City schools request 6.3 percent budget increase
STAMFORD — The Stamford Public School District’s budget request for the upcoming fiscal year feels a bit like deja vu.
As in the last budget cycle, schools are asking for an increase of roughly 6.5 percent, and the total budget line of $303.6 million is comparable to the $301.54 million requested the same time last year.
However, school officials are hoping the result this time around will be much different.
Last year, after COVID-19 shut down schools and hit the local economy, Stamford school officials watched as their ask of an $18 million addition to their budget was slashed by the Board of Finance and Board of Representatives due to the pandemic.
As a result, 136 positions were cut from the budget and very few extra funds were allocated to the schools compared to the previous fiscal year.
Ryan Fealey, director of finance for the school district, said city officials are likely still uncertain about tax revenues for January — and what to expect for the rest of the year, as the city still grapples with the effects of COVID-19.
“We may not know for many months what September is going
“That gap used to be much larger so that’s something we’re going to have to manage year over year.” Ryan Fealey, director of finance for the Stamford school district
look like with regard to COVID, but we are planning for some continued financial effects,” he said.
As in previous years, the increase in the school’s budget is driven mostly by rising healthcare premiums and wages. This year’s proposed increase also includes a net gain of 52 full-time equivalent, or FTE, positions, which includes about 19 teacher jobs as well as two new parent facilitators.
The 52 figure is a bit misleading, however, as all of the current 21 parent facilitators are included in it.
Fealey said those positions were not included as FTEs in the past because they were part of a different budget line of part-time workers. In the proposed budget, those positions would be made into fulltime employees, and each represents a new FTE.
Adding hours to those positions, as well as adding transitional kindergarten teachers, para-educators and student support facilitators, were placed in the budget in an effort to beef up student support services, Fealey said.
“The budget includes a number of new positions that would be valuable to our students and families at any time, but are especially crucial due to the effects of the pandemic,” Fealey said.
Student support was a common theme in the three listening sessions hosted by the district the previous week, which included students themselves asking for more emotional help dealing with the pandemic, which has caused students to spend less time around each other.
“All of those were included in part due to direct input from building administrators and parents durto ing the budget process,” Fealey said. “We did listen, not to say that the administration wouldn’t want to do these things anyway, but these things were repeatedly suggested to us by principals and families.”
Part of the increase in the 2020-21 budget includes restoring positions that were cut last year as part of a dramatic $12.5 million reduction in the school’s proposed budget. Many of the 136 eliminated positions were eventually brought back, while others remained vacant.
Restored positions in the proposed budget include school counselors and deans of students.
Increased health insurance premiums account for $5.3 million of the additional $18 million requested by school administrators for the upcoming fiscal year.
The majority of Stamford Public Schools employees are on the State Partnership Plan healthcare program. But Fealey said the estimated premium increase for next fiscal year is between 9.5 percent and 11.5 percent.
When putting together the budget book, school officials decided to use the higher amount of 11.5 percent, a figure that could drop by the time the Board of Education votes on the final budget.
Without the State Partnership Plan, Fealey said, the increase in healthcare premiums would be higher.
“That gap used to be much larger so that’s something we’re going to have to manage year over year,” he said.
Fealey added, “On the whole, healthcare costs have been increasing nationwide at an alarming rate, so in a way, I’m not entirely surprised that it’s a number that is going to drive our budget increases in the future.”