I must confess, the most recent presentation of the Hartford Schools budget to the City Council, held last week (watch it here), was a first for me, which I’m sure would be true of 99% of Hartford residents, despite the hefty consequences HPS’ budget has on the city’s taxpayers (44% of Hartford’s budget goes toward education).  However, the city can sleep easy tonight because among the handful of people making up the live meeting’s audience was Hyacinth Yennie.  If only we could bottle and cap her community enthusiasm.

The key point that I came away with from my virginal budget presentation was that our board of education is much worse than I’ve been letting on.  It was refreshing to hear the questions posed by the council members to Superintendent Torres-Rodrigeuz and her Deputy, Paul Foster.  Absent any pre-meeting script concocted with the superintendent, the questions asked by the council revealed that they were not taking anything as presented, at face value. 

They wanted to know the whys and wherefores, they applied logic and asked if this says this, then how come that, they wanted to know what this office does, what that office does, what are these people doing, and how come so many people.  The council asked data questions, which of course were answered several times with the HPS motto used so frequently by former Office of Talent Management Chief Tiffany Curtis, “we don’t have that data with us, but we’ll get it to you.”  Council members offered suggestions and inquired as to Torres-Rodriguez’s thoughts on several school budget related issues and ‘what if’ scenarios.

Compare the council’s due diligence with that of the BOE: “Oh, we’ve done this before” or “we’ve worked with you for years,” so let’s just get to the vote, as corruption and waste slowly works its sleazy way into HPS’s budget.

But anyhoo, a job well done by council members (give reader time for applause).

The second point that was taken from this meeting was that the council appears to be willing to step away from the hands-off policy toward the school district that was present under the leadership of former Mayor Bronin. 

Councilmember Surgeon confessed that she was now into her second term on the council yet as far as the school district was concerned, she was on a “huge” learning curve.  Surgeon inquired as to what services or practices are present at both HPS and at city hall that could be shared between the two.  She stated there should be shared communication between HPS and the council who together must work harder on selling the district as an asset to the community.

Councilmember Hernandez talked about how the city has relationships with many of the same outside partners that are also under contract with HPS.  Hernandez thought out loud about how perhaps the city could “take over” the community schools program which HPS has been operating since 2008. This is a program which is basically a surrogate parenting program providing wrap-around resources and services to students in order to connect schools, families and communities and a program which costs the district millions of dollars in outside contracts.  This proposal appeared to catch Torres-Rodriguez off guard, and she replied that an “aligned partnership” with the city could be explored.  No, he wants the whole damn thing, that’s what the term “take over” means.

So, while Torres-Rodriguez came into this meeting having scripted a “show me the money” narrative for her minions in central office and on the board to follow this budget season, the city council appears to be working on a totally different thought process, one where saving money is prioritized over spending money and asking for more.  What a novel concept!

The rest of this report looks at some other points of interest which occurred during this meeting, no, Hyacinth didn’t scold anybody.

The meeting lasted nearly three hours, but it took Torres-Rodriguez only 16 minutes and 19 seconds to mislead the council, which makes everything she said after that time suspect.  Torres-Rodriguez began the show with background on the budget process.  Painting herself as the ever-diligent superintendent (giggle), she stated, as she has several times over the past few months, that because she knew this budget season was going to be like something small children should not be allowed to watch, they, the district, began their budget process in October of last year, which she stated was earlier when compared with years past.  The following links take you to the budget schedule, as presented by Torres-Rodriguez, for the 2023-24 and 2022-23 budget years.  It is clear from these documents that the budget process began in October for each of the past three years.  This year was no different from the previous two years.  My bad. That’s not completely true either.  During the most recent budget cycle, the board of education voted on the budget in April.  During the three previous budget years, the BOE voted on the budget in either March or February.  So, she’s actually later this year than previous years!

At about 20 minutes into the presentation, Torres-Rodriguez attempted to show how this budget was actually taking a bigger bite out of central office than it was individual schools.  She did this by stating that 18% of “positions” (not people, positions) were being cut from central office, while only 11% of school “positions” were being affected.  Sounds good to me, said the blind man before he used this link to view the budget book and now realizes that the budgeted amount for central office is dropping by 5% with this budget, while the budgeted amount going directly to schools is dropping 11% with this budget.  The superintendent did not bring up the actual dollar amounts in her presentation.  Transparent?  Hell, not even close to being translucent!

When the discussion turned to staffing cuts, the superintendent, as she has done during all budget meetings, turned the mic over to Deputy Foster to throw HPS principals under the bus.  Foster stated that staffing decisions were “done at the building level…we empowered school leaders to make the decision” on who to retain and who to send packing.  While, apparently, at the district level, the decision is made to hire temporary staffing firms to correct the decisions made at the school level (“The Privatization of School Support Staff”).  Torres-Rodriguez stated at one point during the presentation, “I’m not blaming anybody.”  No, that’s what you’re paying Foster $200k to do.  Didn’t you hate the way the Skipper would treat Gilligan?

And while we are witnessing folks being thrown under the bus, at one point the superintendent talked about how a few years ago she raised the possibility of forming a Hartford Schools Foundation to increase revenue, basically HPS would form their own non-profit and seek charitable donations.  However, she stated, “the BOE didn’t move forward with that.”  Leadership skills like I ain’t never seen!  Councilmember Rosado asked Torrez-Rodriguez if HPS had a dedicated person whose job it was to seek out opportunities for grant money.  The superintendent stated that they have a “part-time grant writer” but not a dedicated position for someone to stand along side the road with a cardboard sign.  Hell, they don’t even have a Chief Financial Officer, but they recently used a $2.1 million grant to add three community school operatives to central office!

Councilmember Bilodeau asked if there were any staff positions which are not currently filled that are currently being outsourced?  Torres-Rodriguez initially answered “no,” but then used the next five minutes explaining, yes, there are.  She stated that when HPS hires for a position filled by an outsourcer, they drop the outsourced role, “that is how contracts are written,” she said.  Take a look at Torres-Rodriguez’s contract summary for AMN Healthcare (click me), a contract the BOE approved on April 4th, one of 4 vendors providing the same service.  There is nothing written in the summary which states that AMN Healthcare will drop one of their 6 provided HPS positions as HPS hires an independent speech therapist.  According to the summary, only when the contract comes up for renewal will HPS’ hiring success for these positions come into play.

Councilmember Rosado wanted to know why there has been such a drop in enrollment at HPS.  Torres-Rodriguez stated that Hartford people are not having enough babies.  Seriously, she said this.  At another point in the meeting the superintendent championed the Little Owls daycare center at Hartford High, so that baby mamas can still attend school.  Did you know that in the late 60’s, Hartford schools would immediately expel any female student who became pregnant (“Helping Unmarried Mothers,” Hartford Courant, May 28, 1967, pg. 4F)?

Continuing on the low enrollment numbers for many HPS schools issue, the superintendent stated that optimal number of students in a building (without prefacing her answer within a building size context) would be at least 350 students.  She stated that Hartford has 18 buildings with less than 350, 12 with less than 310.  Echoing the apparent warning about closing under utilized schools that she made during a March board meeting, the superintendent stated that a “serious conversation” is needed about the low enrollment numbers at some schools.  It’s going to be a hot summer!

During a discussion on the hit the budget takes for transportation, Councilman Gale asked if HPS could handle this in-house.  Torres-Rodriguez replied, “we would have to buy a fleet of buses.”  I’m not sure if this exchange was merely meant to lighten the mood in the room or not; I think Foster smiled.

See what you all missed?  Ask Hyacinth, she’ll tell you all about it.