Mar 12, 2007
BUDGET & TAXES:
Sparks fly over school spending
|
A precedent-setting meeting set the stage for a clash over funds Saturday morning when the Board of Selectmen completed its budget deliberations.
Under rules the Charter Revision Committee established, the selectmen not only sent proposed $29-million operating budget to the Board of Finance but they also sent in a non-binding call on the Board of Education to cut its fund requests by $1 million.
The call for a leaner schools budget ran into vocal opposition during the public comment portion, with Superintendent of Schools Dr. Kenneth Freeston and Selectman Andy Bodnar exchanging barbs in a somewhat heated discussion.
The clash arose when the selectmen decided to ask the schools to reduce their 7.33% budget increase to 5.87%. The schools' $73,685,580 budget is a $5-million increase over 2006-07.
The selectmen want to keep any mill rate increase in line with the cost of living increase, which is roughly 3%. The current school budget request, combined with the selectmen’s budget, would require a 4.37% increase in the mill rate.
“I don’t think the town can sustain that, coupled with what will probably be an increase in the state income tax,” First Selectman Rudy Marconi said.
Mill rate debate
The town’s current mill rate is 24.23. The mill rate is based on the assessed value of a property, with one mill equaling $1 per $1,000 per assessed value. Under the current rate, a homeowner with a property assessed at $1 million would pay $24,230 in taxes. The current school and operating budget would bump the mill rate to 25.42.
The selectmen’s non-binding proposal would cap the schools’ increase at 5.33. That increase would include “must-haves,” Mr. Marconi said - the items schools must have to maintain services at their current level. The selectmen want the school board to cut down the remaining 2% of the 7% increase, or roughly $1 million.
The board decided to change that request to allow for a 5.87% increase while dipping into the General Fund for $400,000 to give to the schools.
Dr. Freeston and several members of the school board, however, said the entire budget request is essentially a “must have” because the 7.33% overall increase includes “court-ordered mandates in special education we must meet,” Dr. Freeston said.
And that is where the dissension began.
Mr. Bodnar and the rest of the selectmen openly questioned how the school board could turn in a budget that did not include “court-ordered” mandates as part of what the selectmen called the 5.33% “maintenance budget.”
“How could you not include court-ordered mandates,” Mr. Bodnar said. “I don’t understand how you can come up with a budget and not include a court-ordered mandate in your numbers.”
Kitty Fisher of the school board said the overall increase accounts for the so-called “levers” or court- and federally ordered mandates for special education. Dr. Freeston said the increase represents an attempt to “meet a growing need and mandate every year.” Not funding the mandates, Dr. Freeston said, would leave the town’s school open “to litigation.”
‘Lever’-age
Still, the selectmen continued to press as to why the “levers” were not part of the 5.33% increase that would at least maintain current service levels. Dr. Freeston said the town has yet to fund those mandates. Mr. Bodnar seized on that statement.
“So, you decided fund things like world languages and not fund these mandates?” he said. Dr. Freeston shot back, “You would know if you attended any of the eight Board of Ed meetings on the budget.”
The proposed school budget adds world languages “every day to the sixth-grade level” and also adds Mandarin Chinese to 7th grade. It would require 3.2 teaching positions to meet.
“If we have unfunded mandates, why not discuss this before expanding the curriculum?” Mr. Bodnar said. “It looks like we’re ignoring mandates to offer Mandarin.”
Mr. Marconi told the assembled crowd, which included many school budget supporters, the selectmen were not slashing anything out of the budget. They were trying to lower the requested increase. “This is the first time we’ve heard anything about these mandates,” Mr. Marconi said. “We understood the 5.33% increase covers all the ‘have to haves’ and the remaining 2% is ‘like to haves.’ Today we heard something completely different.”
The selectmen remained adamant in sending a non-binding decision to the Board of Finance reducing the schools increase to 5.87 percent, but amended it to include funding any court-ordered mandates.
Slim operating budget
The deliberations on the school budget came after the selectmen voted to send a $29,089,700 operating budget to the Board of Finance. The request is a $1.5-million increase over last year. It includes the salaries of a new police officer, one new firefighter, a part-time fire inspector and a part-time highway clerk.
The board combed its budget line by line seeking any way to cut expenses. Selectman Barbara Manners said the belt-tightening “every year is difficult, particularly this year. We eliminated one community grant and cut a bunch of others. If we go down any farther, I hate to think of what it would do.”
Salary and benefits increases make up the bulk of the requested increase, although the board is continuing to search for more savings. One item it wants to check is an annual $72,100 payment the town makes to the Water Pollution Control Authority. Mr. Marconi said he believes that payment was a one-time payment the town had to make to cover the cost of a new water treatment plant in the 1980s. Somehow, the payment became recurring.
“It’s something we’re going to look into,” he said.
© Copyright 2007 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
|
