Board of Ed Votes on Budget

Budget Will Cut 13 Elementary School Teachers

Faced with the task of approving next year's school budget before the Mayor's deadline, the Board of Education held a public hearing and a vigorous debate on Tuesday night. Ultimately, they voted along party lines for a 2% increase over the current year's budget. Due to contracted increases, this means a $2.5 million cut in services.

The budget on the table was the one drafted by Superintendent Michael Frechette on February 17th. At Tuesday's meeting, the Republicans made an effort to change the direction of the budget from one which cuts 13 elementary teachers to one that would spread the pain in other ways.

They were unsuccessful, with a few small exceptions.

The Republicans — Sheila Daniels, Corinne Gill and Ryan Kennedy — came up with a list of cuts and put-backs that totaled up to the same 2% increase as the Superintendent's budget, but showed different priorities. Line by line, they tried to convince their colleagues that there were savings to be found
•in transportation costs by swapping kids at Moody, Macdonough and Spencer;
•in cutting stipends for assistant coaches in high school sports;
•in cutting travel, association dues, and miscellaneous other small costs.

On one item, they were successful: the proposal to lower thermostats in the winter and raise them in the summer (by 2 degrees) was accepted and is projected to save the district about $50,000 in fuel costs.

The Republicans wanted several items restored to the budget as well, such as the pre-K to 12th grade supervisors (3.5 jobs) who were to play a role in implementing the just-approved District Improvement Plan.

Throughout the meeting, the Republicans waved the banner of keeping class sizes small in the elementary level. They were particularly irked that athletics were not cut at all in the Superintendent's budget, while teaching positions were eliminated. This sentiment was shared by Democrat Renee Johnson-Thornton, who noted that volunteers might be sought to help with some of the sports programs and that even teachers themselves might volunteer, a suggestion that was shot down as being a violation of the union contract.

Although the majority denied most of the requests to restore items to the budget, there were two additions. The Board agreed to restore the funding for the 21st Century program. This afterschool program is a joint effort between the schools, Wesleyan University, the YMCA and Oddfellows to help the neediest kids at Bielefield, Snow and Macdonough schools. It was recognized that the $30,000 line item is only a portion of the actual costs of running the program. This cost was offset by the savings in fuel costs.

The Board also put about $20,000 back into the salary line item to make the budget balance at a 2% increase.

Some hightlights of the school budget:
•cuts 13 teaching positions at the elementary level
•replaces 11 retiring teachers with (presumably) lower cost, less experienced teachers
•trades 3.5 supervisors who serve Pre-K through 12th grade for 2 instructional support teachers in the middle schools.
•eliminates one PROBE teacher and one assistant superintendent, and a few other non-classroom positions.
•trims the edges off various items such as instructional supplies
•bets on lower prices for heating oil and replacement maintenance costs.

Although the budget doesn't actually crunch the numbers, it looks to me like the elementary class size will rise from an average of 18.23 students per class to 20.07 students per class (that's based on this February's enrollment - 2589 students in 142 classrooms). Note that the current class sizes actually range from 13 to 25 children per room. That's just for K through 5, and does not count the preschool classrooms, which are much smaller.

One topic that recieved a lot of attention at the meeting was the PROBE program for gifted and talented 4th and 5th graders. In this budget, the program will be cut in half, leaving only one teaching position. Since both of the two long-time PROBE teachers have announced their retirement, Jay Keiser proposed that this was a good time to review the program and perhaps alter the way it is structured. Jim Gaudreau, the principal of Snow School, also suggested that even though they didn't want to see it cut, the principals would like the system to consider changing the program to reach more students.

The final vote on the 2% budget was five in favor (Ted Raczka, Jay Keiser, Bill Boyd, Renee Johnson-Thornton and Sally Boske) and three against (Corinne Gill, Sheila Daniels and Ryan Kennedy.) Although she did cast a vote, throughout the meeting member Sally Boske maintained that she would not be voting on the budget. Her position was that it would be better to wait to approve a budget, since the schools will know by mid-March which teachers will be accepting an early retirement package. (my apologies for an earlier version of this report which listed her as abstaining)

Now the Mayor and the Common Council will consider the amount of funding that the school district has requested. The 2009-2010 budget is not final until it receives Common Council approval later this Spring.