The New Canaan Board of Education (BOE) is an elected body whose mission, under state statute, is to govern the town’s public schools, including oversight and spending of town, state, and federal government-allocated funds. We proudly serve as representatives and advocates for the New Canaan community and prioritize the success of the district and its students.
The Board of Finance cut the requested BOE budget by $3.1 million. In developing its budget, the BOE again fulfilled its promise to the community by providing a detailed annual forecast of the funding needed to continue providing high quality programming for New Canaan’s students. The BOE budgets for its anticipated needs to run the schools and meet its obligations to the community. The Board of Finance has attempted to rationalize this cut as a deferral of funding. Deferral of funding is inaccurate and does not work.
Budget cuts of $3.1 million will affect school operations. The budget process requires the funding of all operational needs of the school district including the health insurance of staff and COVID mitigation expenses.
The Board of Finance labeled certain forecasted expenses for the 2021-2022 school year (COVID expenses & health insurance) as COVID expenses, and concluded that those expenses must not be included in the operating budget of the BOE. This approach to budgeting is wrong. This is not COVID emergency spending; this is funding needed to operate the public schools in the 2021-2022 school year.
A Misguided Budget Approach
The Board of Finance has adopted a new budget approach by calling anticipated operational needs deferred expenses. This is essentially a wait-and-see approach to budgeting, and it jeopardizes the BOE’s ability to plan and deliver the high-quality programming that the community needs, particularly during these unprecedented times.
Since a budget is an itemized estimate of anticipated costs, using this logic, all budgets are deferred expenses. Taking such a position is misguided, and disregards the careful, long-term planning required to establish and maintain an excellent educational system.
Similarly, characterizing these expenses as COVID, not operational expenses, is also misguided. The BOE operating budget must include all forecasted resource needs. This is responsible budgeting, and how we remain transparent to our community and stakeholders. The BOE can predict today the need for additional health insurance funding and staffing needs in our schools. This is not emergency spending; this is a known need for 2021-2022.
In addition, suggesting a shift to a quarterly funding schedule for the BOE is quite simply, wrong. It erodes a long-standing culture of trust and respect between our boards and is a departure from collaborative governance processes of years past in which boards discussed options and involved both sides more openly and collaboratively within the budget timeline.
Elimination of the BOE Insurance Reserve is in Violation of Town Policy
Perhaps even more concerning is the apparent decision to disregard and violate Town Policy by refusing to fund the self-insured health program reserves.
Self-insured health programs are fiscally responsible, and we have saved the town millions since transitioning to this plan design. Self-insured health programs—like the one currently operated by the BOE—require adequate reserves in the internal services fund that allow the BOE to pay health insurance claims even in the event of higher than expected claims experience. The Town and BOE have always worked together to determine the appropriate funding levels of the reserve, which is codified in Town Policy. The BOF is blatantly violating this Policy, resulting in further financial exposure to the BOE.
Cutting funding for insurance is not just unwise, it is untenable. Doing so places the school system in a lose-lose scenario. Either the BOE is expected to “deficit spend” in violation of state statute, or we must reduce programming and staffing to adequately fund the anticipated insurance claims. Furthermore, it sends the wrong message to our dedicated staff who have been there for our students all year. Now is not the time to tell our administrators, teachers, teaching assistants, custodians, administrative assistants, food services workers, and other staff that the BOE will not have adequate funding for their health insurance. Now is not the time to tell our students that the schools won’t have adequate programming and staffing to meet their many needs.
In knowingly violating existing policy, the Board of Finance actions also jeopardize the strong trust that exists between the BOE, administration, and its employees and unions; this foundation of trust, and the outstanding dedication of our administration, teachers, and staff is the primary reason our schools initially opened and stayed open all year.
Funding Must Be Restored
In summary, the BOE cannot and will not make false commitments to its students and staff; it must have the operating funds to fulfill these commitments. Simply put, the BOE will not knowingly deficit spend for the coming school year. And, telling the BOE to do so violates state statute. The BOE takes seriously its responsibility to forecast its operating budget carefully and thoughtfully.
Under both state law and the Charter of the Town of New Canaan, the BOE members and the administration cannot knowingly make decisions that result in deficit spending. The BOE does not raise this issue lightly. The BOF’s informal response to the BOE—to go ahead and spend $3.1 million on an informal promise to fund in the future—would require the BOE members and administration to act in violation of the law.
We fully support thoughtful financial stewardship and management. In fact, New Canaan is a top-rated district and does more with less than most school districts in our area. As reported by the State Department of Education, New Canaan’s per-pupil expenditures are 38th in the state and below comparable districts like Darien, Westport, Wilton, and Greenwich.
The BOE has led with trust and transparency and expects the same of its relationships with elected and town-appointed boards. Attempts at back-door control of the BOE and New Canaan Public Schools need to be acknowledged and rejected in favor of productive, collaborative partnerships built upon trust and acknowledgment of years of excellence in financial stewardship of our schools.
This year has been a shining example of how the strength and spirit of partnerships, cooperation, and teamwork can deliver meaningful results for a wonderful town. Town government needs to course correct on the BOE budget to continue this progress.
On Tuesday, we will ask the Town Council to either: 1) work with the Board of Finance to accelerate the timing of a special appropriation to fully fund the BOE’s budget, or 2) reject the BOE budget entirely and ask the Board of Finance to restore the funding as per the Town Charter. In doing so, Town Council will restore the responsibilities of the BOE to effectively lead our school district as it has done successfully, proudly, and united in our mission on behalf of our students.
New Canaan Board of Education
Katrina Parkhill, Chair
Brendan Hayes, Vice-Chair
Julie Reeves, Secretary
Dionna Carlson
Carl Gardiner
Bob Naughton
Penny Rashin
Jennifer Richardson
Sheri West
What is wrong with our budgeting process that the BOE feels it necessary to argue its case in the press? This letter shows a serious breakdown in communication and mutual respect, which must be restored. Our town deserves better.
Very good point.
The BOE budget is out of control. Some cuts and restraint are healthy. And spare me the “kids are in peril” rhetoric.
As an empty nester, I support the budget as proposed by our Board of Education, applaud this letter and share their outrage.
Hi Jane – I think we all support the school system. The challenge for us who are not empty nesters, and have Elementary and PreK kids in the school system (and are 2 working parents), is in part that the budget includes a mid-year significant changed school start times. I encourage you to look at https://www.ncstarttimeequity.org to learn more about this. If after looking at all that information you still think we should proceed with the proposed change, I encourage you to speak out to the relevant town bodies and let them know that.
I also think some of this issue the BOE is talking about with regards to Covid costs relate to potential funds available for the town through various governmental programs (I am not an expert on this and you should ask the BOE / BofF). I encourage you to look at how many other towns in Fairfield country are doing their school budgets – I think unless somebody says otherwise, we are doing similar to them.
Lastly the BOE needs to include debt costs, in addition to operating costs, when they talk about per pupil expenses – remember we are looking at declining enrollment over the coming year(s) so unless we manage expenses per pupil spend may increase markedly.
1. The BOE’s per student annual spending growth over the last ~20 years is ~4.2%, much higher than inflation or what most would consider reasonable.
2. The BOF wants to allocate money to the BOE for COVID expenses as a special appropriation, but they have said they fully intend to cover for all expenses. Asking to see a breakdown of itemized expenses instead of writing a blank check is the type of oversight we should want from a town body. According to Darien’s superintendent, 20 surrounding districts are not including COVID expenses as part of the budget. Hopefully people will take the time to fully understand what our peers are doing and why.
3. The BOF wants to bring in-house payments for health care, as it does for other town departments. Part of the reason they want to do this is because the BOE has over-reserved for these potential claims in years past. That taxpayer money that was over-reserved for did not go to the classrooms. It sat in a bank, so to speak, earning next to nothing.
4. The BOE has done an excellent job with COVID and our teachers/administration are generally excellent, but the BOE has not been very transparent along a number of fronts. The granularity of their budgets pales in comparison to Darien, where the cost of piano tuning expenses are included in their budget! One can easily look up and compare the transparency and granularity of NC versus Darien’s budget by looking both up. The BOE has also not been transparent on the later start initiative, giving little consideration and dialogue to those who want later start times for elementary school kids. Research points to a healthy amount of sleep for elementary school kids being up to 12 hours. Given the proposed start time of 7:45 am (the earliest in the State and one hour earlier than the average in the State), that means putting your child to bed at ~6 pm to get them up at ~6 am for a ~7 am bus. Is that practical or preferable?
5. The per student spending number cited in the article does not include NC BOE’s very high debt service expense relative to peers. This distorts our per student spending ranking. As the BOF chair cited in his letter, the BOF is spending $101 million on BOE costs this year. Divide that by projected enrollment of 4,095 and you get per student spending of $25,000 per student, much higher than our neighboring peers and almost all of the State (national average is ~$13,000 per student).
6. Money is not the primary driver of educational outcomes, especially in affluent towns. See link: https://www.cga.ct.gov/2004/rpt/2004-R-0005.htm. The Stamford Charter School of Excellence is 99% BIPOC, 46% free lunches, has much lower per student funding, and has 85%-90% proficiency rates in math/reading: https://www.niche.com/k12/stamford-charter-school-for-excellence-stamford-ct/.
7. To the extent money in less wealthy communities has an impact on educational outcomes, recognize that NC debates the timing of refurbishing our planetarium while some kids in Danbury ($14,000 per student spend, heavily subsidized by the State) and other cities don’t have access to Chrome books for remote learning. Is that fair? If one says it isn’t fair, there are two practical ways to address it in CT: raise taxes or cut costs. I’m not as concerned about spending the 5% extra the BOE asked for in its budget versus last year than the kid growing up in disadvantaged communities. More should be open about which of these two options they would pursue rather than a comfortable, but not genuine, position of all schools should spend more money. I choose cutting costs given the inefficiencies in the educational system in CT at every level, and giving parents more choice in the types of schools their child goes to (vo-tech, magnet, charter) to create more accountability and competition in underperforming districts. That entails having legislators less beholden to the State unions that will oppose such changes out of their own interest, not the interest of the kids.
Fascinating detail. Thanks for taking the time to post such a long comment.
I have 3 kids, one has gone to college and two are in our school system. I agree that transparency is needed in order to identify the inevitable inefficiency that comes with a $95M budget.
I’m glad you think so Avinash. Please convince my wife it’s as interesting as we think it is 🙂
I support the BOF
I have ask and not received documents supporting the claim that Cigna
Passes on their discounts to the BOE insurance fund — Cigna was sued
For not passing on their discounts to self insured plans —- I have asked if claims
We’re gross or net — all they say in their budget is claims were this amount— never given documents on this issue so we could see the actual discounts if any
When you go to the hospital you get a statement from your ins co
Telling you what they paid it is never what the hospital charged
That the insurance co negotiate discount —- we need to see this number when
Claims are 12 million a yr