Norwich City School District makes major changes to improve budget before vote on June 9
NORWICH - On Wednesday, May 27 the Norwich City School Board of Education held a review of the proposed 2020-2021 school budget followed by a public hearing.
The three-part budget is broken into administration expenses, program expenses, and capital expenses. The proposed expenditures are $5,498,383 for administrative costs, $28,868,590 for program costs, and $7,019,131 for the capital costs. The majority of the budget, 70.16 percent, will go towards program costs that will bring money back to the school.
According to the board, when looking at this year’s budget compared to last year’s, many of the variances come from classification issues. Many funds were allocated incorrectly causing errors in the budget. For example universal pre-k was budgeted in the general funding in the prior year; funding for UPK actually comes from federal funds.
The district has made several changes to programs within all three schools to bring back students who were attending classes in alternative schools.
Interim Superintendent Diana Bowers said, "Some of the things you should know about the current budget is that we are maintaining all the programs that we had before. As discussed last time we are going to be opening two 6-1-1 and two 8-1-1 programs at both elementary schools. They are for students who need a higher teacher to student ratio, special education services, and for ones that do well in a smaller setting. The students that are going to come into both Gibson and Perry Brown are presently in out of district placements. Those out of district placements range from $40,000 to $80,000 a year. We will be returning a number of students into these programs."
Bowers said the school is fully equipped to provide social emotional services, all special education services, and any other needs for these children within the schools.
"They won't have to be transported outside of the school and it's just healthier for the kids to do that," said Bowers.
Bowers also discussed the opening of an alternative middle and high school for next year which will also bring back students from outside placements.
“{The students} will actually help us provide kind of an understanding of what they need to develop the school itself throughout the year. The school will be a wall to wall PBL school which means we are going to be using project based learning to help educate these children. What project based learning is, is they get to apply the learning. It's a hands on, user friendly, deeper learning type programs," said Bowers.
According to Bowers, they found out about a month ago that the training for the project based learning will come from New Tech Network, which is one of the preeminent PBL training institutes world wide, for free through a Carnegie grant.
Program changes are not the only action the school is taking to improve next year’s budget. The school will also be looking to lease school buses for the first time.
"We're also looking at making some changes in how we run the transportation department. We are hoping that we are going to be able to lease buses next year as opposed to buying them. Our fleet is getting very old. It's difficult to keep up with the fleet at the age that the buses are currently," said Bowers. "We looked at all of the potential ways of doing it and leased buses are going to allow us to have a younger and safer fleet as well as being more cost effective."
The school will also be switching to a high deductible insurance plan for all employees next year. The district is planning to fund the staff's health savings accounts by paying off the current Revenue Anticipation Note and reissuing one for next year.
"Because we are going to be ending the year in the positive, we can appropriate some of the funds that we are going to have at the end of this year into next year’s budget," said Bowers. "We have done a lot of things to bring the budget back to the point that it's balanced. Because of the money that we'll have at the end of the year we'll be replenishing our fund balance."
The district recently sent out a postcard with a breakdown of the school's proposed budget. A copy of the budget newsletter can also be found by visiting https://www.norwichcsd.org/Budget.aspx.
The three-part budget is broken into administration expenses, program expenses, and capital expenses. The proposed expenditures are $5,498,383 for administrative costs, $28,868,590 for program costs, and $7,019,131 for the capital costs. The majority of the budget, 70.16 percent, will go towards program costs that will bring money back to the school.
According to the board, when looking at this year’s budget compared to last year’s, many of the variances come from classification issues. Many funds were allocated incorrectly causing errors in the budget. For example universal pre-k was budgeted in the general funding in the prior year; funding for UPK actually comes from federal funds.
The district has made several changes to programs within all three schools to bring back students who were attending classes in alternative schools.
Interim Superintendent Diana Bowers said, "Some of the things you should know about the current budget is that we are maintaining all the programs that we had before. As discussed last time we are going to be opening two 6-1-1 and two 8-1-1 programs at both elementary schools. They are for students who need a higher teacher to student ratio, special education services, and for ones that do well in a smaller setting. The students that are going to come into both Gibson and Perry Brown are presently in out of district placements. Those out of district placements range from $40,000 to $80,000 a year. We will be returning a number of students into these programs."
Bowers said the school is fully equipped to provide social emotional services, all special education services, and any other needs for these children within the schools.
"They won't have to be transported outside of the school and it's just healthier for the kids to do that," said Bowers.
Bowers also discussed the opening of an alternative middle and high school for next year which will also bring back students from outside placements.
“{The students} will actually help us provide kind of an understanding of what they need to develop the school itself throughout the year. The school will be a wall to wall PBL school which means we are going to be using project based learning to help educate these children. What project based learning is, is they get to apply the learning. It's a hands on, user friendly, deeper learning type programs," said Bowers.
According to Bowers, they found out about a month ago that the training for the project based learning will come from New Tech Network, which is one of the preeminent PBL training institutes world wide, for free through a Carnegie grant.
Program changes are not the only action the school is taking to improve next year’s budget. The school will also be looking to lease school buses for the first time.
"We're also looking at making some changes in how we run the transportation department. We are hoping that we are going to be able to lease buses next year as opposed to buying them. Our fleet is getting very old. It's difficult to keep up with the fleet at the age that the buses are currently," said Bowers. "We looked at all of the potential ways of doing it and leased buses are going to allow us to have a younger and safer fleet as well as being more cost effective."
The school will also be switching to a high deductible insurance plan for all employees next year. The district is planning to fund the staff's health savings accounts by paying off the current Revenue Anticipation Note and reissuing one for next year.
"Because we are going to be ending the year in the positive, we can appropriate some of the funds that we are going to have at the end of this year into next year’s budget," said Bowers. "We have done a lot of things to bring the budget back to the point that it's balanced. Because of the money that we'll have at the end of the year we'll be replenishing our fund balance."
The district recently sent out a postcard with a breakdown of the school's proposed budget. A copy of the budget newsletter can also be found by visiting https://www.norwichcsd.org/Budget.aspx.
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