Greenwich Schools Challenged to Accommodate $4.1 Million Budget Shortfall: Restore Previous GHS Bell Times?

On Wednesday Greenwich’s 4-member Board of Education budget committee met at Havemeyer to begin to discuss ways to address $4.1 million operating budget shortfall given last week’s Board of Estimate and Taxation vote.

That vote went along party lines with Republican chair Harry Fisher using his-tie breaking vote to green light a $4.1million reduction in the public school budget. Families erupted in chants, shouting, “Shame on You!”

This week, the BOE budget committee, chaired by Republican Cody Kittle, broached talked about potential budget cuts that might not impact classrooms.

Mr. Kittle said the idea was to come up with “guidelines” for the district administration.

Enrollment: Pre-K for Special Needs Students

Kittle asked about the “predictability” around pre-K enrollment, an element of the schools operating budget.

Dr. Jones said the district operates a special needs program for Pre-K because it is required by federal law.

Children qualify based strictly on test scores.

“We don’t have universal pre-K in Connecticut. It’s just children who are qualifying for services. These are children who live in our local community,” she said. “When they qualify we must provide them services. That’s when we add a pre-K.”

3 Full Time Employees Omitted from Operating Budget

District COO Ben Branyan said there were 3 full time employees (FTEs) who were not included in the schools operating budget for fiscal year 2026. He explained there had been a plan to move them to the Town side but the plan had changed.

“It really was not going to work. Ultimately, both sides – the BOE and the Town – did not include them in the budget. We need to find a budgetary home for them.”

Branyan said those 3 FTEs are a Director of Purchasing for 2 staff in payroll who process time and attendance for the BOE.

‘This is the saddest exercise I’ve ever had to engage in,” said Laura Kostin. “If we’re starting to look at programming, obviously we want to look at areas that don’t impact the classroom.”

Reducing Jobs: Collective Bargaining Unions

Superintendent Dr. Toni Jones said a budget reduction of this amount could not be done without impacting people and programs.

“A lot of people who make decisions come from the business world, not from the school world,” Jones said. “The way you can go in and reduce positions, for instance in a business, if you want to fire 10 people you fire 10 people. We are a contract state. All of our positions are part of a bargaining unit.”

Chief Human Resources Officer, Dr. Jonathan Budd said the vast majority of personnel belong to collective bargaining unions, three of which are GPS unions and four are additional unions through the Town of Greenwich, with employees who work for the BOE, and they have contractual rights.

“In some some cases of job reduction, more senior employees could have the right to bump into positions currently held by less senior employees,” he said.

Budd said savings were not as easily captured as one might think, and that various union contracts contain provisions regarding transfers that could come into play.

“With certified staff, seniority and certification come into play,” he said. “With non instructional staff such as administrative assistants, custodians and others, transfer language may have an impact in the positions in those groups who work for the Town.”

Dr. Budd continued, “A GPS non instructional staff member with seniority rights may be able to move into a town position in the same union. In addition there is a provision in the administrative contract under Article 8 that addresses any reduction in force.”

“A full time administrator who gets bumped to a different position, in year 1 is paid 80% of the difference between the salary received and the salary at the time the administrator was notified of displacement,” he said. “For example, if a person moves from a $175,000 administrative job to a $125,000 teacher position, the district would pay 80% of the difference in salary next year. So what might be thought of as a $50,000 difference would cost the district $40,000.”

“In addition, if the person we are talking about bumps another administrator on a different salary lane, we could have several people impacted in a domino effect,” he added.

Dr. Budd said beyond the employment of certified staff – which includes teachers administrators and most members of the cabinet – that employment is also governed by statutory provisions of Connecticut’s Teacher Tenure Law.

He said a reduction of a $75,000 senior teacher, might result in the addition of a $133,000 teacher moving from the administration work group to become a teacher, and then be paid the 80% differential.

“Please know that if decisions are made by the board that affect the details of employees’ work, the superintendent and I will work with the necessary parties including the finance personnel as quickly as possible as we must issue contracts and salary agreements for next year. We don’t want people to panic and leave because they’re not feeling confident about their positions,” he added.

“I think it’s useful for people to understand the constraints that are unique to the state and the district,” Mr. Kittle said.

Jones explained that Connecticut is a “bargaining state.”

“The largest driver we have when we build the budget every year is our salary line,” Jones said. “If people don’t like that salaries are growing that fast, then you need to take it up with Hartford. That’s a legislative action. We are doing what we are required to do by law, and it’s very different when you’re in a non-bargaining state.”

“We have these contracts. They are legal and they are binding, and that’s what drives our budget,” Jones said.

“We want to preserve those teachers that are in front of our children and preserve the classroom experience to the degree that we can,” Ms Kostin said.

Restore Previous School Start Time to Reduce School Buses, Save $2.5 million?

Kathleen Stowe said one suggestion that had been ‘rising to the top’ was school start time.

She both the Greenwich Organization of School Administrators (GOSA) and Greenwich Education Association (GEA) were “seemingly aligned” on the suggestion to change start time.

Back in 2017, the cost of the start time change was $1.2 million, but has risen, reflecting school bus contracts.

“We can say, ‘Look at the bus contracts,'” Kittle said.

Dr. Jones said the idea of restoring the former school start times had come up every year.

The start times went into effect after a long battle where parents and medical professionals argued that biological changes make it more difficult for teenagers to fall asleep early. Greenwich High School’s start time moved from 7:30am to 8:30am.

Jones noted that changing start times would reduce the number of school buses and save money.

Branyan said, “More buses are required currently because there is overlap of start times with GHS, middle schools and elementary schools.”

He added that 23 school buses could be reduced with the following changes:

• Greenwich High School moves from 8:30am start to 7:30am

• Middle schools move from 8:00am to 8:05am

• Hamilton Ave School, New Lebanon and Julian Curtiss (three Title 1 schools) move 15 minutes later from 8:15 to 8:30

• Parkway moves from 8:45am would move to 9:00am start

• All the other elementary schools move 10 minutes, from 8:45am to 8:55am

Branyan said the reduction of 23 school buses would create more efficient routes and yield a $2.5 million budgetary savings.

“The community was very loud in their advocacy years ago to a later start time for the teenagers who needed sleep,” Laura Kostin said. “And I know that will complicate people’s work schedules and child care coordination.”

Ms Stowe said the Greenwich had been the leader on changing school start time, and other districts and the FCIAC had followed suit.

“We’re going to have to realign all of our game times,” she said.

Dr. Michael-Joseph Mercanti-Anthony said efficiencies might be found resulting in a “silver lining.”

“…if there are areas where we can use this to our advantage, to effect changes we’ve wanted to make,” he said. “Second grade ALP might be one of those reasons, in all honestly. I’m not a fan.”

Kathleen Stowe said she was not seeing “silver linings.

“Kids are worried about death by 1,000 cuts,” Stowe said.

“There people are saying we can cut $2 million from our sub budget,” Dr. Jones said. “That’s our entire sub budget. When we have a teacher who is not here, you cannot have 8-year-old children running around a classroom without an adult. It is not like being in an office.”

DEFCON 1.

Laura Kostin recalled previous years of pressure on the schools budget including during the Covid pandemic when schools were “flat funded.”

“We’ve had to make these horribly disappointing decisions over and over and over again. This is by far the most depressing and egregious.”

“None of the options are attractive,” she added. “I do not look at this as an opportunity. It’s DEFCON 1 to find $4.1 million. Some of us have been looking at the least awful scenario.”

Cody Kittle said he took a less ‘apocalyptic view,’ and referred to ‘theatrics.’

“It’s heavily squeezed between two aggressive boulders and mandatory spending related to special education and salaries,” Kittle said. “All the dollars in the system impact students. It comes down to a question of tradeoffs.”

“The biggest problems are from Hartford,” Kittle said. “All the pitchforks, if they want to do the longer drive and go there….”

‘This is a pretty big cut and it didn’t come from Hartford,” Kostin said. “It came from six people on the BET.”

“Some of the people that crunched the numbers and fancy themselves experts on this matter did not consider our contractual obligations in the budgeting. That’s a pretty egregious mistake,” she added.

Dr. Mercanti-Anthony said some ideas were better to discuss in ‘private conversations.’

“I’m not going to talk about individual jobs in this meeting,” he said. “We have to be careful what we’re saying in public. It would be un-responsible right now for me to say, ‘What about these coaching positions?’ because if I’m in one of these coaching positions I’m going to go tomorrow to the help wanted ads and see what’s out there.”

“We do have some open positions including in the cabinet. We have to look carefully at a freeze on all travel. We have to look at PD (professional development) being more in-house,” Mercanti-Anthony said.

“I just gave you those ideas,” Kostin said. “It looks pretty bleak because those line items are not going to get us to $4 million.”

“I’m anti-ideas in public,” Kittle said. “If the Constitutional Convention was done in public we wouldn’t have ended up with the Constitution.”

“We may need to get legal advice,” Ms Stowe said. “I’m not sure we’re allowed to do any of that behind closed doors. I caution you….Let’s call a spade a spade. You either have to cut teachers, this is a $4.1 million hole and you’re only going to get half way there with start time.”

“It’s helpful if we minimize the commentary,” Kittle said. “The team is more than competent enough to come up with incremental changes.”

“Since it came up that our deputy superintendent retired and she had a salary. We don’t have a deputy right now. God forbid Toni (Jones) had to go on a medical leave, who would we have to step in?”

Connecticut law requires boards of Education to hire certified superintendents. superintendents are required to have a special certification, and Dr. Carabillo who recently retired as deputy, had that certification.

“We have to be very mindful that we are not having meetings offline,” Jones said. “I was asked if we could we do an executive session. I knew the answer, but looked at the law book to make sure it’s very clear. The intent is that it’s very difficult to talk about jobs when you have people in them. It is very emotional. The last thing I want is for someone to have a breakdown because they think they’re not going to have a job. Maybe they’re a single parent. Maybe they need the health insurance that is here. Maybe they’re in a position that is not easy to go to another district and find. We need to be very thoughtful.”

Jones said she, Mr. Branyan and their team would get to work.

“There’s not a lot of great choices,” she said.

“We have to work quickly because of teacher contracts and administrative contracts,” Jones said. “If a teacher doesn’t have a contract and you’re getting into May or June you could have a mass exodus.”

“This is not the climate you want that to happen,” Jones said. “If you lose a Physics teacher. If you know your seniority is down at the bottom. They’re very nervous. We have to get contracts so they know they’re very secure because another district would be very happy to put them under contract very quickly.”

The BOE had a special meeting scheduled for Thursday but it was cancelled.

Next week is public school break.

The RTM will formally adopt the budget at their May 12 meeting. They cannot add to the budget; they can only reduce.