School Board Eyes $207M Budget

The city’s public school district tentatively plans to ask City Hall for $207 million next fiscal year — marking a 6 percent increase above the current year’s schools budget, and coming in at more than $3 million above what the mayor has proposed sending the Board of Education’s way.

The school board got a first look at the New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) proposed Fiscal Year 2023 – 2024 (FY24) budget during the latest online meeting of the Board of Education on March 13.

NHPS Chief Financial Officer Linda Hannans presented the $207 million general fund budget proposal, which she described as ​“dismal.” The presentation comes several weeks after Mayor Justin Elicker unveiled his proposed FY24 budget, which, if approved by the full Board of Alders, would send a total of $203,263,784 to the public school district for the fiscal year starting July 1.

The mayor’s general fund proposal would therefore see the city increase its annual funding of the Board of Education by $8 million (with $3.5 million of that bump expected to be covered by a hike in state aid.) According to the latest school budget presentation, the district is looking for $3 million more than Elicker’s proposed increased amount. 

The Board of Education did not take a vote on the budget proposal at its most recent meeting. It is scheduled to hear more about the proposed FY24 budget at a special meeting on Wednesday.

The draft school budget proposal was put together by Hannans and an administrative team that met with every NHPS principal to get a feel of each school’s concerns. 

“Unfortunately because we’re so underfunded, there wasn’t much we could do,” Hannans said. 

Hannans said a stakeholder meeting was also held to gather community partners’ feedback about budget needs. 

“The goal of it really was to show where we are, what it’s costing us, and how we needed the folks to support us to at least give us, if not more than what the mayor put aside, a few dollars more, but to just not cut us at all,” Hannans said about the stakeholder meeting. 

Click here to view the proposed budget presentation in full. 

Staff, Transportation $ On The Rise

The district is proposing a 6 percent increase to the schools budget overall. 

Hannans noted that student enrollment has been on a decline since 2016. NHPS student enrollment is now at its lowest level in more than 10 years. 

“What I’m concerned about with the continued decline of enrollment: What will our budget look like, or basically what will our grants look like?” Hannans asked. 

Since FY13, the district’s Education Cost Sharing (ECS) aid from the state has remained at around around $142 million. Alliance Grant funding has increased each year since 2012. 

The district’s newly proposed budget would its 41 schools and 19,150 students. 

Hannan’s presentation showed some of the major grants supporting the district and displayed a sample breakdown of what schools receive those grant funds. 

Last fiscal year the district submitted a general fund budget request to the city for $200 million and was approved for $4.8 million less, making this year’s budget about $195 million. 

For the FY23 school year the district is requesting almost $12 million more than this year’s budget, totaling a $207 million request, or a 6 percent increase from the current year. 

“The mayor’s budget is coming in at [$8 million above the current year], so that would probably leave us about $3 million, if it’s not changed, that we would have to then look for, which was a little lower than what we had to do last year,” Hannans said. 

According to Hannans’s presentation, next year’s expenses without any adjustments would call for a $225,218,470 budget request. However, Hannans trimmed that number down to $207,071,931 for this years draft general funds budget proposal. 

The $207 million budget would increase the district’s current total salaries and benefits expenses by $5,979,674. Its total non-salary expenses would increase by $5,828,473.

The key drivers of the district’s budget are personnel costs, transportation, and instruction materials/out of district tuition.

Essentially all NHPS full-time staff are part of collective bargaining agreements, with the paraprofessional and custodial contracts still in negotiations. 

Hannans estimated that all other salary changes will have 3 percent increases. The district’s transportation contract renewal is approaching for July 1 and has an anticipated increase of 12 percent. 

Several long-term agreements and contracts for building maintenance, tuition, and more have price escalations. 

Hannans also presented a list of several proposed new items that were not included in the increased budget proposal, such as a labor attorney and deputy purchasing agent for the Board of Education, a bilingual examiner for the district, curriculum and professional development upgrades for the district’s elementary and middle school science, math, and literacy programs, five full time EL classroom teachers and five full time special education teachers, and licensing costs for IT updates. These proposed items, not included in the FY24 budget request, would cost an additional $9,209,254.

“I fear because we’re looking at all of these great programs going on in the school system and as these grants go away we have to look at and say to ourselves, ​‘Well how are we going to sustain these programs?’ ” Hannans said. ​“And that is a real concern to me.” 

Hannans reported that the proposal will be brought to a budget hearing with the Board of Alders Finance Committee on March 30. The district will aim to have a final adoption of a budget in May. 

Hannans said her team is open to recommendations from the board over the next week. She also noted that one federal pandemic-relief grant sunsets this year and another in 2024. 

“We’re doing a lot of professional development with these new implementation of programs that we’re putting in, and we just have to be cognizant of this money isn’t always going to be here, and what are we going to do for the future,” Hannans said. 

"Great Inequities"

Board of Education member Darnell Goldson thanked Hannans for her presentation and budget breakdown, calling it the best he’s seen in several years. 

Goldson noted an anticipated 12 percent transportation budget increase. He said he hopes the district will not see such a drastic increase and that a recently posted transportation request for proposal (RFP) will find a new transportation partner for the district. The new RFP, which was presented by Chief of Operations Thomas Lamb at the March 6 Finance and Operations Committee meeting, has been updated to make sure the bid is more competitive. with changes like no longer requiring a contractor to house buses in New Haven. (Click here to watch the recorded F&O meeting.)

New Haven has one of the highest school transportation costs in the state, Goldson said, which is taking ​“away from providing additional tools for our kids to learn.” 

“We’re one of the richest states in this entire country with a multibillion dollar surplus, and we have great inequities in terms of the amount of funding coming to some districts,” Board of Education Vice President Matt Wilcox said while highlighting the work that’s been happening in New Haven at the state level for fully and equitably funded schools. 

Goldson questioned if a labor lawyer will really help the district in litigation and grievance costs, as has been argued in the past. 

“Having a labor lawyer for ourselves and paying that lawyer a set fee, we don’t have to pay those extra minutes to other people or people who charge by the hour. It would be more fiscally responsible for us have our own lawyer who would deal with all these litigations and all these different grievances that come to HR department,” Superintendent Iline Tracey said in response to Goldson’s comment. 

Wilcox also raised the important work being done by the district in relation to funding needs with its Defining the Gap project, which has aimed to map out school staffing needs and caseload caps for all employees throughout the district. (Click here to read more about that district project.) 

“We are creature of the state and the state [is] always reminding us that education is a creature of the state, so the state should take care of its obligation. And citizens of New Haven should not rest until we get every penny that the state of Connecticut should give us,” Board of Education Secretary Edward Joyner said. 

He continued by saying, ​“When we lose students, we still have the same capital infrastructure cost.”

Mayor Elicker, who is also a member of the school board, clarified that his recently submitted city budget has an $8 million increase in its education budget. Of that $8 million, $4.5 million would come from the city’s general fund, and $3.5 million is an assumed increase in the state’s ECS funding. 

“Our indication are that conversations at the state are going in the right direction for some increase in educational cost share but that is not a done deal and there are multiple proposals for increasing education funding at the state level,” Elicker said. ​“If we fully accelerated the education cost share formula we would get that $3.5 million.”