New Haven officials are celebrating, after state lawmakers gave the city an additional $23 million in the legislative session that ended this month.
Before the injection of state funding, New Haven Public Schools faced a projected $13 million deficit for the fiscal year ending June 30. Superintendent Madeline Negrón says it’s not just students’ education but adults’ livelihoods these additional funds have saved.
“We get to protect the current staffing levels that we have. We get to protect our core instruction. We get to protect our intervention strategies,” Negrón said. “We get to protect our college and career pathways. We get to protect the arts and athletics. We get to protect our school attendance teams that have been so impactful in re-engaging our students and reducing chronic absenteeism.”
The educational budget gap was largely driven by the high cost of bussing students in a district that allows school choice. NHPS spent more than $39 million on transporting 17,476 students daily last year. Officials point to rising gas prices as a concern that bus costs aren’t going to flatline any time soon.
“We are looking at what an opt-in for high schoolers would look like because, right now, we know that we route every child onto a bus. But we know that not all of our students are riding those buses,” Negrón said. “So there's got to be a way that we can put together a strategy that will actually save us some dollars as it relates to transportation.”
At the April 27 school board meeting, New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker suggested that maybe students should go to schools closer to home.
At Wednesday’s press conference about the additional state funds, Connecticut Public asked the mayor about the continued possibility of changes to the city’s school choice program, which allows families to apply for a lottery to join their top choice public schools anywhere in New Haven and receive free bus transportation. He said the city government is still considering all options.
“My kids go to a school that is not in our neighborhood, and we're really pleased with the school,” he said. “But, at the same time, we're trying to find ways to balance that with making sure that there's efficiency in the system.”
In addition to the extra funds from the state, Elicker has requested $5 million more for schools in his proposed city budget. That would at least soften the blow of a potential deficit again next year.
The New Haven Board of Alders next must approve the amended city budget. After that, Elicker has until the first Monday in June to sign the changes into law, per the city charter.
