The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
District could lose nine teachers
Facing ‘catastrophic’ cuts, superintendent, council pinning hopes on flat funding from state
MIDDLETOWN » The school district, in jeopardy of losing several million dollars in state funding, told members of the council’s finance and government committee this week that it could be forced to eliminate 11 teaching positions from the elementary level.
Last year, the city’s Alliance District grant money, which goes to the 30 lowest performing districts in Connecticut, was cut by $250,000, said Superintendent of Schools Patricia Charles, “but we’re talking about ($)2.5 million. That would be catastrophic.”
The lack of a state budget, negotiations over which have pushed state legislators into a summer session and may not be settled into September or beyond, has had a ripple effect on municipalities already struggling to make fiscal ends meet.
“We need to know whether we are going to be getting our Alliance (District ) grant. We’re pretty sure we’re losing (the Family Resource Centers for preschoolers), we’re pretty sure that we’re losing part of Early Start at Adult Education, which educates the babies while we educate the parents,” Charles said.
Such a large reduction in aid from the state could mean layoffs at the city’s eight elementary schools. One Even Start teacher and another Family Resource teacher would be cut and moved into a classroom to make up for the loss of nine other educators, Charles said.
There is hope, however, said Council Majority Leader Thomas Serra.
“(At the finance meeting), we told them to utilize whatever cash flow you have right now and the guidance was to (send out the layoff notices, required by state law) to protect them and whenever the budget comes down from the state, hopefully everyone will keep their jobs,” Serra said. “If not, depending on the amount in the state budget, they will act accordingly.”
The city is facing a similar problem, he said.
“We budget predicated on receiving the same money, so if the state gives us the same amount as last year, we will be fine.
“In all my career, you always had finance and government and the appropriations committee numbers, which were only off a little bit here and there in the past,” Serra said. “This is uncharted territory.”
“My biggest concern is why is it we’re always cutting teachers first,” said Councilwoman Deborah Kleckowski, who is also a Middlesex Community College teacher. “There has to be an opportunity for cuts somewhere. It’s teachers who don’t get the trickle down of monies that are allocated.”
Charles said the loss of the Alliance grant would have large repercussions. “I don’t believe we’re going to be cut totally, but if we were to (lose the Alliance designation), it’s possible we could lose a substantial amount of funds.”
She, like those across the state, are watching to see whether the General Assembly can arrive at a spending package that will retain Gov. Dannel Malloy’s proposals for the state’s lowest performing school districts.
“He specifically mentioned the 30 Alliance districts (of which Middletown is one and ranks No. 24 in need). If the governor’s plan goes into place, we would be OK,” Charles said.
If not, she said adult education could take a big hit because it runs year round. “To keep the program open, the regular board budget will need to support that, but it can only for so long,” Charles said.
“It’s going to be devastating,” Serra said. “We need to sit down and see if can have a resolution and cushion the hurt because the city is in decent shape. We have a AAA (bond) rating, we have a fund balance that is very solvent, so we could probably lessen the blow,” he said.
“The bottom line is the council assumed we’d get the same amount of money so we assume the responsibility of helping (the Board of Education) out, but that help would be dictated by what the state gives us,” Serra said.
Kleckowski said in last year’s school board budget, teachers district wide were given less than a total of $130 to share for classroom resources.
“This is why there is so much tension between council and the board of ed,” Kleckowski said. “The city allocates $82 million plus, almost two-thirds of the city budget, and there’s no trickle down to the classroom,” she said.
“Now, we have the slightest hint of potential problems and the (solution to) how we’re going to solve this crisis is to lay off teachers.”
For the Even Start and the Family Resource programs, Charles said, there are state requirement for how they must be carried out, but with less money, the district simply cannot meet those standards. “It’s looking like we’re not going to get those,” she said. “I don’t think we have much hope that those are going to be restored.”
Meanwhile, she’s eagerly awaiting an answer from the state, whatever that may be, in order to proceed.
“We need to know. We need to have a budget. We need to know where we stand,” Charles said. “I’m concerned. Elementary teachers don’t want to start the school year with a child assigned to a teacher and then learn we don’t have the funding, and we have to take that child out of the classroom after they have bonded with the teacher,” she said. “It would be just terrible.”
“It’s a double-edged sword with Alliance,” Serra said. “When you improve your numbers, which we have, sometimes they give you less money. It’s just unpredictable. This is all guesswork.”
The $800,000 surplus the school system has now in its budget will allow the board to pay teachers through September, Serra said.
“If we’re funded next to where we were last year, we’ll be OK,” he said. “But that’s an unknown.
“I’ve never experienced this — whether appointed or elected — ever in my career, and it spans (back to) the ‘70s,” Serra said.