New Haven has finished the fiscal year with a budget surplus of more than $16 million.
Mayor Justin Elicker (D) wants the city’s Board of Alders to spend $3 million of that on the school district. This comes just days after rallies for more federal and state funding at schools across the city.
Superintendent Madeline Negrón said she is confident the board will approve. The money would be spent on salaries to avoid layoffs.
“We felt that $3 million could help ensure that we maintain staffing levels from this point on in New Haven public schools, so that [Negrón] wouldn't have to make massive layoffs and cuts in the school system,” Elicker said.
The remaining surplus will be added to the city’s rainy day fund, totaling over $50 million. In 2018, it was negative $10 million.
Elicker said the city’s financial system is the best in decades.
“This is the fourth straight year that we have seen a budget surplus,” Elicker said.
$5.5 million from the American Rescue Plan Act was also left over from last year’s budget—that money will also go to the schools, where it will be used for building maintenance and upgrades.
“The first phase of the facilities assessment pretty much pointed out that out of our 41 school buildings, 39 of the 41 need serious repairs and renovations,” Negrón said.
Negrón said the cost of fixing the buildings has not been calculated yet, but could total billions of dollars.
According to Elicker, the city has increased its portion of the public school’s budget by 48% over the last five years. But he said the city needs help from the state and federal government to cover the costs of upgrades.
“We need our state leaders and the governor to support much more funding going to public schools, not just in New Haven, but across the state,” Elicker said. “And part of that is loosening the fiscal guardrails, so there's more flexibility for our legislators and our governor to approve significantly more funding coming to our schools.”
Governor Ned Lamont, along with many of the state's Republicans, has not been in favor of amending the state’s fiscal guardrails, and the legislature did not do so in the last legislative session.