Christopher Peak Photo
Protests against last year’s proposal to cut teaching jobs.
High school elective options will not shrink. Kindergarten class sizes will not grow. Families relying on New Haven Public Schools childcare for their preschoolers before and after school, though, will need to find another option.
Those are some of the outcome of months of deliberation by the Board of Education on how to cut school expenses to start the fall with a balanced budget.
A 4 – 3 vote at Monday night’s Board of Education meeting approved a bundle of cuts, worth $5.6 million, and settled the question days before Thursday’s start of a new fiscal year.
“We asked staff to cut away from the classroom. They’ve done the best that they could do,” said board member Edward Joyner. “As the Rolling Stones said, you can’t always get what you want. We’re in difficult times.”
The Gap
Emily Hays Photo
CFO Phillip Penn.
Last year, the proposal to cut 53 teacher positions sparked protests . It was one of the controversies leading to the forced resignation of the previous superintendent, Carol Birks.
Although eliminating 30 teacher positions through retirements and resignations was an option on the table this year, the board asked for that kind of cut to be a last resort.
Board members have been staring down an over $10 million gap for months between the dollars NHPS needs to keep all programs at current levels and what they were likely to receive from the city and state this year.
In the hopes that neighbors would lobby their representatives for more education funding, board members and NHPS staff presented the bundle of cuts to management teams across the city in early spring, with mixed results.
The Board of Alders eventually gave the school district $1 million more than last year. That left the school board with a $10.5 million budget gap.
In recent weeks, district Chief Financial Officer Phillip Penn and other NHPS staff have been able to take $4.9 million off that figure. Last-minute bus route changes that rolled out in confusion and controversy last year will continue to save the district $1.8 million. Staff has found another $3.1 million through grants.
That left the board with a $5.6 million gap to close during a special meeting called Monday to wrap up loose ends before the next fiscal year.
The Cuts
Christopher Peak Photo
Students play house at Conte-West Hills Magnet School.
Following guidance from previous meetings, Penn presented eight of 12 recommendations as “Tier I,” or less likely to impact the quality of students’ education. The remaining four “Tier II” recommendations included shrinking teacher and part-time staff positions, negotiating teacher furlough days and incentivizing retirements.
The board largely agreed that they did not want to pursue any of the Tier II recommendations. They found common ground on approving many of the Tier I cuts as well.
All supported hiring a grant writer to find new revenues for the district, managing incoming salaries and exiting a lease for administrative offices. Shifting instructional coaches back to classroom teaching positions was also uncontroversial.
The board split when the majority of the board decided to vote for all of the Tier I recommendations in one package.
Board member Darnell Goldson raised concerns about roughly half of the cuts. He said that asking schools to cut discretionary spending will mean teachers have less ability to buy what they need for their classrooms. He asked to hear more about the seven administrative positions on the chopping block, worth around $1 million in salaries and benefits.
Goldson said that he did not want to stagger school bell times to save more on transportation costs without hearing from parents first. Penn presented bell time savings as a decision the board would need to make soon so the administration could talk to the teachers union and do a more considered rollout than last year’s route changes.
Board member Tamiko Jackson-McArthur joined Goldson in opposing cuts to NHPS’ before and after-school childcare program for preschoolers in magnet schools. The free program serves more suburban residents than New Haven families.
Jackson-McArthur argued that the district should switch this ratio rather than eliminate the program. Goldson said that this change could harm some of the poorest New Haven families.
The other pre-kindergarten programs, Head Start and School Readiness, do not offer a similar childcare service, according to a memo Penn sent the board.
Mayor Justin Elicker argued that if board members do not like certain cuts, they should provide alternatives. Goldson said that he proposes alternative cuts every week by opposing hires or initiatives.
Eventually, Elicker and the majority of the board voted to approve all of the Tier I cuts. Goldson, Jackson-McArthur and Larry Conaway voted no in the 4 – 3 vote.
Superintendent Iline Tracey said that if her staff finds alternatives to the more controversial cuts in the future, they will present those to the board.
Read the full description of each of the Tier I cuts and how much each was worth here.
Not only teachers were spared..how about administrators...outside contractors...travel & training....overtime....special hires like a grants writer while the city has almost one per divisional area...duplication of effort and poor division of labor. These are the true areas that should be tier two.
Get back to work BOE and do the job more thoughtfully.