Fiscal condition ‘dire’, says Bridgeport superintendent
BRIDGEPORT — With just a little more than a week left in the fiscal year, Schools Superintendent Aresta Johnson is asking the city for help with a 2019-20 operating budget she says will not provide an adequate education for some 20,400 students.
In a letter to Mayor Joseph Ganim, Johnson calls the district’s financial situation in the new fiscal year that starts July 1 “dire” and is asking for a meeting with the city administration on Monday to “rescue our children and staff from this devastating fiscal condition.”
Board Chairman John Weldon said he was consulted before Johnson sent the letter.
“This year we are truly at the point where, if relief isn’t provided, devastating measures will be taken that will have a severely negative impact on our ability to provide worthwhile educational services to the children of Bridgeport,” Weldon said.
Weldon said he warned the council at every recent meeting how dire the situation was, but the school board, led by Weldon also voted to stop community forums to educate the public on the budget when some complained they were too political.
Board Member Maria Pereira, who wanted the forums to continue, said Ganim and the vast majority of the city council have treated city students as throwaways by flagrantly failing to appropriately fund their education.
“They must be held accountable,” Pereira said.
School officials maintain they needed $16 million more in the new fiscal year to keep current services and received about $2.5 million additional from the state and 1.1 million from the city, which built a tax cut into its budget for the new fiscal year.
A$250 million operating budget has forced the school board to eliminate school transportation for many students, delay the replacement of outdated curriculum and cut three assistant principal positions. Summer school fees were increased and funds were cut for parent programming.
At one point the board gave serious consideration to closing a neighborhood school. It also reconsidered a vote to strip Fairchild Wheeler Interdistrict Magnet School of both of its assistant principals, cutting only one instead.
With a $5.5 million gap remaining, the board is exploring the possibility of cutting preschool classes, eliminating a Talented and Gifted teacher, reducing library staff, custodians and security guards.
It may also ask the city to chip in for school nurses and the rental of its maintenance facility.
There was no immediate response from Ganim’s office.
Over the past four years, the district has cut a reported $40 million in programs and employees to accommodate the rising cost of staffing, special education and health insurance.
Eight years ago, the city school board hit a similar fiscal roadblock and turned to the state, not just for help but for a takeover. The state complied by replacing the board, bringing in an outside superintendent and providing more fiscal support but the process was eventually ruled illegal by the state Supreme Court.
Johnson is set to leave the district in early July. The school board is in the process of selecting an interim superintendent to see it through the next fiscal year as the search for a more permanent superintendent is conducted.