Ansonia's board of education meeting on June 12.
ANSONIA – The Ansonia board of education voted to adopt a budget for the 2024 — 2025 fiscal year on June 12, about two weeks after the city passed a budget that allots $37.6 million to the school district.
The move is largely ceremonial, since that allotment is already finalized. However, it also marks the first time this year that any details of the board of education’s spending has been made public in a single budget document.
The Breakdown
The new budget is a $1.8 million, or five percent increase over last year’s budget. The largest increases were in employee pay and benefits, which together increased by about $1.2 million.
Other increases included $200,000 each for utility costs and student transportation, as well as a $300,000 increase for substitute pay.
The new budgeted amount for substitute pay is about eleven times the school district’s $32,500 budget for substitutes this year. The budget adopted cites the expiration of an American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA)-related grant as the reason for the dramatic increase.
The new budget also cuts funding for new technology almost entirely – from $241,500 last year, to $13,980 this year. The budget document says the decrease is because the district was able to use grant funds instead of district money to purchase new equipment.
One other significant cut in the budget is for heat energy, which was changed from $450,000 to $350,000. The budget document does not provide a reason for the decrease.
Mathew Hough, the president of Ansonia’s teacher union and a music teacher at Ansonia Middle School, said he was happy with the new budget.
“I’m just pleased that we’ve now gotten several years of being fully funded, and we are avoiding the cuts and downfalls that many other school districts are going through right now,” Hough said.
Board of education officials did not ask any questions when presented with the budget on June 12. Board president Rich Bshara gave a brief overview of the budget before it was passed.
The Process
The development of the Ansonia board of education’s budget took place behind closed doors, unlike boards in other towns.
In Seymour and Derby, boards of education developed their budgets throughout January and February and discussed them in public meetings before sending their requests to the city (in Derby) or to voters (in Seymour) to be approved.
Ansonia used to have a similar process. This year, however, the budget was developed in private meetings between school and city officials. The Aldermen approved a budget for the city that included the board of education as a single line item in May.
Alderman Steven Adamowski criticized the closed-door process during the Aldermen’s budget meeting. Adamowski, a former school superintendent in Hartford and Norwalk, called the decision to pass an education budget without seeing it beforehand “unprecedented.”
Board president Bshara, who also works in the city’s finance department, told the Valley Indy in May that this way of doing things streamlines the budget process and leads to better financial outcomes for the district and the city.
In January, the board of education accidentally published a document that showed the board of education asking for $38 million from the city – about $400,000 more than what became the board’s final budget.
Superintendent DiBacco would not comment on that January budget document, saying that it had been published by mistake and that it was still a work-in-progress. It was taken off of the board of education’s website soon after.
An Additional $430,000 On Top Of What Was Approved
Separate from the approved budget, the school district also got approval to withdraw $430,000 from its non-lapsing account at an Aldermen meeting on June 11.
The funds will be used for the rollout of a new curriculum in grades four through eight, according to a document submitted to the Aldermen. Click here for a webinar presentation from Ansonia public school employees to the state department of education on the changes.
A non-lapsing account is essentially a reserve fund, made up of money previously allotted to schools but not spent. That money is returned to the city, who can choose to release it back to the board of education in the future.
That account currently has $540,000 in it, according to Bshara.
The board of education’s current budget documents also show that they are running about a $190,000 deficit for the current fiscal year, which ends on June 30. Bshara said at the board of education meeting that he expects the district will be able to mostly close that deficit by the time the fiscal year ends.
