Christopher Peak Photo
Finance & Operations Committee weighs budget cuts Monday.
Staring down a deepening budget hole, Superintendent Carol Birks is shuffling teaching assignments and negotiating furlough days — while school board members directed her to look at more extreme actions, like closing additional schools.
Those two strategies were presented during the Board of Education’s Finance & Operations Committee meeting Monday evening on Meadow Street, as the school system figures out the least painful way to slash a tenth of the operating budget.
After a committee of alders voted last week to reject Mayor Toni Harp’s request for an increase and instead flat-fund schools, Birks needs to cut $19.4 million in planned spending next year to not exceed the $187.2 million budget.
Darnell Goldson: How many schools do alders want us to close?
Still in her first months on the job, she’s already in the process of closing down Cortlandt V.R. Creed High School, consolidating three alternative schools and renegotiating the leases for two district offices.
Birks is moving instructional coaches and other educators in supervisory roles back into the classroom, in a first pass at filling more than 75 vacancies without hiring new teachers.
School board members also asked Birks to collect more rent from tenants at district-owned buildings, try getting lower bids from contractors, and limit overtime and vehicle usage.
Together, those changes have saved $13.22 million. But “as we were working on to get close to it, somebody moved the cheese,” said Darrell Hill, the part-time budget director. “We have significant work to identify an additional $6.8 million, but as Dr. Birks covered well, our work is continuing.”
With all those cuts underway, Darnell Goldson, the board’s president, said he’d been “surprised” by an alder’s comments that they weren’t doing enough to get their budget in line. Last week, Adam Marchand, vice-chair of the Board of Alders Finance Committee, said they were redirecting a $5 million increase in school spending to public employee medical benefits to send a “clear signal to the Board of Education that they have to make some changes.”
“This is three days after we closed three schools and cut a bunch of money in leases and so on,” said Goldson, a former alder. “Clearly, they don’t think that was enough or want us to do more.”
Tom McCarthy.
On Monday, Birks indicated she hopes to close the deficit through staff realignment and other union concessions, while the finance committee asked her to look at closing six more elementary schools.
Asked to present to the committee, Tom McCarthy, the city’s labor relations director, talked about the benefits of furlough days as a way to make up cash. As an upside, teachers at least get a day off, and the loss of pay can be spread throughout the year.
“You have to be confident in saying to the unions, ‘I have to get to these numbers,’” McCarthy advised. “I have to get it one way or another. If not a furlough, it may be a layoff.”
For each furlough day, the district would save about $650,000, estimated Michael Gormany, the city’s budget director.
Birks didn’t share the details of her negotiations with the unions, but she said they were open to “more creative ways of looking at staffing.” “We told them the estimated value of where we needed to go in terms of certified staff,” she said, “and they’ve been very cooperative in helping us. They understand that we’re trying.”
She went out of her way several times to thank them for their cooperation at the bargaining table. Both sides, she explained, are trying to limit layoffs by finding other ways to save.
“There’s no question that this is the worst crisis we’ve faced. We’ve had budget deficits but none of this magnitude,” said Dave Cicarella, the teachers union president. “Everything is being done to avoid layoffs and also to make certain that any cuts that have to be made have the least impact on students.”
Cicarella said the primary way to make up money will be through attrition, scaling back the workforce after the expiration of several grants, including a major $53.4 million boost from the feds. “We have people we could move around, changing assignments and positions, to minimize the impact on the classroom.”
But Cicarella was cooler on furlough days as a solution for a deficit of this size. “I know everyone always discusses those, but it’s not an option that really generates enough money,” he said, adding, “It’s never good for morale.”
Carol Birks.
After that, Jamell Cotto, the finance committee’s vice-chair, asked the superintendent to look at closing six elementary schools. In a last-minute amendment to the agenda, he asked for data on Quinnipiac Real World STEM Magnet, Edgewood Magnet, Barnard Environmental Studies Magnet, Wexler-Grant Community, Augusta Lewis Troup, and West Rock STREAM Academy.
(Tamiko Jackson-McArthur had left to deal with an emergency; Ed Joyner sat in the audience, after Cotto told him he wasn’t on the committee and couldn’t ask questions.)
Cotto presented the list without any explanation for why the schools had been picked.
The only criteria appeared to be that the six elementary schools covered every corner of the city, from Fair Haven Heights to Westville and Amity, from West River to Dwight and Dixwell. After the meeting, Goldson said they’d purposefully chosen schools from a range of areas across New Haven.
He added that he’d heard several had failing test scores. That’s true at Wexler-Grant and Troup, the district’s two lowest performers on state assessments. But it’s way off at Edgewood, an in-demand school with high marks, and Quinnipiac, a successful turnaround just recognized by the state.
Cotto said several were in danger of losing state magnet funds for not meeting diversity goals. That could be true at Barnard, which has about 15 percent white students. But if that were the criteria, there’s more segregated inter-district magnet elementaries, like King-Robinson, Beecher, and John C. Daniels Schools.
West Rock, a small inter-district magnet with high diversity and low marks from the state, was already listed once before as a possible closure, based on a recommendation from Reggie Mayo, the interim superintendent before Birks took over.
“This is not your recommendation,” Goldson told Birks. “We just want you to take a look at these schools.”
“Any questions?” Cotto asked.
“No,” Birks answered.
Is there really give in the system to close this many schools? Are there empty seats in the classrooms? I doubt it just based on enrollment at my kid's school (which isn't on the list but it isn't by reputation any more "in demand" than these schools) but that'd be helpful and relevant information to have.
And what's going to happen to New Light's building? That's prime real estate, I hope the City plans to sell it at market rate.