001And and before I begin, I do want to acknowledge a very small team that was instrumental um in putting together um what we're bringing forth um to you today. So I do want to take a moment to thank uh Michelle Bonano, our supervisor of magnet and grants program. I want to thank Juanita Masik, our central office business director. I want to thank John Nun or supervisor research assessment and evaluation. And last but not least, I want to thank um Tiffany Jackson or executive director of people services special education. So today I am here joined by our CFO Emil Carnandez um to share with you uh my proposed operating budget for fiscal year 27. It's great to know that my technology is working. Um, and for the public, just bear with me. We have a lot
002of information um to go through today and we want to take our our time to continue to make sure that we're doing um our due diligence in being clear um about what we are presenting to you today. So, as we present the fiscal year 2027 operating budget proposal, we stand at a defining moment for New Haven Public Schools. This proposal is not merely a request for funding. It is a formal testament to the resilience of our students and the efficacy of our strategic investments. As I have outlined for you, board of education members, in the new and improved draft budget book that I share with you tonight, our collective efforts have yield significant gains in teaching, learning, and school culture, evidenced by steady rise in student achievement across our interim assessment measures. We are seeing
003remarkable progress in foundational skills among our kindergarteners, particularly in literacy, language, and numeracy development in grades 3 through 10. The data confirms that our instructional strategies are working. Over 50% of our students reach a 100% of their typical growth targets in reading while over 30% achieve a remarkable 150% growth as evident by last year's Smarter Balance assessment results. or students average percentage of growth target achieve the smarter balance assessment grew by 3.5 percentage points reaching 54.7% last year in comparison to the 51.2% in the year prior. In mathematics, we have focused uh intently on dismantling the barriers of math anxiety to strengthening or tier one instruction in targeted two interventions. These efforts resulted in a 2.9 percentage point increase in proficiency last year. Beyond specific subject mastery, our systemic improvements are reflected in the secondary
004levels rising success. We proudly reported that our graduation rate has increased by 7 percentage points from 72.5 in 2324 to 79.5% in 2425. a clear indicator that our support systems are steering more students towards the finish line. This is bolstered by a 6.3 increase in ninth grade on track rates, ensuring our high schoolers build the necessary foundation for success from their very first year as freshmen. We are ensuring that all our graduates leave our halls with a concrete post secondary plan. I want to remind you that last year our graduates pursue diverse and ambitious paths. In higher education, 46.4 4 of our students enroll in four-year colleges and 26.1% enroll in two-year colleges. As it relates to vocational and specialized training, 8.5% move to trades or vte programs while 3.2% pursue certifications at two-year institutions.
005And in workforce and service, 5.9 joined the workforce directly after graduating last year and 2.2% went directly to serve in the military. I also want to remind you that we have expanded our six career pathways. bioscience, business, culinary, education, health care, and manufacturing. And that these programs just last year alone led to 158 industry certified um industry certificates. By prioritizing our strategy of connectess and belongingness, we're also successfully reducing chronic abs absenteeism. And you may recall that we celebrated the fact that we were able to reduce that percentage by 5.4 percentage points. or school climate. Uh survey reflects um the shift showing an increase in favorable responses from students and families who feel a renewed sense of partnership with our schools. And pretty soon uh we are going to have our um third party vendor
006give us the results for culture and climate uh results. I will hear that this coming Friday and then I will bring that that data um to this to you so that you can also see how we are doing this year. But I wanted to lift that to remind the public that we built the plan together. We are committing to our mission to empower every student to thrive in a safe, inclusive and supportive environment. and that we're very clear about our vision, that we want to make sure that we are inspiring and empowering and equipping every single one of our students, and that we are being guided by our core values. It doesn't matter what happens out there in our state um political climate or state climate or federal climate. We are staying the course with
007the path to excellence that we build together with the targets that we are setting out to achieve uh being driven by our core values that we share so that we can get there in 2029. I also want to remind you that we built a timeline, a very clear timeline on how we were going to build this budget and bring it to you and to the community. I I want to remind folks that this process started in late actually late October in November when we engaged our entire community in a thought exchange survey to to to let us know what was important, what we should be protecting. I gave you the results of that survey. We also laid out and did a process overview with all of our school administrators and our leaders back in early
008November. Our leaders then worked through our through their own school budgets. Um in December we engaged in those budget conversations. uh the CFO and I and members of cabinet and the executive team join me to go through all of these community budget conversations to engage the community, hear their questions, provide answers in the moment. So reminding you that that process took place in late January and early February and that we have engaged in ongoing conversations in FNO to talk about our budget. And here we are today to make the formal presentation of our fiscal year 27 budget requests and that from here we are not done. We will then engage in a a board of alders budget hearing that's already scheduled for the end of April and then we are going to continue to hear
009what's going to happen at the state level hoping that that's going to help us so that hopefully in June you as a board with all of those pieces better known can approve this budget. I also want to remind you and the public that we are keeping the statements that we have made before you. We said that this budget development process would be guided by one central question and one goal and that was to respond to the voices that said they wanted more transparency. That is why since November we have been speaking about the budget. We have been open about the budget, how we were going to tackle the development process. We are being guided by transparency that is being informed not by one voice, two voices, but by all the voices or diverse stakeholder perspectives
010because we ultimately want to achieve equity across all of our schools. So I wanted to remind people about that goal that we're staying committed with that goal and as I mentioned I'm very happy to share with you today we have developed a new and improved budget book. The budget book that I gave you today board members uh that budget book includes new and improved information. It includes a further explanation of what we're going to present to you today in the slide deck. It will explain and go into uh depth around our operating budget requests and the drivers. the operating budget by function, the major grant budget by function along with the school budget section in the central service budget section and a glossery to help you navigate the technical terms. I want to add for
011the public and for the paper that I see here in the room, the draft of that budget book will be made available to the entire public electronically after tonight. After I get a chance to present to my board, the people that I answer to and feel their questions, we will take that on tonight. And our plan is to make this budget book draft. I want to highlight it is a draft. That is what a budget book does. It is a moment in time that will be linked to the page that through this budget process we have made available to the public to be transparent and put everything up there in one place for the budget to see. We're not hiding anything. We're being an open book. As I told you last year, I am keeping
012my word because as a superintendent, from the moment you hire me and the public that was part of the hiring process, I told you that I pride myself 30 years in the business by my integrity. And I'm not going shying away from my integrity. So today I hope that you will indulge me in this long presentation. Next I want to share with you what it is that we are prioritizing in this budget. You heard me at the beginning share the data that you've heard me share before about the wins that we've had as a district where we are celebrating because of the amazing work that our teachers are doing that our administrators are doing that our students are doing that our parents are doing that all of us are doing as a collective. You heard
013me share the celebrations. To continue that upward trajectory, we must protect the investments that made all of those successes possible. We must sustain the current level of full-time employees to ensure that every student has access to highquality core instruction and the interventions and the enrichment services that they require. We must protect the dedicated personnel whose staffs or attendance teams and supporter families in overcoming barriers to education. This budget safeguards our integrated instructional models that we have created and that we continue to define and deepen and expand to support our special education students and our multilingual learners. protecting the arts, protecting athletics, and protecting the professional learning opportunities that keep our educators at the forefront of the field. For too long, for way too long, this district has been asked to do more with less. We
014continue to do it because that's who we are as the New Haven public schools. That is the pedigree of our teachers, our educators, our parents, and our students. But I want to remind you again and say it again. This district has been asked to do more with less. Today, we ask for the resources necessary to do what is right. And on behalf of the students of the New Haven public schools who deserve an education that is both high quality and stable, I urge you to support the fiscal year 27 budget. And with that, I am now going to turn it over to my CFO to unpack for us the budget key drivers behind the requests that we are making before you tonight. Thank you Dr. Negron and and good evening to the members of the
015board and and the audience uh not only here but also watching us online. Um so yes, as Dr. Negron mentioned, it's it's a quite a long presentation. We'll make it as as easily digestible as possible and and I I'll go as quick as I can, but not too quick that then you won't be able to capture the information. So uh bear with me for the next u 125 slides. I'm just kidding. Just kidding. Just kidding. Just kidding. I only got like 20 one more slides or so. Um but let's start with the budget key drivers, right? And and this is just a very general u high level uh just like just to start with this foundation. uh the conversation after this slide will uh I will go a little deeper into some of these and
016then we'll also deviate from from the key drivers and also speak about some other areas that are of interest to the public as we've gone through all these months you know speaking to the community and and to the different stakeholders. Um you know we we now understand you know some of the areas that are of key interest. So we also will touch base on some of those as well. Um, so I supposed to be going through this slide and reading what you can see already. I will just speak to some of those. Um, and then we'll just keep moving and then at the end we'll we'll have some opportunities for some questions. So um, so I will just focus on I mean on the first on the first one I will actually take this back.
017I I actually have to read this one. So on the first one, you know, the personal cost and the contractual salary increases for teachers and staff. That's obviously a major key driver. I've mentioned this in the past um that the uh the personnel cost is is the biggest expense of of the school district and and it is the same in any organization in not only just uh you know government organization but just in any place nonprofit the private sector always is is it is the the biggest cost but it also comes with the with the great title of this is also where our biggest asset lies right like our personal is our biggest asset so so it only makes sense that the most important component of our organization is the the one that carries, you
018know, the the biggest cost, right? Because we have to compensate them accordingly. Um there's also uh a need to maintain competitive wages to attract and and retain uh talent. Um you know, we've talked about that especially negotiations. That was a huge highlight, right? We want to be able to retain the staff. So, it's not only compensate for what I deserve to be compensated, but also do it because it's the only way to retain staff, right? And and and it only makes sense, right? So, so that is a key uh um you know budget driver. Uh on the student needs, I'll I'll go a little deeper on this one. Uh when we say growth in special education services, uh it is in order for us to address the continued upward trajectory of special education enrollment and
019we'll see a slide about the enrollment uh for special education at a later time. um which necessitates a strategic expansion of specialized staff to maintain compliance with mandated services service hours and mental health support. So that is extremely important. It's not just that it sounds good that we want to provide resources for the growth special education. It's also a mandate and it's also our mandate, you know, as a human, as a person that cares for our children. It's it's common sense like we want be we want to be able to provide our students with the best service that we could possibly provide beyond just the fact that is a state mandate for us to do so. And then the evolution of multilingual support uh to address its complexity. Um I I want to really expand
020a little bit on what I what we mean by the evolution of multilingual uh support. Uh that is the that is a transition from managing growth to addressing the increased complexity and depth of need with st with within a stabilized post population requiring more nuance high tier interventions for long long-term English learners. I know this because I was one of them. I did my whole high school in a bilingual program uh not not knowing any English whatsoever at the age of 14 through the age of 16. and and that's how I had to, you know, learn English and be part of society and and here here I am today. So, I'm grateful for for the multilingual lingual um um service that I received in high school. Uh which is when I learned English or at
021least what you hear coming out of my mouth. I I hope it is still English, but uh it is close enough that you understand what I'm saying, right? Uh it's good enough, I would say. Um so then and then we have the operational cost, right? And we've talked about this, you know, quite a bit. These are the ones that are more visible for people. Uh these are the transportation and fuel increases. Uh the facility maintenance increases and and that conversation has been uh a conversation that this district has had for years and years and years. Uh you know maintaining our buildings and how the cost of maintaining our buildings have increased year-over-year. So these are the budget key drivers among other ones. Uh and we'll go uh we'll go in depth into into some of
022those um as we go along. Uh on the next slide I do have the control of this. You you are Oh, this is fun. Uh, on the next slide, so we have the district enrollment as of October 1st, and this is a 10-year snapshot, and and this is what we all know to be true, like how enrollment has decreased over time. Um, obviously now at the at this year 2025, uh, fiscal year 2025, we have a 17,000. >> Can't even see this number from here. Uh, >> 837. >> 37. There you go. Um, and I have it really small on my computer. Let me make it bigger. There you go. Um, so we've seen the decrease of enrollment and and this is some of the comments that I've heard you know lately is but car
023if the enrollment keeps going down how do you explain how the cost keeps going up how do you explain why transportation keeps going up and and and teachers salaries keep going up and all these things keep going up and and but enrollment keeps going down right um so I hope that at the end of this presentation we're able to to paint a picture um to provide a little bit more clarity on that and if I don't please ask me that question at the end I want to make sure that we leave tonight with with clarity on how that works right um how the the correlation between enrollment and the cost of doing business right in in a school district um so this one is is is important for us to to touch base but in
024a in a nutshell you could have I'll give you just one quick example you could have in in a classroom you could have 20 students Or you could have 16 students or you could have 23 students. Any any any of those three numbers 15, 20 or 23 still requires one teacher. Now there's a big difference between 15 students and 23 students. That's eight student difference. Eight student could be easily revenue of about $100,000 that we won't get from the state just because of the eight student. $100,000 easily pays for the salary of that one teacher that's in that classroom. But now we just lost those eight students, but we still have to pay the teacher. So So that that's a very easy example. All right? And this is not the case in this is just
025the case that just came came to mind now, but there's a lot of cases where you could also say, well, you have a school facility that has 300 students and you have to pay electricity, you have to pay gas, you have to pay all these utilities, but that school now has only 200 students. The building didn't shrink. The building is to the same size. you still have to heat the whole entire building. You still have electricity in the entire building, but you have 100 students less. So all these things there's there's a there's a correlation between enrollment and cost. And there is also a no correlation in between enrollment and and and cost. And this is one example of how that correlation doesn't doesn't quite align. You could have less students, but the cost keeps
026either stay the same or keeps going up based on inflation, which is another conversation, right? the inflation uh is also another u component that's important for us to to keep in mind when we're talking about cost even when enrollment goes down. But we'll touch base on on this as we go along. There's a lot of slides and and I don't want to get ahead of myself. Uh on the next slide, uh we have uh this beautiful colorful slide that shows three different um um cohorts. And if I'm able to make this bigger on my end. There you go. So we have first the eligible for free or reduced price meals. Uh that will be the first section uh on the left side. Then on the middle we have the English uh language learners and then
027at the end we have students with disabilities. So this is the enrollment uh for these three cohorts. Now I do want to point out the multilingual learners um cohort which is the one in the middle. This is the first year for the first time that we have a decline in this particular population and and that's to be expected given the political climate that that we live uh right now. Uh while the population of multilingual learners has stabilized for the first time this year, the complexity of student needs continues to escalate. We're seeing a sustained significant rise in students requiring a special education services and that will be the on the right section. Although the bars they kind of almost looks the same in by naked eye, I want you to take a look at the
028last two between the green and the yellow. there's a 101 student difference there if I'm not mistaken. I can see the numbers well, but I I do know that it's supposed to be 101 student um alongside a high baseline of multilingual learners. To meet this compounding requirements, we must provide a proportional increase in specialized intervention staff and mandated mental health support. I won't get too deep into the special education enrollment and the needs because I do have like about four or five slides dedicated to special education. So we'll we can have a a a deeper conversation about that component. Uh but I did wanted to note that these are specialized cohorts of of students that require uh um more targeted uh efforts and and a more sustained uh it's more a little bit more complex
029uh the the type of education and support that they require uh which increase the cost of of our um of our services. on the next slide. There you go. Now we have that special education component that I just told you the next four or five slides. So this is a student with disabilities enrollment. Uh this one a little bit more clear shows that uh 101 students difference. So I will give you like a little overview of what this chart says. Um so between 21 and 22 there's an increase of 24 students. Between 22 and 23 there's an increase of 34 students. Between 23 and 24, there's an increase of 57 students. And then lastly, between 24 and 25, there's an increase of 101 students. So, I will kind of put those numbers next to each
030other. 24, 34, 57, 101. Do you do you see the trend there? For the last four years, the addition of special education service students has increased. In fact, this last year, the increase was almost doubled. So I was thinking okay maybe the increases every every year we add the same number of student plus 10 or 15 more but then this last year was the same number of students plus another 44 students you know so it kind of almost doubled um and and I would I would be it would be responsible of me to not see this trend and not prepare our district uh for potential increases in special education given what we're seeing lately and and and we have um I heard um in another uh meeting um u our executive director of people services
031and special education talked about uh how uh we get these students not only before October 1st but even beyond October 1st uh which is you know an issue in itself right we get these numbers of students that come with IEPs from other school districts or other towns or other areas and and it it's a cost that we are not accounted for in the budget that we still have to provide services for um one child could cost anywhere between $80,000 to $250,000. This is in the special education u services anywhere between $80,000 to $250,000 depending of the services needed, depending on what the IP mandates for us to provide. Um we have right now 43 specialized classrooms, one new each year since 2015. So since 2015, we've added one new every single year. Uh we currently
032have 290 students enrolled in New Haven public schools operated specialized classrooms. So we have the data, we have the numbers, we're seeing the trend and we also understand what the cost is um to service this population. So we have to uh be cognizant of this and prepare a budget that not only meet the demands of this fiscal reality but more importantly that provides a quality service to our children. On this slide you have a little bit more detail uh regarding the special education um service um budget. Now, this is the operating budget. This is only general fund budget. And I say this because on the on the next few slides, you're going to see some examples of how special education is so complex that the general fund alone is not even near enough. And and
033as you see on the screen, we're talking about almost $72 million just from the general fund for special education services. $72 million is about 33% of our entire general fund budget. And that's not even enough. And because of that, on the next few slides, you're going to see a little bit more information about what it is that we have to do as a district to make sure that our student receive the services they need beyond what we can support with our general fund. So again, special education students make up about 18% of our enrollment. Yet that 18% of of our enrollment requires 33% of our general fund budget. special education outplacement tuition has risen 6.3 million over the last five years. $6.3 million over the last five years. That's just the outplacement tuition. And and
034we've talked about tuition several times in in other presentations as one of the key drivers of our budget. We currently have 278 resident students in an outplace setting all requiring tuition. All of them requiring us to pay tuition. And every single one of them goes beyond the amount of funding that we receive from the state because as I said before special education services is not just what the state uh provides or the local government provides. It's it goes beyond again because of the the the level of service that that they require and again it could go between 80 and $250,000 and and and and it's it's just the reality that we live. Um now this, as I said before, this particular budget that you see in front of you does not include any additional funds
035to cover other special education expenses um using special funds. And I'll I'll go into that special funds component in just a little bit. Um I know that in the past when we present budgets, uh line item budgets as these, there's always question about what is this, what is that. So I'll just give you a little bit uh of what some of these um are um just so at least hopefully could get the conversation going. And so on and the first one tuition um this particular one for special education you know a good chunk of it um goes to any ASES operated uh locations. Um a portion of it also goes to some of the uh uh the charter schools that we also have to pay our special education students to attend to. on the personnel.
036Uh some examples of personnel that are covered by this particular uh line item from the general fund are speech and language pathologist um an occupational therapist and anywhere uh from any of those services um even even some of the staffing uh from from any of the charter schools that we have to send students to. uh transportation as an example in this particular case. Just give an example. I know transportation is much a bigger uh conversation, but just to give an example, uh we have right now 64 vans um that cost about $93,000 each. These are all based on IEP requirements. We contracted for 57 really 57 vans. So right now we're using seven more vehicles vans. I'm talking about school buses, vans, seven more at $93,000 each. That's just somewhere between $650,000 and $700,000 more
037over the budgeted amount based on the 57 bands that we um originally allocated for. Uh and so this is just an example of how the transportation cost could easily fluctuate up or down only based on IEP requirements. Um so at the beginning of the school year especially now that we're doing a budget for next year we're doing it based on the students that we have based on the 10 the trends that we see uh but at any given time this the numbers of students can fluctuate uh substantially uh and and for each student it comes with with with a cost that that goes way beyond what we receive from the state for each for each of the students. Um, in some cases, you know, you have to, depending on the location of the student, you
038have to get a van for one or two students or even three students. And even when you add up everything we get for each of those students, it doesn't even pay for the full cost of that van, which is $93,000. Uh, you know, in order for you to be able to get enough revenue to pay just for the van, and this is not even talking about the teachers that will provide the services and any other cost, you will have to fill up that van with at least, you know, five students. and just to pay for the event and then now you don't have any more money to pay for the teachers, for the support staff, for the par professionals, uh social workers and any of the other expenses. So those dynamics have to be clear
039that every time we receive funding for one student, you have to account for the cost of that student as a whole, not just that student receive services from this one teacher, this second teacher, or these three or four different staff on the school level. Yeah. What about transportation? what about some of the other components of things that we have to pay for to support the student and this is just one example uh that I felt it was easy for us to to to understand and to digest and and and see the dynamics when we receive funding for special education students um when we look at the contracts uh line item um that's where we have some of the contracts that I saw under there were the sign language contracts uh behavioral therapist contracts uh so
040these are contracts that we are mandated to to employ and to have in order to provide our student the services they require and they need. Um because we do not have all the resources we need to meet the demands and needs of our special education students, we rely on grants or special funds to make these services available. An example is on our next slide when we talk about IDA. So let's go to our next slide. IDA grant expenditure. uh I selected two different uh um special education grants um that I felt it were were easy to to explain the dynamics between the general fund and the and the special funds and and and to show u how much sometimes we have to rely on grants in order for us to provide the basic services of
041our students. Um let me first define what IDA means. This is individuals with disabilities education act. So this is a grant. Uh it provides federal funding to the state for special education and early intervention services for children with disabilities ages three through to 21. So that's what this is. When you look at that chart and you look at the data that's there, you can see that out of the $7 million, 3.2, in fact I will say 3.8 when you include deployed benefits goes towards full-time staff. Then you have the tutors, then you have people's services, and then you have some of the other categories uh that we have to employ this funding for. Now, you saw the budget for special education at a previous slide uh for the $71 million almost 72 and 33% of
042our general fund and and anyone can say, well, that's a lot of money for special education and and and I will say not nearly enough. um because we have to rely on these grants in order for us to really provide these services and even then we need more because our students deserve more. So IDA is one example of how we break down the cost of this grant. Now I have heard um you know some some some folks talk about we don't we don't know what you do with education special education funding. We don't know if you're using it to buy pencils for special education students or you're using it for this or for that. And and you know, they make this very blanket general statement. Um and and it's it's really hard, right, to answer
043that question because you're like, well, I I don't know that that I know, you know, how much one pencil cost in a school district that buys hundreds of thousands of pencils every year. But I will tell you this, every single time we use any special education funding, it's coded as a special education expense and we could tell you exactly what we purchased with that special education funding. The problem is that on the other side um what people see is just supplies coming into the classroom distributed to all the all the students um regular students, special education student, multilingual gender students and have no idea if that one box of pencils or that one box of whatever supply is was paid with one funding or the other. Um, and that's what the the people see with
044their eyes because they are not on this side and they don't see the amount of reporting that we have to do every single time we use special education funding. We have to categorize every single item that we purchase with this funding and we have to account for it. There's oversight entities that come to our district to audit our expenses. uh special education uh expenses are not just the only one but this is one that's actually very uh well audited. This is one that that not only the state but the federal government on a continuous basis are looking exactly how we're spending this money. So, I I want to make sure that, you know, for those folks that don't understand how we allocate and how we report expenses for special education and other cohorts and other
045funding, uh rest assured that we do have this coded in a way that we could easily identify how we use the money and for what particular purpose. Um this grant allocation you see there is exactly how we budget our expenses. Our system does not allow for you to use more than what's already allotted for that line unless you request a budget modification which in the case of these grants is not that easy. It's not that easy whether it's a state or the federal government to request a budget modification. It takes it takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of intentionality and you have to be able to to provide a good business case in order for you to make these changes. So, our system is is is built in a way that doesn't
046allow you to go beyond um what's there. And it's not just us because when we send these expenses to the city for the city to cut the check, they also have another layer of gatekeepers that will push it back to us and say, "Hey, hey, Ailar, you guys just went over this number. I can't cut a check. I can't do this because you just went over it." Right? So, it's not just our decision alone. We have multiple layers of departments and personnel across not only BOE but also the city that's keeping an eye and making sure that we are within budget and and and that's a good thing, right? Sometimes it takes a little longer to get there, right? But it is it is a good thing that we have systems in place that make
047sure that we are in compliance not only budgetarily but also in the services that we're providing. So this is one example um in the IDA grants uh you know because if you look at this if you look at this chart here you will say well America what do you mean by people's services what do you mean by you know instructional non-instructional uh those are very broad categories I I don't know what you mean by that I've heard this before I've presented categories of such before and they always ask the same questions so this time I came prepared this time I came ready to give you some details. Um so I'll give you some details now. Instructional uh this 3.2 pays for two social workers um two speech and language pathologist two psychologist one hearing impaired
048uh three visually impaired uh 27 special education teachers and 34 par educators. There it is. You wanted to know how many FTES we could pay with 3.2 in this particular with this particular grant. There's the information pupil services. What are those contracts for that 1.7? Oh, that 1.7 includes, you know, nursing include ASES behavioral, um, autism, healthc care, pediatric services, lifeline care, relay hub, bilingual assessment, and and many other contracts, you know, that are necessary uh for a special education um services um uh population. Uh, benefits is all the personal paid under IDA. uh and benefits you includes obviously you know taxes and workers compensation and health insurance and so on. uh tutors and non-instructional. Non-instructional will be the administrative assistants, the direct coordinator, supervisors, compliance coordinators, management analysts, all these other support staff that
049are critical for us not only to report back to IDA, to the federal government how we're using the money, but they're also critical in making sure that we are in compliance with the way we use the funding. And then supplies, it's self-explanatory and and unless somebody want me to tell you that we buy pencils, pens, paper supplies. And the indirect cost, it's the administrative cost to to you know to um to the district. So this is just one example broken down into a more deeper level. Um any other grant that we receive whether it's a state or federal is a very similar uh breakdown. We know exactly how much we pay for each category and we know exactly uh who are we paying for and what's included in that particular category. The next and last
050component of IDA because IDA is split into two different uh sections. The other one will be the preschool side of it. And that one is is a much smaller. So you add the $7 million I showed you on two slides ago plus this 100 almost 29,000. That is the full IDA grant. And this one um similar to what we see in other grants. Um 61.6% pays for staffing and 38.4 pays for the for pays for the benefits. Um I will take an opportunity now that I've shown you two three different examples of how um many of our grants and even general fund um works. I will take this opportunity to to tell you how how dangerous it is for us to keep relying on grants to pay for the services for our students. not only
051with my previous experience from other places that I've worked and and that I've been involved um not only at the academic area, the school, but also in the nonprofit sector and the government sector, I've I've learned that it's beautiful and it's amazing when we get grants, right? We celebrate grants. We celebrate when we get them. Uh it makes us happy because it gives us an additional funding for us to uh to provide the services at the level that that that our students are our our our students deserve. But it can also create a very bad habit where we start functioning under the assumption that we're going to get this grant every single year and now we start we start putting staff in there. Now staff salaries now are subject to the availability of that grant.
052What happens when that grant goes away? What do we do with the staffing? Right? It's very dangerous. It's a very dangerous business when we start doing that. No, it is not >> in it is not with bad intentions that we end actually end up doing this of putting staffing in grants. It's only because we don't have enough in the general fund for us to sustain our staffing. So, we have to move them to grants and use those special funds and grants to pay for our staff. Often times when we apply for these grants, we do tell the funer that we're going to use it to pay for this staffing, right? Because we need these staff to provide the services that are mandated or that are part of the mission and vision of our superintendent. But
053at the same time, it would be even better if I could tell on the application that I'm going to use this funding to not only improve the service, but to add more services to our student, more quality service to our student and not have to tell the funer that we're going to use the funding to pay teachers or to pay support staff. I want teachers and support staff to rest assure that the general fund has them covered. that's not going away and I want to use the grants to improve to expand the quality service that we provide to our children. That is the perfect world scenario. Now I'll tell you this and I gave you this premise because I want to skip to this is a great time for me to go to this slide
054which I'm going to skip now to slide 25 if you're following on the because I think it's important for me now to to show this on slide 25 We have uh the major grants revenue and FD accounts. I just mentioned to you the importance of us thinking strategically long term for sustainability purposes. How do we bring our FDAs back to our general fund and start using grants in a in a in a more efficient way to improve the quality service to our students. This is a snapshot of how many of our FTEEs are right now in our entire district rely on grants. 899 FTEEs rely on grants. That's if I'm not mistaken that's about 34% of our FTEEs rely on grants. That's 34% of our FDs rely on grants. There is no guarantees that any
055of these grants will come back or will increase. I'll tell you this alliance and priority as as of right now is going to be flatfunded for the upcoming years unless this legislative this legislative session takes a look at that and then changes. But this year was the last year of the phasing increases. But our teachers will get increases this year, next year and the following one. And they deserve to get increases every single year. Period. Period. There's no question about that. But Alliance and Priority who carries FTEEs between those two would not increase anymore unless this state legislature decides to make some changes to the alliance and priority and continue the increases that we've had for the last five years. That's just one example of how critical it is for us to understand the dynamics
056between general fund, special funds, and how our FTEs are allocated between the two of them. Again, in a perfect word, all the FD should be the general fund. So, we could use the grants to expand quality service to improve our quality service. We have to tie it down to our staffing because like I said before, that's our greatest asset. Without them, there's absolutely no quality education whatsoever. So we have to preserve our staffing and we have to use grants for so for for for such a uh you know in that manner. I'm going to go back because it wasn't my intention or plan to skip to this live but I thought it was u important for us to do so. So I'll go back to slide 14 if you're following on the on the um
057on the paper copy. Uh so this is the last grant uh that I'm going to show you regarding um uh special funds. I'm sorry, special education. And and this one I want to really thank our state legislative uh body, our state delegation because they work really hard to make sure that this seat grant uh it's in place. Uh and here you can see how it also again following the same trend. It also pays for the lot of the staffing that provides special education uh not only at the charter school but also in in some of the other schools that we have. Um, so the SE grant, uh, that's I'm going to exactly say what it is, uh, just for for the, uh, benefit of our public. That's a special education expansion and development grant. It's
058a state grant aimed at increasing school district capacity to serve students with special needs locally. It provides flexible funding for staff recruitment, direct services, and development screenings. It is extremely important for us to track every single scent for special education students. I I I cannot say this enough. I cannot say enough that every single scent that we spend on special education students is tracked accordingly. Not only as a whole department of special education but also even by grant and by location too. So if any time you get you ask me how much have you spent in special education in that one particular school the system will give it to me. We have it we track it in that manner to that level. So there is I want to make sure there's no misinformation when it
059comes to special education. We track these expenses is this is not nothing new. I don't take credit for it. This has been in place way before I was here. It's always been the case. And this is another grant again that explains the dynamics between general fund, special education, the staffing FTEEs and this is just for special education. Uh but the same applies to some of the other um you know components of the school district beyond special education. on the next slide. Um I'm cognizant of the time so I want to keep moving forward if I can see I will move to this one uh staffing trends um chart on this one. Uh let me let me move this down a little bit. I apologize. There you go. Um on this one I want to um
060I want to point out just a few u um areas here. First of all, the one that I think we've we were asked at at a earlier meeting uh on the last one, the other staff providing non-instructional and you'll see that 1,00 91 and 23 24 um that one I will have the information here. Um I forgot where Tiffan is. The uh Oh, that one includes now. Oh, that one include the uh the bus drivers and included the monitors included some other staffing that were not included there in the past and that's why the number um increased substantially in that year. The uh the way that that the category uh what the category included changed in that particular year and then from that point on then we kept that same uh standard and that's I
061I almost forgot. See I that's exactly what happened. We included some additional positions that were not included in the past and that what created that that big um change. The the line of PAR educators I also want to mention because that one also has a huge increase between last year and this year. The par educators are inclusive of multiple support positions including the traditional classroom par educator, a special education par educator, teachers for our head start classroom, student retention specialist, etc. Um so that line uh it's just beyond just the par educator that we think about. So I want to make sure that we understand that so we can see why we have such an increase between the 482 and the 575 between one year and the other as we keep reclassifying and and moving
062the line items then we are adjusting the numbers accordingly. Um so this is a staffing trend and and this is important information for us to understand not only where we are today but also speaks to where we need to be in the future. At another slide I will speak a little bit more about the staffing guidelines and and I think that there's a correlation between what we're seeing here the staffing guidelines and what it is that we need to do to achieve that goal. I'll get to that slide at a later time but then just connect it back to this one um you know as as you see the opportunity to do so. Uh on the next one on the next slide uh we have the collective bargaining groups projected increases. Again these are just
063approximates but uh so we have for example the school administrators for this coming year there's an additional $620,000 uh that will be uh that's contractually agreed upon uh to spend on the on that particular bargaining unit in addition to um what we already budgeted for this year. Uh then we have uh the the cafeteria bargaining unit that's 119,000. Uh the custodial uh we're still currently in negotiations, but we're estimating that it could be somewhere between, you know, about $124,000 more in salaries uh for the custodial. Uh for the teachers, it's about $6.1 million for this coming year. And then for our par educators, $395,000. So when you add them all up, you have about $7.3 million just in increase of salaries. And that does not include um the uh the BOD the trades uh which
064is the second one there. We are waiting for negotiations. And so we are estimating somewhere between 7 and 8 million you know in additional salaries uh for next year. And that's just again keeping status quo keeping the same staffing the same number just contractual increases. On the next one we have uh the transportation cost the history cost. Um, on this one I I I I want to take a point of privilege if that's if there's such a thing for a panelist. Yeah. Okay. Good. I I always love to say that. I want to take a point of privilege. Um, and and I want to say this from the bottom of my heart, but in a very nice way. When we talk about transportation cost, there's no such thing as a debacle, right? when when when
065people use these kind of mischaracterizations, you know, it it it goes along the lines of what we're seeing at the national level, right? And and I was surprised to see that kind of misinformation and mischaracterization at a local level. I was like, okay, you know what? I'm I'm shielded here from the nonsense that happening in Washington DC. And then I I wake up this morning finding out that we have that kind of nonsense happening in New Haven. I'm like, that can't be true. We cannot be providing this level of misinformation. and and mischaracterization of what what I said or what we're presenting. So, well, it is what it is, right? You know, that that's that's uh some of the things that we have to to deal with. But I want to make sure that people
066understand there is no such thing as a debacle, as a budget debacle, especially when we talk about transportation. It was very clearly explained and I will explain it again um just for those that need that clarification. Um the transportation line item I said in the past that for this year it was under budgeted. Let me just first say this underbudgeted line items happen everywhere at all times. It's just it's it just happens right your budget based on the information that you have today on the data that you have today. It's a point in time decision. under budgeted line items happen everywhere all the time. Now given the fact that we have spent in the past as you see in the chart and and and and this shows that we're not shying away from the facts
067and the data that we spent 33 35 $39 million in transportation and we budgeted between 30 and 32 depending on what categories you include in transportation. In this particular case, I'm using this particular breakdown that that says that we budgeted $32 million. You will say, "Oh, you did on the budgeted." They know, but not me, but the district under budgeted, right? Like, sure, we did. But then ask me why. I'm going to tell you what I said before. When we are in the process of budget development and this is what's going to happen in the next two months unfortunately we have to get to a point where we have to present a balanced budget and we have to present a mitigation plan and we have to be on that mitigation plan we have to cut
068line items in order to present a balanced budget so it could be approved and we could be in compliance and we hope and we work really hard to implement that mitigation plan put it in is without cutting our services to a point that is not beneficial to our children. This year we are seeing from the beginning we're seeing the trends of the cost of transportation. So technically you have two decisions, two options. Either you continue providing the services or you say, "Well, we're just cutting down these routes. We're not providing services anymore." But then you have to deal with the consequences of doing so without preparing a good plan to transition any of those changes. You know, then you you see an increase on absentism. you see increase on you know on some of the
069other negative impacts that it will have not to provide this service at the level that we're providing it right now unless you provide a plan to transition between one form of transportation to another form. You put a plan together, you strategize and you make sure that every student receive the services they need and then you prioritize how you going to provide that service. So this year we said we're not touching that. We're going to continue providing the services. We are not impacting our children in such a way that then they don't make it to school or that they don't receive the services they need to receive. So unfortunately the cost keeps increasing. The needs as I mentioned to you in in in a previous example of the special education students that require a different level
070of transportation continues to increase. So, we're going to provide the service and us as leadership, it's our responsibility now to figure out how we're going to pay for it. It's not the responsibility of our of our students. They shouldn't have to pay for our decisions. We have to now make decisions of how are we going to deal with this deficit. If we're overspending this line item because we budgeted at this level, we have to figure it out. It is my job as a CFO to take the lead on that effort and figure out how we going to pay for this. How we going to cover this expense? In what other areas can I create more efficiencies to create enough savings to cover this expense? That's my job. My job and the job of my team
071to come up with a plan to do so. So there's no debacle. It's mostly a decision for us to prioritize the education of our students over staying within a budget line item at the cost of the quality of service to our children. I pick I make this decision a million times more every single year if I have to because I am not going to jeopardize the service of our children. There's no debacle. It's very easily understood. I explained it in less than two minutes. No debacle. So in comparison, I want to make sure that um you know for those of you that are very mathematical driven and that are looking at the numbers uh and and and you know I I welcome all those questions. If you looked at slide number 10, I will go
072back just just because I want to and I want to make sure that you get that answer. If you look at the third line, it says special education transportation 5,59970. Special education transportation from the general fund five almost 5.6. Now I'm showing you a slide that says on the second line special education transportation the budget says 5,273 895. And then you say bra wait a second year same fiscal year. You're giving me two different numbers. It's is off by 316,375. Yes, it is. But I want to explain to you why. So, I'm going to give you the answer before you ask the question because I know one of you already thought about it. So, I'm giving you the answer right now. Um the uh the this one this line that's a little less of does
073not include uh the portion of special education transportation for two technical schools the bus passes and the interd district transportation for special education students. Right? So this is for the special education students. Those three that I just mentioned to you that add up to 316 375 is not included in this chart. It is included on the other one. That's the only difference. It's just broken down differently. It just happens to have the same name, special education, transportation, but one includes those three components. The other one doesn't. Are we clear? We good? All right. Good. Perfect. Um, other than that, um, then uh this chart what what it does is that it helps me uh figure out potential savings on outplacement transportation due to the creation of the Wexler program. Uh, so that's that's what we
074are, you know, counting on on some savings there. Um and then u another opportunity that we have by looking at this transportation cost history is that uh it kind of pushed us to start assessing our transportation capacity usage on specific school and routes that have shown opportunities to maximize and create more efficiency which in turn turns into more savings. Um, so what we're doing with this is not only being transparent, but also it's a tool for us to get to work, right? When we see a trend that says 33, 35, 39, and then this year we could probably hit about 39 or 40 again, somewhere close to same as last year, uh, with our projections. We're saying, okay, hold on. We're seeing the trend here. We got to get to work. how it is that
075we can mitigate this increase of expenses in transportation and let's have some serious conversations about what are the opportunities are. So we have already identified two different opportunities. Uh there are some other ones that in the upcoming months we're going to be having conversations not only internally but also with the board. Um you will also be getting a presentation I believe on April 6 Mr. Wilcox. Is it April 6 for transportation? Uh I think April 6 you will be getting Yes, that's a Monday. the process, you will receive a a more in-depth conversation about transportation. Uh, and that's purposely done in order for us to get this conversation going. Not only for the board to understand better what the transportation uh, structure looks like, but it will help us just have these conversations, right? Because
076there's a lot of different opportunities. Uh, and I am one that's up for it. I would love to explore opportunities to save uh, in transportation. Now I do want to also another piece that's also being misinformed um is the um the belief that we have a contract let's say with with our our our main uh service provider like first student America that contract is for $30 million or you know the number whatever the number it is for depending on which components you look on the contract but you're already spending 32 but I I also have to make sure that you understand this is not just for a student this is transportation as a is first student but it is also many other transportation providers not only taxi caps but also a lot of other uh
077smaller LC companies that provide you know uh private transportation doortodoor there's a lot of different transportation uh companies beyond just for student so so these numbers uh reflect um you know transportation cost as a whole is not just for students so please do not take any transportation budget that you see uh and mimic or try to put it next to just the first student contract that is not apples to apples. Um, if you want to know exactly how much we spend in first student, that's a different conversation, but my job right now is to provide you with the full entire budget of transportation. All right, next one. I don't know how I'm doing on time, but I want to make sure we get this done uh as you know, as quick as possible. Uh, the
078next one will be the schoolbased um allocation model. Um this is the uh uh the one that speaks you know about the equitydriven resource allocation the targeted support for closing gaps. Um you know I've talked to you about uh the idea of um allocating a little bit more funding for special education students and multil- language learner students. Uh the calculation came out to be uh that we allocated an additional $24 for multil- language learner students and an additional 34 for uh for students with disabilities. Uh my hope is to keep increasing that allocation year after year. Uh we understand that this is just the beginning. This is just us um not just testing the waters but also trying to use a limited funding, general funding uh to give a little bit more to areas of
079our services that require a little bit more complex um you know support. Um, so this is just the beginning and and and one of the reasons that I want to make sure that we all know what that number is is because I want you next year to say Amilkar, last year you gave 24 additional. Can you make it 30? Can you make it 35? Right? Push me to make it more because that is my goal. And I expect our board to support me in that goal to keep providing more funding to to to the to a population that requires more funding because of the complexities of the services that that they require. So, we allocated $200,000 just for this particular um uh effort just to start with. I wanted to allocate more than that and
080and we'll see how the budget goes in the in the upcoming months and and if that's something that we can uh you know change, we we will do so. But, uh there are many areas that we have already identified as also priorities. So, we'll we'll have to you know have those conversations. Um on the next slide, we have the famous staffing guidelines. I I I presented this in our budget workshop and I spoke a little bit about it. We've updated um some of the information here. Um but as a reminder for those of you that uh that don't remember exactly what this chart meant, back in 20 fal year 22 23, you adopted the staffing guidelines uh to define the level of staffing necessary in our schools by category. We're not there yet. I I
081don't see anyone here surprised, which is good. you're not surprised because you know we're not there yet. Um but it is not something that we're going to stop bringing up because it is still our goal uh to comply with your mandate. Um so in order to get there, we will still need another $26.8 million. So this is in addition to the request that we are presenting today. So none of the numbers that you will see in in towards the end of the presentation which is why I'm going to talk about the the full budget include this amount. Dr. Negron >> I just want to add that we also linked if you click on the staffing guidelines it takes you to the document that was adopted in 2223 just as a reference. >> Right? So, it
082is our goal and we will continue to bring it up uh because it is um it is what our children deserve and and that's our goal to achieve that goal. That didn't sound right. That is our goal to achieve that goal. So, uh on the next one, the next slide, uh historical budget request. And we've seen this one before. It's sadly it's one of my favorite ones, but it is because one that when it was presented to me, it really really told me the story because this is from way before my time and it really kind of helped me understand, you know, how we're doing and and I will say that even though it it still shows a huge gap every year, um we continue to see the commitment of our local elected officials uh
083by every year adding whether it's $8 million or $5 million and hopefully five more this year. And and if I keep saying it out loud, maybe turns into 10 and and we'll see. You know, the more I say it, I hope that it just keeps multiplying. I don't know if that's how it works, but the more I say it, hopefully it keeps multiplying. But it is it is the commitment of our local officials, you know, to to continue supporting our school system. So So we are seeing some progress. Um the the the problem here, and the reason why this chart is important is because it's not enough and it's not enough. And and we've heard this conversation many times uh because the state is not doing their part to also keep up with the not
084only inflation but also the increase of cost and and and to support our our our teachers to support our school staff that deserve uh not only the increases that they are getting but more than that uh I don't think that there is a level of agreement that we could make with any bargaining unit for their salary increases that will do justice to the work that they do. I've always said that teachers should be getting paid like lawyers and doctors and and and that is the reality, right? And and unfortunately our funding doesn't allow for us to to get that far. Um but the state knows that's my thinking and I'm sure that a lot of you share that same thought. So um you know it is it is uh you know something that I'm hoping
085that that our state delegation keep pushing for. I we've been in in many conversations with them and they are very committed to to the conversation. uh and we're seeing some progress. We're seeing some conversations. So, so in the upcoming months, we'll learn a little bit more about um you know, how far we're going to move uh on that on that on that line on that area. But this this historical chart, you know, tells you um you know, what a request was, what the approved budget was, and what the gap is. And it's important for me um to share this uh because once I disclose um you know the budget request I I want you to see it from the perspective of we're not doing anything different than any other year. This is a problem that
086continues to happen year after year. Any request that we make is substantiated by actual cost and in our case in our particular case it's status quo. We're asking for us to keep us at status quo. I I will dig I will explain that a little bit more because status quo doesn't do justice to my request to our request. So I'll explain that when we get to that slide. But this historical that is important for us to understand where we've been and where we continue to be if we don't do something extraordinary if we don't actually get what our children deserve to receive for their education. Our next slide just is it's is it's kind of like a byproduct of the previous one. Uh I just gave you uh the general fund expenditures for each of
087the last three and and this year the projected and you could see the trend. It's kind of like almost like a straight line. I was surprised to see that straight line like that. It's just by by pure coincidence. Um it just came out to be 195 203 213 and then um we're projecting about 222 for this year. So our general fund expenditures keeps growing up at a pace that we cannot keep up with. and and and again I I I I I thank our local elector officials for trying to you know keep up with it but but it's just impossible at at this rate right when you are increasing your general expenditures by $8 million then you increase it by 10 and now it's going to be by about nine or 10 more it's it's
088really hard and this is where we are asking our other stakeholders especially our state legislator and and our governor to really take a look at this and say hey these are the real true expenses our our books are open. You can see line by line. You can see exactly how we're spending the money. This is not luxury. This is our expenses that we require to have in order to provide quality services. Our next slide just gives you uh a little bit of a budget uh revenue by funding source. Um here you can see how our ECS non-alliance uh which is the 142.5 million uh is basically uh 42% of our general fund and then you could see the the local uh funds of 70 almost $71 million equates to almost 21% of our budget. Uh
089and then you have our state grants. Uh and the state grants is the one that includes the non-alliance funding. I just want to make be sure that nonalliance is included here. It's just under the state um funding that says $75 million. And then you see the other ones that are a little bit smaller. But here's the breakdown. And again, this is another picture that shows you how much we have to rely in funding outside of the general fund in order for us to provide the services that we provide. And and again, in a perfect word, we want most of our expenses to be covered by general funds. So we could use grants for expansion improvement um you know create more programming for our children provide them more opportunities uh and so this is a picture
090that also shows you how much we have to rely on grants state federal grants to to to run our district. Our next slide um this one is the alliance revenue. So, you know, we took a look at the alliance revenue across different districts and and you know, I was a little surprised to see that New Haven is the one that received the least amount of alliance revenue per pupil. Um, you see there, you know, the amount of money is the the 1,5005 per student, uh, compared to some other districts that go up to 5,000. So the average I think it's 3,00 Oh, it's actually there. $3,156 per student uh of the alliance funding. Um so this is one area that we would like to explore. Uh we would like to bring up to the attention
091uh to understand you know the uh uh sometimes you know it's the inequities and and I'm not accusing of anyone doing anything on purpose just sometimes inequities happen in the in the midst of creating formulas and trying to to uh uh uh to create equity. we create inequities in in an indirect way and and this chart shows you uh that New Haven is getting the short end of the stick when it comes to the alliance funding compared to other districts. So, uh we want to make sure that this is something that's you know brought up to the surface so we can have these conversations and figure out okay how can we you know improve this a little better. But um moving on to the next slide uh we have the historical alliance and priority grant
092allocations. And I I I showed you I talked a little bit about ear earlier about the the the alliance and the priority funding uh now getting to that point where now there's no projected increases coming up in the in the upcoming years. And we also talked about the fact that FTEEs rely on alliance and priority grant allocation. So, so this is something that's important for me to make sure that we bring up because these are conversations that we need to have as a as a as a as a leadership of the district, but also with the board that if alliance and priority funding stays flat for the upcoming years, how do we keep up with the increase of cost of salaries for these 236 FTEEs that rely on alliance and priority funding to pay for
093their salaries? How do we keep up with that? And that's a conversation that I don't want to catch you by surprise a year from now. It is a conversation I want to have now early on. So we could start strategizing and having those conversations not only internally but also with our stakeholders at the state to figure out how do we keep up with this. Uh so this one uh you know this year was the last year of the phase in of increases and here you can see kind of like how the increases kind of worked out um you know for the last six seven years. And this is the slide that I showed you earlier. I only touch base on the alliance and priority, but you can see the rest of the other um major
094grants that cover um our staffing. Like I said, it's just short of 900 FTEEs that are covered by special funds or grants. And and just by the nature of grants or special funds, they are never guaranteed. Uh some of those we have to apply on a year-to-year basis. Some of those are competitive. Some of those may or may not pan out. Um, you know, I know that one of the board members in a previous meeting asked about the the federal funding and and the impact that that it could have uh, you know, given the the current climate at the federal level and and this is the kind of conversation that we need to have, right? The federal grants, whether it's title one, IDA, those these grants that may or may not be affected, right, by
095this particular climate. But we I also want to talk about it from the perspective of when we talk about IDA, we're talking about 74 FDES. If we're talking about title one, we're talking about 112 FTEEs. These are critical staffing that we need in our schools. So, it's not just the the loss of funding. We're losing our best assets, which are our staff. We're losing what makes New Haven to be in that path of excellence. So, for us, it's extremely important for us to provide this perspective. So, so take a take a I don't know if you're like me that likes to take pictures with my eyes. Like I'm very visual. Uh I I there's a name for that. Don't ask me what it is. Like I told you, I just learned English the other day.
096So you take a picture with your eye. Take a picture of this one with your eyes because this is the most important one almost of the whole stack. Uh because this is this talks about our reliance on grants for staffing and and and this is a conversation that speaks about sustainability for us in the upcoming years. And like I said before, I I when when the district and the board hired me was not just to do finances accounting 101 in the office was for me to think about strategically about not this year but also years to come. This is the conversation we need to have moving forward. On the next slide we have what um you've seen in the past. So I I will introduce this slide um uh in this manner. So New Haven
097Public Schools hereby submits it proposed budget of $252.6 6 million for the upcoming fiscal year. This request reflects the district's unwavering commitment to providing equitable, highquality education to all our students while navigating rising operational cost, evolving and evolving student needs. This request reflects our true operating cost without any additional applied revenue. That's important. An adjusted budget of $232.1 million has been previously presented during the board meeting workshop on March 2nd of 2026, but that number is based on revenue assumptions that may or may not become reality. The total budget increase to $252 million is approximately 18.4%. So I want to be very clear and and we have this conversation in in in in multiple meetings, not only in FNO, but also in the budget workshop. Our request is $252.6 $6 million status quo budget. The
098community and and and this is this is one of the benefits of the community forums that we did all six of them. One of the most important things that we got out of the community forums was that people were asking for transparency for us to be proactive for us to think just beyond these big numbers. So the leadership we sat down and we said okay 252.6 six is exactly what we need to keep status quo. That will cover the increases that I showed you for the bargaining units. Uh that that includes uh every other cost that that's recent. Um it also catches up catches up from all the other deficits that we've had in the past because I think it's important for people to understand that I I don't need just the increase the new
099expenses. I also need to cover the deficits that we keep having every year after year. So when I present a budget to you, it covers the deficits that we've had and also the new expenses that are upcoming. So 252 would will do just that. But because people wanted to hear transparency, I said, "Okay, I know that oftent times we have opportunities with some special funds to leverage some special funds um to cover some of the staff staffing cost and some of the other expenses. So, we looked at the special forms and and based on the parameters of the grants and the applications and what we were mandated to use those fundings for, uh, we're able to then um leverage some of that funding to cover some of the general cost. So, we're saying we're asking
100for 252. We know we could use just short of $20 million to leverage those expenses. That would take us down to $232 million. $232 million will be still an increase of again I don't have the slide here in front of me. Where is it? It will be an increase of $18 million I believe is the number is um you know compared to um oh wait I'm sorry. Yeah $1.9 I see the number now. um $8.9 million compared to the budget of this year out of the 18.9 you will say what a milar you know the mayor proposed another $5 million so if the elders approved $5 million then it's not $8.9 anymore that's true it will make it 14.9 but this is what we're doing when we only think about the $232 million we're kicking
101the can down again in in in in a matter of speaking we're kicking the countdown again because what we're doing is that we're still cultivating that habit of using special funds and grants for costs that should be covered by general funds. And we're tying down more staffing, more core services to grants that may or may not arrive. For grants that are here today, may not be here tomorrow. For grants that the amount approved changes all the time, up or down. We've had grants that have gone down. We have grants that gone up. Every year it's a different story and we cannot tie down our staffing cost, our salaries, our core services to grants that are not permanent. So $252 million will solve that part of the issue. It will keep us status quo, but then
102now it relieves $20 million for us to then do what grants are supposed to do. improve add additional programming. Well, what I've been talking about throughout this whole presentation about improving quality service, adding expanding, that's what we're looking for with this $252 million to relieve release that $20 million that's tied down now with staffing so we could expand and increase the services to our students. So as stakeholders, we have a responsibility now to attend to that need and to attend to these requests. And and I I I hope that um that that moving forward you accept this request and that we find ways to um to fulfill these requests on behalf of our children. I'll I'll stop there. I no pressure, but I'll stop there and then I'll I'll let the chair now uh open
103up with questions.