Allan Appel Photo
CFO Penn in foreground, with Superintendent Tracey.
The Board of Education is really not in deficit. It has just been chronically and systemically under-funded for the last 30 years, and you should write to your representatives, especially in the state to deliver that message.
That was the sermon, with the school system’s proposed $199 million budget as their scripture, that Superintendent Ilene Tracey, her new Chief Financial Officer Phillip Penn and Board of Ed members\ were out in force to preach on the west side of town.
Their audience or congregation: about 40 attentive members of the Westville/West Hills Community Management team meeting gathered in the cafeteria of the Mauro-Sheridan Inter-district Magnet School.
Board of Ed Vice Chair Matt Wilcox.
It was the second of six scheduled appearances of a financial road show before city community management teams by the Board of Ed brain trust. The one this past Wednesday was helmed by Penn, and his aim was to increase public understanding of a complex document and to help advocate for the requested 5.73 percent increase over last year’s 2019 – 2020 budget.
The budget us to be presented to the Board of Ed at its public meeting on Feb. 24 and then to Mayor Elicker two days later. Hearings on the details of the budget then ensue during March and April, with those specific dates yet to be determined.
Following on a similar presentation these officials gave before the Dwight Community Management Team on Feb. 5, former Board of Ed Chair (and current member) Darnell Goldson said, “People don’t understand our budget. Our hope is when you see the numbers, you’ll be more supportive of education.”
Penn got the show on the road with a myth-busting pronouncement: “I want to dispel the rumor that the city gets all its funds from the state.’
In fact, $41.2 million, or about 15 percent of the budget is derived from city taxes. The lion’s share, $178 million, or 67 percent, comes from the state. And $46.9 million, or 17 percent, slightly more than the city’s contribution, comes from federal grants.
Penn’s point: Your reluctantly turned-over city property taxes are deeply invested in education, and maybe you will want to be too.
His second key point: “This is called a ‘turn the lights on’ budget,” by which he meant little new is being asked for except to fund contractually agreed-upon 3 percent increase for staff, escalations built into long-term contracts with, for example, the bus transportation company, and inflationary increases that bump up all the commodities the Board of Education uses.
Of the $199 million being requested, about $125 million is for salaries for full and part-time staff, with the other major drivers being $24 million for bus transportation and $13 million for plant operation. Half of the approximately $10 million increase requested covers a $5 million deficit carried forward from last year.
Penn bemoaned the state’s flat-funding of its Education Cost Sharing (ECS) program. Even a small adjustment for inflation over the years since 2012 would have resulted in millions more available, he said.
In his ten-minute presentation, Penn picked out details in the budget that could be easily understood by people in his audience, many of whom were homeowners on the west side of town.
For example, the budget features only $575,000 for what Penn called “the break/fix fund.” That is for emergency repairs for the entire school year throughout the system’s 41 buildings.
“That number should be ten times that,” Penn declared. At his previous job, Penn said, the same was indeed ten times that amount — for only four buildings!
Penn said he sees some opportunities to grow private grant funding for the school. That’s one reason why the budget features a new $90,000 position for a grant writer. However, changing the way the city and the state systemically fund, or rather under-fund, New Haven schools is the long-term answer.
“We’re not running a deficit. We’re just under-funded and trying to catch up,” said Goldson.
The newest Board of Ed member, Matt Wilcox, spoke briefly at the end of the presentation.
“We need 5 percent just to lock in what we have, including the previous cuts,” he said That is, if two schools are sharing a library specialist, they will continue to do so.
In addition to the grant writer, the budget calls for a director of facilities for the system, with a salary of $95,000; two staffers to work with the system’s growing number of English language learners; and six health teachers to fund a new state health curriculum. Penn bemoaned the “unfunded mandate” quality of that last item: The new curriculum needs to be taught, but as the state is not providing funding for the teachers, the city’s budget must cover the salaries.
In a brief question-and-answer period, audience members, who were generally positive, asked how other school systems compare. Penn said he is in touch with his counterparts to see both how those systems derive their money and how they spend it.
New Haven, for example, spends a lot more — $24 million — on bus transportation than other Connecticut cities. That has to do with the complicated magnet school system. Penn listed reducing the number of required buses as one of the half dozen potential strategies to pursue for mitigating increases.
“We can’t get there all at once,” he said.