Sustaining Progress In A Turbulent Economy

Pursuant to Connecticut State Statute and the Charter of the City of Hartford, I submitted to the Hartford Board of Education on March 3, 2009 a recommended operating budget for fiscal year 2009-2010.

The budget reflects progress on two important ideals reflected in the Core Beliefs and Commitments, and the Goals adopted by the board in September 2008.

In keeping with its commitment to value every child, the board adopted its first Student Based Budget (SBB), creating a fair and equitable system in which each student is funded by an appropriate grade-level allocation with the funding adjusted on the basis of his/her educational needs.

These resources follow the child to the school his or her parents choose. To maintain stability in a system with significant funding inequities among schools, the adjustment to Student Based Budgeting is occurring in stages over three years. One-third of this “equity gap” was closed for 2008-09 and two-thirds has been closed through this budget in 2009-2010.

To fulfill another major policy objective, 70 percent of available resources have been allocated to schools and classrooms to support instruction. Central office and central services are limited to 30 percent of the budget, which reflects the national average for public school districts and contrasts to less than one-half of resources spent in schools and classrooms by the Hartford Public Schools in 2006-07. Achieving the 70/30 percent goal required a 20 percent reduction in central office/central services, including the reduction of more than 40 current district level positions.

There are two major threats to the financial solvency of Hartford schools for 2009-10. The first is inherent in the implementation of the Sheff v. O’Neil settlement. The second is in the national recession and the resulting state revenue crisis. Together, they double the financial challenge our schools face when compared to others in the state and nation.

The Sheff quotas for Hartford minority students attending school in a racially desegregated setting will increase from the current 19 percent to 27 percent in 2009-2010. This quota can grow to 41 percent of Hartford’s students over the next five years.

The Sheff settlement agreement allows for no new magnet schools in Hartford and no suburban district has agreed to host a new magnet school. Next year’s quota, therefore, would have to be achieved through a loss of Hartford students and revenue to tuition-charging schools operated by the Capital Regional Education Council (CREC) and the bussing of Hartford students to suburban schools on a space-available basis through the “Open Choice” program.

Hartford enrollment will decrease as a result by an estimated 3.5 percent and payment to CREC will increase to approximately $6 million for 2009-2010. A 10 percent tuition increase will also occur if the legislature does not act to limit tuition increases by Regional Educational Service Centers, such as CREC, as proposed by the State Department of Education. Moreover, the current failure of the SDE to reimburse Hartford for the full cost of suburban transportation, unless corrected by the legislature, will create a financial loss for Hartford of $3M, meaning that resources for the education of Hartford students would be reallocated to bus suburban students.

Two-thirds of the budget for Hartford schools is supported by the state through the Education Cost Sharing (ECS) grant. Our dependence on ECS funding is proportionately higher than any other school district in Connecticut because of Hartford’s disproportionate rate of poverty and non-taxable property.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s proposed budget projects flat funding (2008-2009 level) for ECS in 2009-10 and 2010-11. The loss of the 4 percent ECS “hold-harmless” provision received in previous years creates the need to reduce more than $14 million in existing personnel and services to cover the higher cost of remaining staff and services. This includes a modest increase in salaries for the 12 labor unions that have collective bargaining agreements with the Board of Education, a significant escalation of employee and retiree health insurance costs and anticipated increases in other contracted services such as transportation and utilities.

Furthermore, the lack of full funding in the governor’s budget for more than 2,000 suburban students attending Hartford host magnet schools will require Hartford to charge tuition to the 52 suburban districts whose children Hartford educates.

This dual challenge requires a dual response:

When 80 percent of Hartford’s minority families choose Hartford schools for their children, Sheff will come to a close. This “demand principle” of the Sheff settlement agreement enables our system of schools to compete. It gives urgency to our two highest priorities: the replacement of chronically low-performing schools with high-performing schools of choice and the improvement of existing schools to reach the “Goal Range” of student achievement as measured by Connecticut state assessments.

The national economic recession and resulting state revenue crisis requires that we look at our reform plan through an even sharper lens. In our small state of 167 school districts, the deficit will herald an era of more affordable government and inevitably less government. Both President Obama and Gov. Rell have counseled that we must separate the things we would like to have from the things we must have.

Regardless of how robust our plans may be, sustaining our brief progress in an environment of reduced resources will require a laser-like focus on budgetary priorities that provide the greatest leverage in closing the achievement gap, defeating Hartford’s literacy crisis and enabling more students to graduate high school prepared to attend a four-year college.

These are the “must haves” and they must be the respected priorities of each of our schools. Supporting this focused work must be the priority of our district replacing what we have done before. Reform measures necessary to close the achievement gap cannot be an additive to the current attributes of the existing system; they must replace them.

We must manage our resources more judiciously and effectively than ever before and take advantage of the opportunities presented by the deficit’s challenge to the status quo to create the higher-performing schools our community and region must have. We must work relentlessly at this until every child in Hartford can attend a great public school and our state’s achievement gap is closed.