Alder Stratton’s Proposed Amendment to Education Funding as to the Mayor’s 2014-2015 Budget:

Increasing Paraprofessionals by 160, Creating Safe Neighborhoods for Students Through Universal Policing, Creating City Wide School Recreation Program and Creating Opportunities for all Youth to Reduce Immediately Violence, Reducing Burdens on Residents by 9.8%.

Whereas, the budget proposed by the mayor does not expressly state how much is being allocated to the Board of Education other than a city cash contribution;

Whereas, there are a myriad of services and benefits apparently paid for by the city but not allocated to the Board of Education in the Proposed Budget including payroll, healthcare, school nurses, pensions, workers compensation, legal work, maintenance, and several other as of yet undisclosed payments and in kind services;

Whereas the state mandates that each municipality ensure that educational funding equal the MBR, the minimum budget requirement through a combination of state educational cost sharing grants and local contributions of cash or in kind services;

Whereas this year it is anticipated that the state will set an MBR of approximately $175 million and will contribute $153 million in ECS grants, meaning that the city must contribute $23 million to meet the MBR;

In that upon information and belief the mayor seeks to fund the board of education at a level at least $90 million dollars in excess of the MBR, for total funding of more than $113 million dollars;

Whereas no town in the state (other than New Haven) funds through local contribution education at a level 400% greater than the local contribution required by the MBR and that no town except for the City of New Haven has ever exceeded the local contribution required by MBR by more than $20 million;

Whereas historically and this year every city in the state with more than 75,000 in population contributed no more than the local contribution required by the MBR and if they did it was rare with the excess contribution never exceeding 3-5 million dollars.

Whereas the Board of Education has a budget which includes: contingency slush funds for $6 million that are not utilized for specific purposes; massive undefined line items for “other“ and “purchased services” which vastly exceed other peer cities and are unexplained; huge amounts of monies spent on maintenance including more than $33 million that have not been justified and in that the board negotiated a contract with its employees that leaves them ranked number 1 among 169 districts for “employee benefits” and last among peer cities for providing instructional materials and equipment to teachers and paraprofessionals;

Whereas more than 150 administrators earn salaries and benefit packages in excess of $180,000 per year and the level of administrators is far in excess of any peer city, and whereas state consultants for the SDE document the number of administrators needed which also corroborates the excessive staffing in the central bureaucracy;

Whereas this City is unable to: 1) ensure the reasonable safety of its residents and needs resources to provide universal community policing; 2) afford a comprehensive plan to employ youth this summer and year round during a tumultuous Spring fraught with violence; 3) reduce tax levels to a

point where car owners, renters and prospective homeowners and businesses can afford to expand or move into New Haven thereby killing job opportunity and economic prosperity; to provide proper park, public works, library, and other vital city services.

Whereas the Board of Education should not eliminate any teachers or principals to levels less than the optimal levels recommended by the SDE and its consultants, and whereas it should hire many more paraprofessionals who cost $20-25,000 a year so that the elimination of just 5 administrators in central bureaucracy would result in 38 paraprofessionals being hired.

Whereas the City has no authority to dictate where the Board of Education should spend its money and that millions have been spent on unnecessary consulting contracts without any approval or review by the City;

Whereas the city contribution to education would have to be reduced by at least $90 million to reach the same level over MBR that Hartford provides and that the superintendent himself at a finance meeting just 2 weeks ago said that he desired in his dreams to be funded like Hartford;

It is proposed that the City reduce its total contribution to education this year to a level $50 million over the MBR. The savings should be utilized to hire 160 paraprofessionals for the school system. These paraprofessionals will be allocated to Tier 3 and Tier 2 schools with the worst performance records to get student teacher ratios in those schools down to at least 7:1. The cost of these hires will be $3.9 million.

Further it is proposed that the City use these savings to implement a city wide comprehensive recreation program for the schools that will give every child an opportunity to play competitive sports in intracity leagues as well as learn one musical instrument every year. This will cost $10 million dollars which includes use of existing facilities and the hiring of 200 part time coaches and music/art teachers.

Further it is proposed that $5 million be allocated to the downtown ambassador program and the police for implementation of community ambassadors and policing in all high risk neighborhoods. Further $2.5 million will be allocated to paying for summer camps and summer/year round jobs for any city department willing to implement such a program without any funding for oversight or supervision. The funds shall be used solely for supplies, events, transportation and space for the students. This reduction when combined with expenditures leaves $24m which shall be applied to this years proposed budget resulting in a 4 mill rate reduction or 9.8% tax reduction for car owners, renters, businesses, and homeowners.

This amendment is a program that the peoples caucus has dubbed “taking the bull by the horns”. The gross mismanagement of the extremely generous local contribution by the BOE requires that the City replace the BOE’s judgment of priorities with its own. Reducing BOE funding creates the safe neighborhoods and recreational opportunities that children need, it also invigorates the job and housing markets to encourage a dramatic increase in grand list values and population so necessary to a healthy future. Taking the bull by the horns means trusting the City to spend the money wisely rather than handing it over to a BOE that has historically not provided the student-teacher ratios, the recreational opportunities, the jobs, the safe neighborhoods needed for youth and resident success.