Ansonia schools make plans for COVID funds
ANSONIA — The millions of dollars coming to local schools from the federal government doesn’t help Superintendent of Schools Joseph DiBacco breathe any easier about the coming year’s budget.
Through two coronavirus relief packages — the
American Rescue Plan and the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund — Connecticut public schools are expected to receive a massive infusion of funding about 31⁄2 times the amount of federal aid they receive in a typical fiscal year.
Ansonia public schools’ share from ESSER is about
$3.5 million divided between the 2022 and 2023 school years.
Additionally, they’re slated to get about $7.8 million through the American Rescue Plan.
DiBacco said the money is helpful, but just throwing it at districts can get them a lot of things — but not necessarily the right things.
“What ends up happening is you buy things instead of getting people because that’s a one-time cost; but when you have to acquire people, it’s much different,” DiBacco said.
“I just find it difficult,” he said. “I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth because we’re normally not funded where we want to be, but at the same time, I need to do this responsibly or else you end up with a bunch of heartache.”
The state Department of Education sent districts its priorities on how to spend the funds, so that’s what Ansonia will focus on, DiBacco said.
The money will go to creating summer programs, after-school programs and enrichment programs to accelerate learning and mitigate learning loss. The district also will focus on trauma supports, boosting technology and making technology access more robust, he said.
About 20 percent of the money will need to be spent addressing learning loss for students who have fallen behind during the pandemic, he said.
The problem DiBacco foresees, though, is having all the school districts in the state trying to secure the same resources — counselors, social workers, technology, etc. — at the same time and then only being able to fund them for a couple years.
“I appreciate the funds, but to say you’ve got to do all these things, when from day one we’ve been scrambling,” he said. “Now you’re throwing all this money at us, and it’s helpful, it’s needed, but it’s going to be hard finding all these people.”
He said he wishes the district could have planned better for what the state and federal government are asking it do with the funding — by creating career pathways or programs to support more school counselors and other personnel support.
DiBacco said supporting youth engagement, social-emotional health, summer programs and school district vaccinations is a daunting task that falls solely on the schools unnecessarily.
Another concern for Ansonia is the education cost-sharing funding that the state allocates yearly. In Gov. Ned Lamont’s proposed budget, instead of the state contributing to ECS, it would boost districts by using federal coronavirus funds.
“The state is looking at this like ‘we’re giving you (ESSER II) money instead of ECS’ but you can’t supplant it like that,” DiBacco said.
This way of funding districts doesn’t help them in the future because it affects the formula by which they get small increases in Alliance District money year over year, he said.
“So does this funding give me more breathing room in my budget? Not really,” he said.
DiBacco said the American Rescue Plan funding needs to be spent by 2024, but he doesn’t know when the district will receive it so they haven’t starting planning how to spend it.