A local Connecticut Board of Education with five new appointed members will take up business this week, including the contract for the superintendent of schools.
Meanwhile, Hartford education leaders including Hartford Public Schools Superintendent Leslie Torres-Rodriguez are again under fire from local union groups that represent hundreds of educators in the city, amid a state assessment of the district’s finances.
In a letter dated June 13, and obtained by the Courant, nine union groups representing paraprofessionals, teachers, principals and supervisors, school health professionals, school secretaries, special security officers and educational support personnel, denounced HPS leadership amid the district’s financial woes.
The criticism comes at a crucial moment for the district, as the job status of Torres-Rodriguez is questioned after an attempt to extend her contract for an additional year through June 30, 2026 failed last month. It now rests in the hands of a mostly brand new Board of Education, with five new members sworn in.
The school board is scheduled to meet at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 16. The agenda lists an executive, or closed, session, as “Personnel Matter: Dr. Torres-Rodriguez.”
While Torres-Rodriguez has received support from several community members, all nine unions have said they are opposed to extending her contract amid a financial crisis for the district. After facing a $77 million deficit , Hartford Public Schools slashed $31.5 million in spending and has plans to eliminate up to 387 positions across the district for this fall.
Mayor Arunan Arulampalam has said $10.5 million in additional funds was found to support Hartford schools. Of this, $5 million came from the state, another $1 million in new funding came from the city, and $4.5 million came from what the city identified on the “Other Post-Employment Benefits,” or OPEB, account which were never made by the Board of Education, the mayor has said.
The unions are accusing district leadership, including Torres-Rodriguez, of sitting on valuable funding sources.
“Once again untapped and un-utilized resources numbering in the millions, that would sustain and stabilize this community were overlooked and not secured by district leaders. As a coalition of unions representing educators and school support staff, we have rallied for our students, only to be ignored,” the union groups said in a joint statement.
Carol Gale, president of the Hartford Federation of Teachers, said that the letter is in response to what the unions see as “several wasteful costs” to the district including consultant and out of state contracts, and outsourcing work that could be performed by Hartford Public School employees. In addition, union leaders claim that the district has let millions in federal and state grant money go unspent over several years.
“We cannot continue to throw away resources that are sorely needed to help our students achieve academically, expand extracurricular programs, and provide innovative opportunities for them to learn,” the unions said.
The letter followed the State Board of Education giving the green light for approval for the Education Commissioner to conduct an immediate audit of Hartford Public Schools’ budget. In a meeting with the state Board of Education Accountability and Support Committee on May 15, Torres-Rodriguez and district leaders were asked questions about district obligations for state and federal grants. In that meeting, the Connecticut State Department of Education presented a report that showed several grants with an expiration date of June 30, 2024 had not been fully expended.
Among the goals of the state assessment are to ensure no funds are returned to the state or federal government due to a failure to meet grant expenditure deadlines and that the district meets all state and federal compliance requirements, including the proper utilization of grants for their intended purposes, according to the CSDE.
“The CSDE has a responsibility to ensure that districts are utilizing state and federal funding in accordance with the obligations established under state and federal law. Furthermore, districts are responsible for carrying out the planned use of grant funds that have been approved by the CSDE. Whereas HPS is anticipating budget shortfalls for the 2024-25 school year, the district is still responsible for meeting grant fund obligations,” the CSDE said in its conclusion for an immediate audit of HPS.
But district leaders have said that HPS expends 99% of all federal and state grants it receives. The total budget of awarded state and federal grants for HPS was $95.6 million for fiscal year 2024, according to HPS. The district expended $94.7 million of that for just over $800,000 left unexpended, or less than one percent.
From 2021 through 2023 almost $3 million in state and federal grant money was unexpended, according to the district. But the district cautioned that figure includes $1.2 million from the magnet extracurricular program expansion grant that is shown as expired, despite the state allowing the funds to be carried forward into fiscal year 2024.
“The statement that ‘untapped’ and un-utilized resources numbering in the millions, that would sustain and stabilize this community, were overlooked and not secured by district leaders’ is not accurate,” Torres-Rodriguez said in a statement. “Expending more than 99% of our state and federal grant funds in each of the last four fiscal years cannot be considered squandering the opportunity to secure funds that will provide opportunities for our students.”
“In the Department’s presentation to the state board, they shared data on the amount of grant funding reimbursed to HPS so far in FY2024. We worked diligently to clarify this inaccuracy with the state, to highlight that expenditure and reimbursement are not the same thing. Because the state requires us to spend funds first and then be reimbursed, there is always a lag from when funds are spent until reimbursement is received.”
When state and city leaders pledged an additional $10.5 million in May to help save jobs and close the budget gap. Arulampalam said the $4.5 million will be drawn from the school district’s other post-employment benefits fund following approval from the Hartford Pension Commission. The district’s OPEB fund is used for post-employment benefits in retirement other than a pension and includes things like retiree health care, Medicare supplemental payments, or life insurance. But that money is now in question as union leaders have cautioned on tapping into money set aside for teacher retirements.
“This budget season we worked closely together to advocate based on a shared recognition that the available resources are not enough to provide a just and equitable opportunity for our students. A shift in focus to a misleading narrative based on reimbursement data, not expenditure data, distracts from the critical work before us to advocate for systemic changes in how education is funded in Connecticut,” Torres-Rodriguez said.
Stephen Underwood can be reached at sunderwood@courant.com
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