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The Cliff is Here

Writer's picture: justincmatleyjustincmatley

Well it's here. Not just in Norwalk; not just in Connecticut. The nationwide education cliff has arrived. How did we get here nationally?


Chronically underfunded public education programs were finally able to (temporarily) dig out of untenable financial circumstances due to generational national underfunding with the devastating, disguised "blessing" of Covid. Finally, national attention was put on the fact that schools not only were ill-equipped to handle an international pandemic, but were very often ill-equipped to meet even the most basic needs of their students. This spotlight and national anxieties for our children opened up funding opportunities that were never there.


States and particularly municipalities such as Norwalk used this surge of funds as an offramp to avoid sustained support of the programs that were enacted to finally begin to properly educate and support our children. The argument is well, don't rely on that funding. The counter-argument is: you should've funded it in the first place.


Now, those temporary federal dollars and grants are gone. The risk is not only losing what progress was made, but regressing beyond the original baseline that was never attended to in the first place.


Here are the programs that were added or expanded from grant funding alone that will be cut immediately, based on current budget ask, in Norwalk:


o Behavioral Mid Fairfield - Counseling Services ($700,000)

Counseling services to students with more intense needs than what was previously available, provided by cognitive behavior consultants.

o K-3 Literacy Materials ($461,000) Materials for literacy, including DIBELS and Wonders, offsetting the capital budget.

o Middle School Summer Programming and High Dosage After School ($278,000) Includes transportation costs.

o Future Ready Program ($308,000) Funded by an expired grant.

o Mid Fairfield Middle School PSD Faith Act ($181,000) Therapeutic services.

o Dual Credit Expansion Grant ($50,000) Covered IB and AP after-school tutoring in high schools.

o Drug & Alcohol Counselor - Positive Directions One counselor serving each high school, one day per week.

o Districtwide Social Worker K-12 (Central Office in-resident)


Public education is personnel-intensive, with salaries and benefits consuming a sizable portion of school budgets. The FY25-26 Budget allocates $203.41 million to personnel and benefits, with a 2.5% average contractual increase for union employees. These are mandated increases. Whether you like unions or not, the city must fund these. Flat-lining a budget immediately cuts that amount from the education budget.


Connecticut has a terrible, frankly ruinous, antiquated state funding scheme that relies on property values to directly determine district education funding. In fact, 92% of school funding comes from state and local sources; nearly 57% comes from property tax revenue, and nearly 36% comes from state sources. Norwalk is perceived in Hartford, I am told by multiple State Representatives, as perfectly well-funded, largely by way of the high property values we possess. This ignores the fact that Norwalk is, like a few other cities along the Sound; including places like Stamford and Stratford, a place of the have-alls and the have-nots. And due to this state funding formula, we are improperly evaluated to account for the range of needs our city requires. While some progress was made last year at the state level to speed up the ECS formula's adjustments, it was a mere pebble into the ocean for Norwalk.


The NPS ask, purely as a visual, is astounding. We admittedly see 9% and we ignore everything else. But this is a direct result of multiple factors, some listed above, and wholly unfair to everyone involved. I do not envy the Mayor and Common Council's jobs. No one hates the kids (that I know of). The conundrum the city is put in year after year is cruel, and the resulting tax increases (including those as a result of recent reevaluations), however minimal, are seen as set in-perpetuity by many of our citizens.


But, until the state takes seriously the burden of rewriting the rules of the game, we are faced with no choice. They will not fully fund the schools' request, to be sure, but they need to finally take seriously the need here. Norwalk has a Rainy Day fund of nearly $86 million, and we live on good fiscal ground, in part, because of it. It has been only minimally tapped in recent years, and grows at a larger rate than its use. This accounts for over 20% of the city's budget. Relative to other cities, this is inordinately large. Tapping 20% of this fund would fix this issue in whole. I have no notion that this amount will be utilized, however, but if we are aggressive here, the more fiscally stable we will be as the requests stabilize in subsequent years, with the reimbursement of the fund coming very quickly. In fact, the fund has increased by over $40 million in the last decade, so a 20% draw down would recover in just a few years even with additional usage.


I have no doubt the request will not be wholly funded. However, the Common Council, and in particular the Mayor and BET (who can wholly ditch the cap and its intended disbursement), owe our kids and citizens the ability to have a more stable process, and stable tax burden, going forward. Education is not a commodity: the Rainy Day is here. We've jumped off the cliff, and as the saying goes, every floor has a trap door.





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Other information:


NPS Budget website:


The NPS "Budget in Brief" booklet:


And the full NPS Budget Book:


The Board of Education is meeting on Tuesday, January 14th, 2025, at 7:00PM at The Family Center, 1 Park Street, Norwalk, CT.

 

To view the agenda Please click here.

 

TO VIEW LIVESTREAM VIA YOUTUBE:

 

 

TO ATTEND VIA ZOOM OR TO PARTICIPATE IN PUBLIC COMMENTS REMOTELY:

Please click the link below to join the webinar:

 

  

Webinar ID: 988 6082 3549



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