In March of this year, the Board of Education passed what they were told was a balanced budget for the 2023-2024 school year at Hartford Public Schools, despite the approved number of $429 million being lower than the expected expense number of $431 million.

During last week’s Finance Committee meeting we learned that the $429 million number was just a number to appease folks while attention was on the budget.  It meant absolutely nothing in regard to controlling their spending this school year.

Without a Chief Financial Officer, Phillip Penn resigned earlier this year, HPS sent out Deputy Superintendent Paul Foster to issue a financial update on the district to the BOE.  Of course, the following data was not mentioned by Foster nor questioned by the BOE, thereby making the budget and BOE equally unnecessary.

Foster’s data showed that the adopted budget for 2023-24 was $429 million, however, that number has since been “adjusted” to $460 million.  As is HPS’ practice that only half the story matters, Foster offered no data on HPS revenue increasing as expenditures are blowing away the adopted budget number.  Therefore, their self-congratulations for passing a “quasi-balanced” budget in March with a $2 million dollar deficit means little (there’s a theme here) as that deficit has now grown to $31 million!

The largest increase in that budget blowout number comes in the area HPS calls “professional contracts and services,” which has blown by the approved budget number of $10.9 million and more than doubled to the adjusted (oops, my bad) number of $23.3 million!  But all their little friends and connections in the “non-profits” and businesses they dish out these millions to say, thank you, see you next year!

The budget season for the 2024-25 school season is upon us and HPS will turn BOE minds foggy with more budget talk and data presentations, talks of mitigating the expected deficit, and how great stewards of the taxpayer dime they are, but as their latest presentation shows, that talk and that data will mean squat.

HPS adopts the same concern and care for the budgets of its schools as is routine for the budgets of school construction projects, which shows that five active school construction projects in Hartford are a combined $141 million over budget!

What Foster did focus on in his little financial update was that they are on-track to spending all of the $155 million in COVID relief money received over the last three years before the September 2024 deadline, like this was some sort of challenge.  This is like putting a bottle of rum in front of an alcoholic and saying that what is not drunk this week, will be taken back next week.  A challenge?  I think not.

A budget is a plan to keep future spending inline with future revenue.  If the Superintendent cannot set a realistic budget plan and follow it, how are we to trust her with an overall education plan?

Rum and coke, anyone?