Ansonia school officials are asking the city for a roughly $1.8 million increase in funding for the 2013 – 2014 school year.
The request is a 6.7 percent increase over the city’s current allocation to Ansonia Public Schools. If approved as is, the school budget alone would increase the average tax bill by about $646 next year, school officials said.
The details were unveiled at a meeting Monday of the Ansonia Board of Aldermen’s finance committee, which met jointly with six members of the city’s Board of Apportionment and Taxation.
The city is in the earliest stages of putting together next year’s budget. A school budget is usually finalized sometime in May.
On Monday, school board president John Lawlor went over the school board’s request for $28.8 million from the city. Superintendent Carol Merlone, Assistant Superintendent Anthony Gasper and School Business Administrator James Gaskins were on hand to answer questions.
Ansonia schools are essentially between a rock and a hard place, according to Monday’s conversation. During the last few years, the district restructured it schools in order to boost academic performance, per the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
The school district also relied on federal and state funding to hire more teachers and to create more programs to boost academics. It has been successful, with the district making strides in test scores. But the money is disappearing — and new revenue sources have not been found.
Last year 24 staffers were laid off because the school district lost about $1 million in grant funding, Merlone said. The proposed budget does not restore any of those positions.
This year the school district expects to lose about $410,000 in grants. School officials are asking the city to cover it.
The $410,000 represents 1.52 percent of the 6.7 percent increase school officials are requesting, school officials said.
The Increase
The rest of the requested increase plays out as follows, according to a budget documented distributed at the meeting:
- Employee benefits (which includes health insurance) are increasing $624,237.
- Tuition (a cost connected to special education) is increasing $437,145.
- Transportation costs are increasing $221,427.
- Salaries are increasing $142,119.
School officials noted a spending freeze has been in effect in Ansonia schools since the start of the school year. The budget document states school officials negotiated a year of zero percent wage increases for most union employees and all non-union employees.
School officials said they further tried to reduce their request to the city by holding off on requesting $330,574 to go toward the district’s three-year improvement plan.
In the video below, Lawlor, the school board president, begins to explain the proposed school budget. The article continues below.
During a conversation that lasted between two to three hours, Ansonia Aldermen and members of the tax board asked a wide-ranging series of questions about the proposed school budget.
Some themes emerged from those questions, such as a concern over the increasing costs connected to special education.
Special Education
Special education costs add up because of support services needed to assist the children. In addition, if the child needs to be placed at a school outside the district, the home school district has to pick up the costs, including tuition and transportation, per state and federal laws.
While some of the money is reimbursed, Ansonia elected officials complained the state does not send enough money back to cover special education costs.
In addition, school administrators indicated they are seeing an increase in the number of children in Ansonia who require special education.
Gasper, the assistant superintendent, cited three factors as possible reasons for the increase of kids in special education:
- The district’s special education programs are highly regarded.
- The increase in the number of autism diagnoses by doctors.
- Underlying social and emotional issues families and children may be experiencing because of the economy and stresses within families.
Gasper noted several times physicians make the diagnoses and the school is required to provide the services. At the same time, district officials said they do not believe the kids who are being classified as needing special education are being over-diagnosed.
Alderman Phil Tripp, tax board chairman Richard Sturges and tax board member Larry Commune all had similar questions — what are Ansonia’s representatives in Hartford doing to help offset mandates and ever-increasing special education costs?
Lawlor, the school board chairman, said higher levels of government haven’t done much to help.
“It appears they are taking the position it is your problem, not ours,” he said.
Tax board member Edward Norman said the state’s Board of Education and the federal Department of Education are to blame for the systemic funding problems in education because of unfunded mandates.
Alderman John Marini asked whether the school district could start predicting their annual funding requests several years in advance, so that taxpayers could at least get a sense of what is coming down the road.
Lawlor did not sugarcoat his answer, saying increases of 5 to 7 percent are likely “for the foreseeable future” as state mandates continue, grants disappear and Ansonia schools try to hold on to what they have.
The tone of Monday’s meeting was bleak, but not confrontational. Rich Bshara, who works in the city’s finance department, said it was the most productive city-school district budget meeting he witnessed in 28 years.
Tax board members Karl Williams and Larry Commune made comments that cut to the heart of the matter — how can officials ask taxpayers in a distressed city such as Ansonia to shell out another $646 in taxes next year?
“When we bring this to taxpayers and they see an extra $650 coming out of their wallet, how are they going to react? That’s what we’re caught in and what we have to come to terms with,” Williams said.
City officials also questioned school officials about the extra $539,700 the district received in 2012 from the state’s new “alliance district” program.
Ansonia and Derby received extra funding in an effort to improve their poor academic performance.
However, Ansonia school officials said the money came with requirements. It had to be used for programs approved by the state education department that weren’t already in existence.
While the new programs created with the money are useful, it meant in some cases Ansonia administrators had to come up with programs they had not planned so they could use the money.
Example — the district created a program that will have high school freshman start two weeks earlier than normal. It is good for learning, but it wasn’t a program Ansonia school officials had anticipated in their three-year improvement plan.
“In some respect, the alliance grant took us off track,” Gasper said.
