Mitigating the guess work
Auditors found an $8 million shortfall in the Board of Education’s budget, with special education costs soaring well beyond the numbers projected. It was a body blow to Mayor Dorinda Borer and her administration, which has tried to keep spending under control, especially since the Municipal Accountability Review Board (MARB) exited last year.
Cost overruns in three specific areas, special education tuition to out-of-state entities as well as those associated costs for transportation are at the heart of the deficit. Add costs for plant operations coming in over budget, and there was a need for quick and decisive action.
That action came in the unusual move by the administration to push back the city’s budget-passing timeline to the day after the proposed budget of Gov. Ned Lamont gets finalized by the State House and Senate. That date is scheduled for May 4. The mayor plans to address the City Council on May 6.
Usually, under the charter, that first Thursday, this year May 7, would be the date the council would pass a budget ordinance, ending the budget-making process. Instead, it will meet the day before to get Mayor Borer’s proposed budget and set a public hearing.
The rest of the process, the meeting with department heads to discuss requests, the page-by-page review of the spending plan, looking for revisions and final passage will be done by the state-mandated May 31 deadline.
This will present some logistical problems, we suspect. Tax bills must be produced for mailing to city residents for both personal property and real estate tax remittance. The two independent fire districts will have to work with the city proposals, and not a finalized product, before putting their own spending plans before district electors.
Borer bases her ability to change the timelines on a 2017 bill passed by the General Assembly after the state missed its own deadline for budget passage and held up cities and towns’ own budgets until October of that year. Residents will remember the chaos that followed, as supposedly earmarked funds for cities were slashed, and budgets had to be reworked to attain balance.
Cities now can supersede their timelines in unusual circumstances, and this is the off-ramp Mayor Borer, and the City Council are utilizing this year’s spending plan finalized.
Special education funding has been a problem for many cities, especially when much of the work is outsourced to agencies outside the municipal school district. Borer and other administrators throughout the state have clamored for reform.
The guessing game that is municipal budget configuration is nothing new. Cities get notices from the state on estimates they can expect, but as 2017 showed, what the state giveth, it can taketh away.
The decision to move the dates, then, seems to be a prudent move to manage a special circumstance. It will mean a tighter window for the process, but not one that is unmanageable. It will allow residents to get their tax bills in a timely manner, while allowing financial institutions the ability to make alterations in mortgage payments to reflect new realities.
It is not perfect, but it seems a reasonable response. What must be explored in the months to come is how do we keep our students closer to home so outside agencies have negligible effect on our spending.
Borer said she and Superintendent of Schools Neil Cavallaro are “brainstorming” that issue. Let us hope some fruit results from the discussions.