superintendent's Message: Dr. Alexandra Estrella

January 13, 2021

It is my honor to submit the proposed Norwalk Public Schools budget for the 2021-22 school year, my first budget as your superintendent of schools. While circumstances this year made it especially difficult to establish budget priorities, our proposed budget reflects the following realities:

Haga clic aquí para leer el mensaje del presupuesto para 2021-22 de la Dra. Estrella en español

Klike la a pou li mesaj bidjè 2021-22 ki soti nan doktè Estrella sou kreyòl ayisyen an

• A 25.9% rise in health insurance costs that equates to 2.9% of the district’s operating budget increase over last year.
• A 2.7% increase to staff priority needs and meet contractual obligations to teachers, paraeducators, administrators, custodians, nurses and other critical staff.
• The compelling need to mitigate learning loss resulting from the Covid global public health crisis.
• The comprehensive analysis of the district that is in progress to develop the next NPS Strategic Plan.

During our budgeting process, we were mindful that Covid also makes this a challenging year for citywide finances. As a result, before submitting this proposal, we first looked carefully for internal solutions to cover budget requirements, including:

• Reviewing the value of previous expenses to ensure they still delivered results.
• Repurposing federal and state grant money.
• Creating reductions in some areas to build enhancements in others.
  

Detailed in the pages that follow, the proposed budget is limited to a 5.6% increase over the current year, driven largely by the rise in health insurance costs. Below is an overview of the key factors behind our 2021-22 Continued...