New Haven Public Schools is running a nearly $6 million budget deficit this fiscal year, which is increasingly resulting in cuts to student field trips and tutors.
School district Chief Finance Officer Linda Hannans gave the Board of Education’s Finance and Operations committee that dismal news at a meeting last week.
Hannans told the committee that the deficit has increased since the last finance presentation. The district’s unaudited general funds budget so far has a deficit of $5,876,740.
“I don’t have good news on this report,” Hannans said.
Hannan’s team has been working to reduce the deficit through mitigation efforts and by applying for new grants.
One mitigation plan is to try to increase inter-district magnet school enrollment, which is currently down more than 80 students.
“That’s what’s causing a trickle down effect with our general funds budget,” Hannans said.
Other drivers for the deficit are increasing overtime cost due to unfilled vacancies specifically for custodial and security needs.
Board member OrLando Yarborough questioned whether any of the custodial and security vacancies are due to the district not having competitive wages.
Chief of Operations Thomas Lamb said the district recently went through collective bargaining with the unions and “their salaries are market rate and inline with what our surrounding towns are.”
Hannans said the district is reviewing all purchase orders to confirm the promised services were provided.
The goal is to make budget cuts that won’t affect the students, Hannans said.
“We have been lucky in terms of being able to support our deficits by making some changes but that’s going to a thing of the past unless we get some new influx of revenue,” Hannans said.
She added that federal pandemic-relief ARP ESSER funds will sunset in Sept 2024. The district’s grants budget, which includes ARP ESSER allocations, typically cover programming and services for students.
“For this fiscal summer 2024, we’re doing an early take on what courses really need to be done and how we can maybe streamline those,” Hannans said.
Compared to last school year Hannans reported, the district has had a 58 percent reduction in grant funding.
Yarborough asked if any categories in the budget are already overspent or close to it “such that if we continue to approve contracts at the same rate that we are now that, that category is going to be overspent.”
Hannans responded yes. She said that because the district was not awarded its original ask for the 2023 – 24 budget the district “automatically walked into a rolling deficit.”
Last spring the school district made a request to the city to increase its budget by $11,808,147 (or 6 percent) above the previous year. City leaders instead approved a budget increase of $8 million for the city’s public school system.
“We didn’t get the amount of money that we need to operate,” Hannans said.
Yarborough concluded with the suggestion that special comparison reports be given in the future indicating the district’s original budget request and where current expenses and expenditures fall.
NHPS Business Director Christine Bourne added that the district’s budget requests aren’t unreasonable. “At the second half of the year everybody is making sacrifices to get to the bottom line — whether it be tutors stopping earlier in the year or field trips not happening or contracts for facilities waiting until another year,” she said.
Bourne concluded that the sacrifices will soon grow.
Board member and committee chair Matt Wilcox added that “a bare-bones, keep-the-lights on budget is not inspirational.” He requested the next report identify the major drivers of the deficit.
Watch the full meeting above.
Students go almost nowhere since COVID. COVID was a convenient excuse and now there will be more excuses. The liability is too great and the powers that be fail to see that these experiences are oftern what students remember after they are grown. Nobody remembers a favorite test..... but that trip to X?? You bet!
And for the millionth time-- salary is one reason why people leave but the conditions in schools and the treatment teachers receive at the hands of admin and students is much more of a factor. But don't believe me---- just keep raising taxes on the residents of NH and losing good teachers