Melissa Bailey Photo
FOI Outlaw Will Clark.
Schools will face “bigtime” cutbacks in teachers and other workers next year if the district doesn’t find new money to fill a $13 million to $18 million budget gap in fiscal year 2011-12.
Schools Superintendent Reggie Mayo delivered that sobering news to Monday’s school board meeting.
The projected gap will be left by disappearing federal stimulus dollars that were sent directly to the district, Mayo said. The district got $14.3 million in federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money targeted for Title I and special education programs, according to federal budget documents.
Chief Operating Officer Will Clark (pictured) said he is “100 percent” sure that that money will not be renewed next fiscal year.
In issuing a draft 2011-12 budget before the board, Clark declined to say whether he expects the school board to be flat-funded for a third year in a row at $173 million in taxpayer dollars from the city’s general fund.
Superintendent Mayo did give a prediction on the future of school jobs. Board member Alex Johnston asked him if there would be a reduction in the workforce next year.
“Bigtime,” Mayo replied.
“I don’t see any way around it,” the superintendent later explained. “Your non-personnel budget is pretty much set. You have to have utility costs and textbooks … Even if you cut anything, you’re talking about small amounts of money.”
“Can I truthfully say there will be layoffs?” Mayo asked. “The answer is yes.” He didn’t have a specific number of layoffs.
Mayo said he will have a better idea of the budget gap after the governor’s budget address on Feb. 16.
Johnston, who runs the education watchdog group ConnCAN, just launched a campaign in anticipation of widespread teacher layoffs across the state this year as stimulus money dries up. If the state doesn’t intervene, districts “will be forced to lay off the newest teachers without regard for how well they educate students,” due to bumping rights, ConnCAN argues. The policy is called “last in-first out.” ConnCAN advocates for alternatives to that policy.
Johnston said in a district that’s taking an individualized approach to running its schools, a mass movement of staff due to layoffs would prove a big challenge, as more senior teachers bump out newer ones. He urged Mayo to talk with the teachers union about the last in, first out policy in anticipation of the layoffs take place.
Gov. Dannel Malloy has pledged to shield cities from the loss of other stimulus money — so-called stabilization funds that were used to pay a large part of the Education Cost Sharing grant, which is the main way the state pays cities to run their schools. In New Haven, nearly $20 million of the $l42 million ECS grant was paid by stimulus dollars that are set to expire, according to a city budget report. Malloy has said he will use state funds to fill that gap next year.
Public Scrutiny Feared
Clark read from a draft budget for 2011-12 at Monday’s board meeting and distributed it to the six members present at the meeting. (Board members Mayor John DeStefano and Ferdinand Risco were absent.)
Despite a pledge to increase transparency as part of the city’s school reform drive, Clark refused to distribute the document to the media. He argued that the copy is a “draft” and that the numbers have not yet been audited.
Clark used that same argument in 2009, when withholding a document he had presented to a board committee containing a list of 15 schools that were facing moves. Clark refused to give the document to then-Register reporter (now City Hall staffer) Elizabeth Benton, claiming it was a “draft.” She filed a Freedom of Information Complaint. The Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC) “failed to prove that the requested record constituted a ‘preliminary draft’ or ‘note’ within the meaning of §1 – 210(b)(1), G.S.” The FOIC also ruled that the district “failed to prove that it had determined that the public interest in withholding such record clearly outweighed the public interest in disclosure, as required for the application of the exemption pursuant to §1 – 210(b)(1), G.S.”
As punishment, the FOIC ordered school officials to be retrained in the rules of open government.
Monday, Clark refused requests from the Independent and Register for the draft budget that he presented at that meeting. He said some of the salary figures may be off by as much as $10,000 and that an erroneous number might set off commenters reading the article. Freedom of Information law does not contain exemptions for officials’ fears that release of documents will prompt critical comments on a website.
The Independent independently Monday night obtained a copy of the draft budget. It shows the salaries of top administrators, by name. It shows them taking a zero percent salary hike next year.
For example, COO Clark makes $146,016 this year; his projected salary for next year is the same.
Read the full document here.
Scroll through the document below to see the salaries of 47 administrators. The list is not comprehensive: Superintendent Reggie Mayo, who makes $226,921 per year, is omitted from the list. A final copy of this document is due to be aired at the board’s next meeting on Feb. 14.
(Update: After the Independent ran this story highlighting his refusal to obey Freedom of Information (FOI) law, Clark emailed the document to the Independent at 10:01 a.m. Tuesday. Clark wrote in his email that he considers himself to have satisfied an FOI request Monday night despite having refused to share the public document — because, unbeknownst to him, someone who doesn’t work for the school district had shared the document with a reporter. “While I consider your request to me to have been fulfilled with your receipt of the document through a Board member, attached please find an electronic version,” Clark wrote.)
Clark’s refusal to share the document Monday night follows a pattern of closed-door budgeting despite the promises of “transparency” in the new school reform effort. Last year, the school board approved a $324 million spending plan three days after seeing the proposal for the first time, and before the public even got a hint of what’s in it.