Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Education Budget topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Buffalo superintendent presents $1.212 billion budget with $66 million gap; board presses for details
Summary
Superintendent Pascal Minga proposed a $1.212 billion budget that narrows a projected deficit to about $66.2 million through central-office cuts, modest class-size increases and targeted special-education investments; the board asked for detailed line items on enrollment, field trips, transportation and program reductions ahead of a vote next week.
Superintendent Pascal Minga presented his first budget to the Buffalo City School District board, proposing $1.212 billion in revenues and a remaining gap of about $66.2 million that the district plans to cover in part with reserves and program changes.
Minga said the plan reduces last year’s $78 million deficit by roughly $12 million while preserving investments tied to the district’s strategic plan. “We have a budget of $1 billion $212 million,” he said, and added that the administration made difficult staffing decisions to reduce costs: “We cut about 51 position at the central office.”
The budget proposal calls for a mix of reductions and targeted additions. To help special-education needs the draft adds 21 special-education classrooms and 58 special-education staff while raising average class size districtwide modestly — from about 19 to approximately 20–21 students per class. Minga said the district will fund an agency school internally for 2027–28 to seat small cohorts and begin recapturing students served by external agencies.
CFO Jim Barnes framed the proposal in multi-year terms, saying the administration used projections to preserve a fund balance above the district’s $200 million threshold. “This is what enables us in part to absorb the $66 million deficit in this proposed budget and still remain safely above the $200 million threshold for fund balance,” Barnes said. He outlined revenue assumptions including an expected $991 million in state aid (about 82% of revenues), $70 million from the city and $60 million in anticipated sales tax, and noted that some categories — notably building aid — are declining as prior debts are paid down.
Barnes and Minga told the board that the draft relies on roughly $66 million of reserves in the coming year and that without continued cost reductions the district could face larger deficits in future years. The district plans roughly $60 million in capital investments, and the control board (BFSA) gave a favorable review to the district’s deficit-reduction plan, which includes a previously discussed scenario to close up to four schools to achieve about $30 million in annual savings.
Board members pressed staff on details throughout the session. Questions sought clarification about retirements and separations (staff reported roughly 214 separations most recently), the apparent discrepancy between official enrollment “beds” counts and school-based placement numbers, and the makeup of increases to charter tuition and transportation. On transportation, officials cited a projected $6.7 million (9.2%) increase tied to contract and fuel costs and said roughly 80% of certain transportation and agency tuition costs are reimbursable the following year.
The administration acknowledged several clerical corrections will be made before the final proposal; for example, a line showing a cut for a large recurring field trip was described as a miscategorization and will be restored in the final budget. Staff also agreed to provide detailed line‑item follow-ups on contract services, rent and specific school-by-school FTE impacts requested by board members.
Minga and Barnes emphasized that many of the central-office reductions were vacancy-driven — 36 of the 51 central-office positions eliminated were vacant — and that the net reduction in school-based positions reflects enrollment-driven classroom consolidations rather than cuts to core services. “These reductions are enrollment driven only. No instructional programs or levels of student support have been reduced in any way,” Barnes said.
Next steps: the administration expects final state aid figures to be released before the board adopts a final budget; staff said they hope to present the board with a budget for approval next Wednesday and will import the approved budget into the district’s accounting system and prepare cash-flow projections for the city and BFSA once state numbers are final. Board members were invited to submit follow-up questions to CFO Jim Barnes and to the superintendent for written answers before the vote.
A motion to adjourn was raised by board members Mcketchen and Everheart at the close of the meeting; the transcript does not record the vote tally or a formal passage in the excerpt provided.
