COVID again limits Ramadan celebration
during the coronavirus pandemic. The mayor’s proposal would not increase the tax rate for the third year in a row.
“People are struggling, and our primary focus right now is really to ensure some level of certainty and security for the public,” he said during a Tuesday City Council ad hoc committee meeting focused on the education budget.
That ad hoc committee approved the mayor’s school proposal, which the full council must vote on.
A public hearing will held at 7 p.m. Thursday over Zoom to discuss the budget. Residents may submit public comment to comments@danbury-ct.gov with their full name, address, and comment. The subject matter should be included in the subject line of the email.
Challenges facing district
An additional 750 students are expected to enroll in the district over the next five years, on top of growth the schools have seen in recent years. Some classrooms already have 25 students and those class sizes could rise, the board warned.
Board members said they are worried about the future costs of the expansion to Ellsworth Avenue Elementary School and proposed $99 million career academy. The board proposes a “multi-year affordable approach” to support these schools.
“If this city’s budget stands, these projects will create a debt situation for future generations,” the board wrote.
Part of the board’s proposal is $1 million to address problems that put the high school under “accreditation watch,” the letter states. This includes the lack of counselors, with one guidance counselor for every 400 students.
Schools like Norwalk and Stamford have a counselor for every 250 students, said Kevin Walston, assistant superintendent.
Due to the pandemic, the district will need to focus more on students social and emotional needs, he said.
“The pandemic further underscored that need and we’re anticipating tremendous support is going to be necessary in our schools when our kids return for in-person learning,” Walston said.
Council member Farley Santos pointed to the school overcrowding and the problems cited in the high school accreditation report related to staffing, supplies and lack of support for a “21st-century curriculum.”
“It’s been a systemic defunding of our public schools that have led to where we are now,” he said. “It is a crisis point.”
That’s similar to how board members described it, too. The board has requested an average 5.3 percent spending increase annually, but received an average 1.8 percent rise that has not “kept pace with the increase of our costs, and that in turn has forced programming cuts,” the letter states.
“It is imperative that we keep pace with contractual increases and also prepare for the influx of new students,” the board wrote. “If we sacrifice our current operating budget for any reason, DPS [Danbury Public Schools] will not be able to meet its obligations to students.”
Federal grants
The district expects to receive
$41.2 million from three federal coronavirus relief packages, with
$4.6 million of that already spent this fiscal year. The rest of the grants will be stretched out until fiscal year 2024-25, with about a third of that offsetting some operational needs.
The big expense that the grants will need to cover next fiscal year is the cost to open school five days a week under COVID restrictions.
There are 89 elementary classrooms that could not fit a full class of students three feet apart, as required under the latest guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Superintendent Sal Pascarella said the district is looking at everything from modular classrooms to empty buildings to box stores to send students.
“That’s 24/7 on all of that,” he said.
About 10 additional buses would be needed for this plan, which would be covered by the federal money. The district is negotiating with the bus company and could save money next fiscal year if the board approves a renewal of the existing contract, said Courtney LeBorious, director of business operations.
She project the schools could face a $31 million hole once the federal funding is exhausted if the city and state don’t commit to a steady increase in funding over time.
“I don't want to increase taxes, but if we do it over longer period of time, would it hurt less and would our schools be better off ?” council member Frank Salvatore, Jr. asked.
St. Hilaire said the city will need to face that problem in future years.
“We can't fix the problem over night,” he said. “We’re in the middle of a pandemic, and whatever issues there are...now, being in the middle of a pandemic, is not the time for us to do anything new.”
Warren Levy, who chaired the ad hoc education committee, agreed, pointing to residents who are unemployed or will need to pay back rents and mortgages.
“The hardships haven’t even begun to hit the fan,” he said. “We have do do that balancing act.”