to encampment sweeps.
After offering to meet with protesters after the meeting concluded, Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers decided to continue proceedings as usual. She and her colleagues spoke in raised voices above the protest until the group eventually cleared out. The alders did not adopt U‑ACT’s proposal.
When it came time to vote on the appropriating ordinance as a whole, every alder voted to approve the budget proposal except for Miller and Redente.
“I can’t support putting $1.4 million into reserves,” Miller said after the meeting concluded, explaining her no vote. Asked about the argument that the funding would simply be a “drop in the bucket,” Miller responded, “You fill up the bucket with drops. Every one matters.”
She said that “$1.4 million would have a big impact” in Fair Haven School alone, the school she represents within Ward 14.
“There’s a real desire to have more oversight” over the Board of Education, Miller added. “That’s something we could have done at any time.”
Meanwhile, Mayor Justin Elicker released a statement celebrating the budget’s passage after the meeting. “Once again, the city continues to do its part when it comes to education funding by increasing the annual budget for New Haven Public Schools by another $5 million, providing $1.5 million to continue afterschool and summer tutoring for struggling students, and committing $15 million in our Capital Budget for school building and facility improvements,” he wrote, calling on the state to provide more funding for New Haven schools.