NHPS Pitches $8.3M In Cuts, Savings

The public school system plans to cut 30 certified positions through attrition, shift elementary school bell times, move instructional coaches back into the classrooms, and pursue nearly a dozen other budget mitigation strategies in an effort to close next fiscal year’s projected $8.3 million deficit.

As for what in-person classes might look like later this spring or next fall during a sustained Covid-19 crisis? That future — and its potential budget implications — remain uncertain.

Top New Haven Public Schools administrators gave that update Wednesday night during a two-and-a-half-hour virtual budget workshop held by the Board of Alders Finance Committee via the Zoom teleconferencing app.

The workshop was the last such department-level presentation and question-and-answer session regarding Mayor Justin Elicker’s proposed $569.1 million general fund budget for Fiscal Year 2020 – 2021 (FY21), which starts July 1.

Click here, here, here, and here for stories about previous department workshops this budget-making season.

The alders will host one more public hearing on the proposed budget on May 11 before deliberating and voting on the proposed budget by the end of the month.

NHPS Chief Financial Officer Phillip Penn told the committee alders that the mayor’s proposed general fund allocation of $191,718,697 to the public school system will likely leave the Board of Education with a $8,298,793 hole to close next fiscal year.

The school system initially asked the city for a $10.8 million increase over its current fiscal year allocation. The mayor’s proposed budget includes a $3.5 million increase instead.

Penn described the $199 million initial Board of Education ask as a ​“lights on” budget, given that the state has flat-funded the city’s Education Cost Sharing (ECS) annual grant at $142.5 million for each of the past six fiscal years.

“It’s not new resources. It’s not new programs. It’s not new staff. We would start the ​‘20 – 21 fiscal year with exactly the same resources” as the school system had at the start of the current fiscal year in July 2019, he said.

Penn said that that projected deficit is driven primarily by the carrying over of this fiscal year’s likely deficit (which currently sits at around $2.9 million), contractual raises of roughly 3 percent for certified staff, additional raises for non-certified staff covered by collective bargaining agreements, inflationary pressure on commodities and other purchase materials, price increases in long-term transportation and service agreements, and increased special education costs.

Add on top of that proposed new spending for building maintenance, HVAC contract increases, data conversion, and part-time staff hires, Penn said, and the school system lands at the roughly $8.3 million projected deficit.

Which brought Penn to the schools’ proposed mitigation strategies for the fiscal year ahead.

Those included:

• Shrinking staff levels by eliminating 30 certified positions at an average departing salary of $62,338. Those position cuts would occur through a combination of resignations, retirements, and non-renewals, according to Penn’s slide presentation.

“That implies that there’s going to be larger class sizes particularly at the elementary level, and fewer opportunities for electives at the high school level,” he said.

• Carrying forward the school bus route changes and consolidations that the school system put in place at the beginning of this school year. Penn estimated that would save roughly $1.8 million in next fiscal year’s budget.

• Changing the start and stop bell times for elementary schools by, for example, pushing the start time for school from 9:15 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. and the end time from 3:15 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. That change should allow the Board of Education to take roughly 20 school buses out of its fleet, he said, resulting in roughly $1.3 million in savings.

• Aggressively managing turnover and hiring to ensure that new staff are hired at lower salaries in comparison to how those who have recently retired or resigned were being paid.

Penn said that the school system typically sees around 130 certified staff retire or resign every summer. ​“If we stay on that path, we can save $150,000,” he said.

• Negotiating two furlough days with teachers, administrators, and management, which would save roughly $1.1 million.

• Shifting 30 of the system’s 75 instruction coaches back into classrooms to fill teacher vacancies, which would save roughly $1.9 million.

• Shrinking administrative staff by two assistant principal positions, which should save roughly $300,000.

• Hiring a new grant writer to pursue new grant revenue opportunities, which should bring in roughly $250,000 in new revenue.

All of these mitigation strategies would add up to a projected $8.6 million in savings, he said. That’s more than the projected deficit — and is also contingent on every plan working out exactly as the school system hopes.

“We’re not sure we can count on the historical level of turnover that we’ve had given the uncertainty” around the Covid-19 pandemic, he said about projected teacher retirements and resignations.

“So the long and short of your presentation, I believe, is that the Board of Education is prepared to work very hard to try to live within the budget that the mayor proposed, which comes to a grand total of $191.7 million. Is that correct?” asked Finance Committee Vice-Chair and Westville Alder Adam Marchand.

Penn said that, in an ideal world, the city would grant the Board of Education the full $199 million that the school system requested.

“Economic realities being what they are, we would certainly love to work within what the mayor’s proposed,” he said.

He warned that any amount beneath what the mayor has proposed sending from the general fund to the Board of Education could present some serious problems.

Like what? asked East Rock Alder Anna Festa. What would be the consequences of not providing the school board with the additional $3.5 million proposed by the mayor?

“I don’t think we could take out another $3.5 million without shrinking the staff,” Penn said. That would mean layoffs of certified classroom teachers as well as other staff throughout the district.

Covid-19 Uncertainties

What about the financial and operational implications of the Covid-19 pandemic? Festa asked.

Assuming that public schools will remain physically closed and online only for the rest of the semester, she said, what does the public school system plan to do come next fall?

What unique costs will be associated with this crisis, and what safety measures is the system taking around transportation, sanitation, and instruction?

Those are all great questions, interim NHPS Superintendent Iline Tracey replied. She said she does not have definitive answers as of right now. She is convening a special task force to look at four major areas in relation to the Covid-19 crisis: instruction, social-emotional learning, facility maintenance, and technology costs.

“They may not have been in our budget,” which was put together before the novel coronavirus outbreak,” she said. ​“But I’m assuming that there will be a cost to these things.”

Will the school system have to maintain six-foot separation between students and teachers when in-person classes resume? Tracey asked.

Where will the extra needed staff come from? Or the additional classroom space? Should the system stagger school times, with one group of students coming to the building at one time for classes, and another coming at another time?

“A lot of these are, ​‘What ifs?’” she said.

Tracey said the school system is working hard to think through these scenarios now, and to have a plan in place for whenever in-person classes do resume.

“Whatever happens, it’s going to happen on a statewide level,” Penn added. NHPS won’t have to work through these problems on its own. Every school system in the state will be presented with very similar problems.

“All the other districts are going to be in the same boat.”