With a budget theme of responsiveness, and a 1.95 percent spending increase -- the lowest increase request in his eight years on the job -- Branford Superintendent of Schools Hamlet Hernandez has requested a $56.38 million budget for the school district's 2018-19 fiscal year.

The 1.95 percent increase equals a spending bump of $1,088,837 that's mainly tied to fixed costs for salaries, benefits, utilities and transportation. The requested budget's bottom line totals $56,380,334.

Hernandez said he's designed a budget that's "...responsive to the needs of our district, that supports what we're doing as a district; but also is very, very mindful of uncertainty at the state level and the fiscal posture of our community."

The lean increase backs a budget that would kick in shortly after the town breaks ground on the $88.2 million Walsh Intermediate School (WIS) expansion project. The town appropriated bonding for the project and will receive a $30 million state reimbursement.

"We're doing all of this at the same time that we are preparing to build a state-of-the-art intermediate school. To me, that's an incredibly exciting time," said Hernandez. "Overall, we continue to really embrace this notion of continuous improvement. And the efforts that we have made, and the efforts that the board has supported, and that the town has supported through the appropriation, has really yielded good outcomes for children.

The Budget Process

Hernandez presented the 2018-19 Superintendent's Budget to the Board of Education (BOE) on February 14. The BOE's review of the budget will culminate with a recommendation vote during a full board meeting on Feb. 28, said BOE vice chair John O'Connor. All BOE budget meetings are public and posted here

Once the BOE votes to set a recommended 2018-19 schools budget, it will be sent on to the Board of Finance (BOF) as part of the 2018-19 Town of Branford budget review. The BOF's vote on a 2018-19 town budget recommendation then goes to Representative Town Meeting (RTM) for further review and a final vote. Following the RTM's annual town budget vote, the BOF sets the new mill rate. Branford operates on a fiscal year calendar of July 1 - June 30.

During last year's 2017-18 town budget process, Hernandez's initial request for a 2.25 percent annual school budget increase was pared down to a final, RTM-approved increase of 1.92 percent.

Superintendent's 2018-19 Budget Overview

In setting up the budget, Hernandez said his priorities were to maintain reasonable class size, address emerging needs, sustain technology integration and support professional learning and growth for staff. The budget meets all contractual obligations. Other priorities met by the budget allow the district to sustain an ongoing cycle of curriculum development and revision, with science as the focus for the coming year.  Additionally, the budget preserves all existing programs and extra-curricular activities.

In the past two years, the school district has seen an overall reduction of 219 students. The district's current enrollment of 2,844 is down 85 students from last year's count.

Hernandez said the declining student numbers were anticipated by two enrollment studies the district undertook in preparation for the WIS expansion and should now begin to be "leveling off." Accordingly, Branford's elementary schools are experiencing the lowest numbers among grade cohorts, with an average of 200 students per grade among grades K – 4.

The budget reallocates resources to deliver the equivalent of removing seven Full Time Equivalent (FTE) teaching positions and two additional certified FTE positions. On Feb. 14, Hernandez specified some of the FTE teacher reductions will include eliminating two fifth grade teaching positions, eliminating one open technology coaching position, and reclassifying an athletic trainer position so that it's no longer counted as a FTE teacher classification position.

The reduction in the fifth-grade teaching staff is the next step in the transition process that's been underway to alter the previous WIS "team" teaching structure to meet the new WIS "next generation" team structure. The change will take the current count of six two-teacher fifth grade teams down to five two-teacher teams, for a total of ten fifth grade teachers next year.

All of the proposed FTE reductions add up to a 1.8 percent reduction to certified salary costs, said Hernandez.

"One of the major drivers of any school budget [is] the certified salary line.

This year, our certified salary line, even though we just negotiated a contract, [is] down 1.8 percent when its netted out for the reductions that we're taking," said Hernandez.

Hernandez said the budget's major "drivers," which make up 90.3 percent of the bottom line (salaries, benefits, utilities, transportation) show a .04 percentage reduction over last year, continuing a "positive trend" of incremental reductions since 2013. He said incremental reductions allow for savings without impacting the district's level of programming, extra curriculars and teacher support.

"It doesn't seem like much, but each tenth of a percentage point [reduced] is about $50,000 that we can reallocate towards either student supplies, technology, new equipment... so it starts to create room in the budget," said Hernandez.

The budget also takes into consideration support for "high needs" students.

One segment of the district's high needs population is reflected by the 26 percent of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch, based on family income.

"When I started here eight years ago, [the] free and reduced [percentage] was just under 20 percent," Hernandez said. "So it's been ticking up steadily."

Another piece of the high needs puzzle are the district's English Language Learners (ELL). Branford Public Schools experienced a spike in ELL numbers between 2010-2015; but has been seeing a leveling off in the past three years, said Hernandez. The district currently counts a total of 160 ELL students.

The school district's Special Education students make up another high needs component.

Additionally, approximately seven percent of the district's students are served in accordance with the U.S. Dept. of Education's Section 504 statute, which requires needs of students with disabilities be met as adequately as those of non-disabled. 

In total, 38 percent of Branford's student population can be categorized as "high needs," said Hernandez.

"We are meeting those needs, but it takes resources to meet those needs," he said.