At a Board of Education Budget Committee meeting Monday evening, Superintendent Michael Conner previewed his BOE budget presentation for Tuesday's regular meeting. Conner said he will ask the Board to pass a 2.89% budget increase over the 2017-2018 operating budget. The increase amounts to a $2,365,000 increase over the current year.
Conner emphasized that the new budget will not count on Alliance Grant funds from the state to be used in the operating budget. Governor Dannell Malloy has proposed a $650,000 increase in school aid for Middletown. The legislature needs to ratify that amount.
Conner said that Alliance Grant dollars will be used exclusively for their intended purpose of addressing core priorities in the district including educational innovation, closing the achievement gap, improving teacher effectiveness.
In previewing the budget, Conner said that he was happy to present the city with a budget that took advantage of new efficiencies, organizational coherence, strategic use of grant dollars and efficiencies in use of facilities. Conner said a status quo budget increase would have meant a request for a 7% increase.
DATTCO Lowest Bidder
In other news. Richard Labrie, from Futures, the company contracted by the BOE to handle bus contract bidding announced that DATTCO was the lowest bidder. The full board will vote to accept the bid at the Board of Education meeting Tuesday. The five year contract begins with an annual busing budget of $6, 381,546 for the school year ending in 2019, with 2.5 % increases in each of the remaining four years of the contract. The only other company that placed a bid was Specialty Transportation.
Another increase great. Why can't there be a zero increase? Can't they reduce the salaries of administrative staff to cut costs? I read an article the Human Resource Director for the Middletown Schools System is fighting because she did not get a pay raise? Did she need a pay raise? This is why the budget for the Middletown Public Schools goes up all the time. We are paying to fund the salaries of the administrative staff. I understand we need to pay good money for teachers but administrative staff they just push papers and sit at their desks.
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