New Haven ended the 2026 fiscal year in the red, with an $8.5 million operating deficit – the largest part of which was from the city's struggling public schools.
Mayor Justin Elicker addressed residents in a Thursday news conference where he outlined priorities for the upcoming fiscal year.
Elicker said he would focus on the “challenges” facing the city’s public schools, including backlogged maintenance requests, and continue chipping away at the city’s overdue pension funds.
Elicker noted that New Haven’s new biotech development, the QuantumCT center, will bring in additional revenue for the city, which will be compounded by a slight increase in Yale University’s voluntary contribution to the city of $230 million over the next seven years.
The city’s Board of Education (BOE) posted the largest individual deficit —almost $10 million. At a recent Board of Alders Education Committee meeting, teachers, students, parents and staff gathered to urge the BOE to expand its public school budget and expedite facilities management requests.
Elicker also attributed the overshoot on public school spending to a lack of planning.
There was “some underbudgeting and lower estimates in the initial budgets than we should’ve had,” Elicker said. “ Staffing was also a deficit in the Board of Education, which went over $3.5 million.”
This fiscal year, the city is set to increase the budget of its public schools by roughly $13 million.
The city has long been struggling with the cost of city employees retiring. Mayor Elicker and city Budget Director Ron Gizzi, pointed to rising pension costs, which keep the city’s budget in the red year after year.
Annual contributions to the swelling pension pool force the city to raise taxes or skimp in other departments.
Elicker said the city was working to “bear the burden of many, many past decisions” in reference to the dragging pension payoffs.
Elicker’s plan to pay off the city’s long-unfunded pension debt will alleviate the city from pension-related financial pressures by 2046.
“This is something we’ll be struggling with for the coming years,” said Elicker. “We can’t bear the burden of past wrongdoings all at once.”
New Haven also spent $30.5 million on settlements for Marquis Jackson and Vernon Horn, two men wrongfully convicted of murder in 1999.
The city’s Board of Alders requests $27 million in loaned bonds to cover the settlement costs and is currently fighting another wrongful conviction settlement of $38 million in court.
According to September data from the Board of Alders, the settlements for Horn and Jackson could cost the city as much as $40.5 million by 2047.
