Scramble On To Close $10.8M Schools Gap

Almost certain to be flat-funded once again, the city’s public schools are facing another year of drastic budget reductions.

The latest round of cost-cutting could reduce the number of high-school electives, trim the length of the school year and pack school buses — to get only halfway through the budget shortfall the district will likely have to close next school year.

“We’re in that pain space right now,” said Larry Conaway, a school board member who used to oversee the district’s last alternative high school that dealt with a merger and a move in previous budget deficits. ​“Considering the space we’re in, we have to make some difficult decisions. I’m concerned about it, and I may have to vote for it.”

Likely to have its funding zeroed out again, New Haven’s Board of Education learned what it might take to start balancing next year’s budget at a special meeting Wednesday night at the district’s Meadow Street headquarters.

District officials have said they’ll need at least $10.8 million more next school year, just to keep current operations going. That would mark a 5.73% increase, for a total operating budget of $199 million. They’ve also said another $1.7 million could hire more bilingual and health teachers, replace the elementary math curriculum, and keep up school buildings.

While the exact size of the gap isn’t clear, it appeared Wednesday night that over the next week the school board will have to find ways to close a gap of up to $10.8 million, depending how much the mayor and Board of Alders kick in for the city portion (at a time when they face a mammoth overall budget gap as well).

Next week, Board of Education members will finalize their request for city support — and the mitigation efforts they’ll need to undertake to make up the difference — at Monday’s regular meeting at King-Robinson School, when they’ll officially agree on a figure to send to Mayor Justin Elicker.

But on Wednesday, during a contentious 90-minute debate, the school board first had to confront the difficult reality ahead.

After back-to-back years of building closures and staffing reductions, they hesitated to commit to further cuts. They tried to figure out what else New Haven’s public schools could do without, even as some board members advocated for more dollars to reinstate counselors and librarians and raise salaries for assistant teachers. They asked if administrators could hold off on committing to the most devastating cuts, until they’re proven necessary.

Iline Tracey, the interim superintendent, and Phillip Penn, the chief financial officer, said they needed the board’s buy-in now.

While they didn’t spell it out explicitly, Tracey and Penn are likely trying to avoid a repeat of the last-minute cuts that roiled the district last year: the involuntary transfers and bus reroutings that led to Carol Birks’s negotiated exit.

“Candidly, what I don’t want to do is come forward with a plan, get halfway through doing it and pull the plug on it,” Penn told board members midway through Wednesday’s meeting. ​“We’ll be in a worse position to start the year, bearing the burden of a budget that doesn’t reflect any of these things taking place.”

Penn proposed six budget-mitigation ideas that he estimated could save around $6 million.

Most of those savings would come from reducing personnel costs for each vacancy, either by hiring less experienced teachers or by not filling the position altogether.

Leaving about 50 positions vacant, after teachers and administrators leave the district this summer, could save $3.1 million, Penn estimated.

Offering a buyout for about 87 teachers and administrators who already have enough credits to qualify for a full state pension could save $870,000, he estimated.

And filling about 135 vacancies with teachers and administrators who’d start at a lower salary step than their predecessors could save $405,000, he estimated.

Ed Joyner, the board’s secretary, also cautioned that relying on teacher turnover to close the budget gap could backfire if the employees who leave are certified in shortage areas, like math and science, languages, special education, and technology and media — a problem that the district ran into this year, when it couldn’t find anyone to fill 32 vacancies.

“You point out a risk: You can’t control who turns in their paperwork,” Penn said. If a school loses an AP Physics teacher due to a buyout, ​“you may not be able to bring them back.”

Other savings could come from eliminating 10 buses, which would bring in at least $800,000; negotiating a furlough day, which would bring in at least $530,000; and reducing workers’ compensation claims, which would bring in at least $170,000 in substitute teacher pay.

Amid those bleak choices, Penn did have some good news for the Board of Education.

Penn said state officials told him that most of the district’s proposed new spending could be covered by the state’s Alliance grant, a restricted portion of the state’s main funding formula that has to be pre-approved by the education commissioner.

Next year’s Alliance grant could pay for bilingual support staff, health teachers, a grant writer, the new math curriculum, a building evaluation and a facilities director, he said. That leaves just $481,000 that the district would have to find for building repairs, especially for the heating and air-conditioning units, and a data-system consolidation, he added.

After Wednesday’s special meeting, Mayor Elicker wouldn’t say if he’ll be able to find any extra city dollars for education. He said city government is caught in a ​“really tough situation,” which will make any significant increase for public schools this year unlikely.

Inside City Hall, ​“we have a gap we need to fill between expenses and revenues,” Elicker said. ​“We’ve done a lot of one-time things over many years: That’s not responsible budgeting. The hens are coming home to roost.”