Ansonia school officials asked the city’s Aldermen for nearly $2 million in new funding for 2015 – 2016, saying they need that much new money just to keep current programs as they are.
The Aldermen have until April 30 to approve a citywide budget for next year. The city’s tax board recommended a school budget nearly $800,000 less than requested by the Board of Education.
School officials said they haven’t yet decided how to adjust their spending plan should they get less than they asked for — but they’ll hurt.
“The reductions haven’t been defined yet,” said James Gaskins, the school district’s business administrator. “It will be very difficult and damaging regardless of what is cut.”
Gaskins and Assistant Superintendent Michael Wilson presented the school district’s budget request to members of the Board of Aldermen’s finance committee Monday (March 23).
A summary of the request is below. Article continues after the document.
15 – 16 BOE Presentation Booklet 12 – 18-14
‘We Are Struggling’
The school board unanimously approved a 2015 – 2016 budget request totaling $30,799,138.
The current budget is $28,897,207.
The difference between this year’s budget and the amount requested for 2015 – 2016 is $1,901,932, or 6.58 percent.
Click the play button on the video above to see Gaskins review the school board’s request with Aldermen.
Of the new money requested, Gaskins said $573,992 represents contractual raises to the school board’s employees, and $306,507 represents projected increases to employee benefits, which are currently out to bid.
Additionally, the responsibility of funding crossing guards throughout the city has been moved to the school district, at a cost of $60,000.
Beyond that, Gaskins said the biggest driver of the budget increase is special education costs, which the school district projects will go up $892,193.
Of that number, $497,857 would be put toward increases in “out-of-district” tuition and transportation costs.
Laws mandate local school districts are responsible for paying the tuition for kids in special education who must be taught elsewhere.
It’s an ever-increasing number, Gaskins said.
“Right now we’re looking at over $5 million just for special education out of district, tuition and transportation,” he told Aldermen Monday. “Every year we cannot keep up.”
The school district is forced to institute spending freezes and reallocate money from elsewhere in the budget toward special education costs to make up the difference, he said.
The school board also wants to hire a special education supervisor at a cost of $112,865, four special education teachers at a cost of $200,364, a special education pre-school teacher for $50,091, and three board-certified behavioral analysts for $240,000.
The budget request also calls for a part-time secretary and special education paraprofessional at Mead School representing $38,556.
The school district also wants to put $55,000 toward hiring three part-time interventionists and a part-time secretary. Those costs would be offset by cutting a part-time nurse and library clerk for a total of $25,000.
“Essentially what they’re trying to do is just replace things that have been cut in the past,” Gaskins said. “We are struggling. We need these positions.”
Help From The State?
Though the budget request totals more than $30 million, school district spending is subsidized to the tune of more than $16 million from the state’s “education cost sharing” grant.
City officials say the number should be millions of dollars higher.
Other grants the district receives total more than $5 million, meaning local tax revenue is on the hook for less than half of the district’s overall budget.
But as Wilson, the school district’s assistant superintendent, told Aldermen, grant funds can be something of a double-edged sword.
Article continues after video.
Example — the school district currently receives about $1.5 million in the form of an “Alliance District” grant from the state, which targets underperforming school districts, including Ansonia and Derby.
But the money comes with “strings attached” — it has to be used for new programs not already in existence.
And come the end of next year, that grant will run out.
Whether the state will make up the difference by bumping up Ansonia’s “education cost sharing” grant is an open question, the school officials told the Aldermen.
“Grants are not a means of supplanting. They are never meant that way,” Wilson said. “Most of the grants educationally, we say, ‘How are we going to fund this when the grant runs out?’”
Teachers also apply for smaller grants on their own, Wilson said.
