Government

‘Frustrated’ and ‘Disappointed’: School Board on Final $100,000 Reduction from Proposed Spending Increase

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Saying the Town Council’s final, unexplained reduction of $100,000 from the district’s proposed spending increase for next fiscal year left them frustrated and disappointed, several Board of Education members on Monday night called for equal transparency and greater accountability from town government and municipal bodies. New Canaan also should look at its own budget process, school board members said, because by giving more power to appointed—rather than elected—officials, that process leaves Town Council members just one way to put their mark on the budget: reduce what’s been handed to them. Calling the Town Council’s move “unprecedented” in her 12 years on the Board of Ed, Alison Bedula described the move as a “basically random cut to either meet percentage or fulfill an obligation.”

Administrators and school board members worked diligently “to present a transparent line-by-line budget and to have discussions about it through the Board of Selectmen and the Board of Finance, and to have this thing really kind of ripped apart and looked at in detail which is a really necessary part of the process—to reach the Town Council and answer all their questions and then to get to the very end just to have $100,000 lopped off of the top of the budget, I just found that very disconcerting as a board member, very frustrating, quite frankly,” Bedula said at the Board of Ed meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. “I think it’s very difficult as a board member for us to go through the process that we do, to the level of detail that we do, with the level of thoughtfulness that we do, and try to be as transparent as possible, which is asked for and delivered, which is what we all want, obviously to get to that point and have a random no pulled out of the sky, to say ‘We’re just going to take $100,000 off … you guys just have to find it some place.’ ”

Bedula and others at the meeting praised Interim Director of Finance and Operations Nancy Harris, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi and others for putting so much time and effort into a budget presentation that included new depths of detail, as well as the four councilmen who voted against the final $100,000 reduction in the district’s spending increase for next fiscal year: John Emert, John Engel, Kevin Moynihan and Tucker Murphy. (The 12-member Town Council voted 7-4 in favor of the reduction, with Penny Young absent.) Engel in particular during the Town Council’s April 1 meeting had said he was dissatisfied with a $100,000 reduction that lacked any supporting documentation or explanation.

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NCHS Squash Team Funding Nixed as Board of Ed Proposes 4.87% Spending Increase

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Saying the district should prioritize the hiring of additional classroom teachers and hold off on funding varsity club sports until there’s a well-defined policy in place for doing so, the Board of Education on Monday proposed a 2015-16 operating budget that includes no money for the New Canaan High School Squash Team. The $84,809,121 proposed operating budget is the major driver of the spending on the public schools, which in turn drives about two-thirds of all town spending. The school board said it’s deferring about $255,000 in spending on educators such as a part-time writing teacher at West School, student deans at the elementary schools and three general education teaching assistants. For Board of Ed Secretary Dionna Carlson, while increased participation in extracurricular activities such as squash is a “wonderful” goal, “I think we need to prioritize where the dollars are, and I would probably say I would prefer to see that $20,000 spent on a writing specialist right now.”

“And I think maybe we are putting cart the before the horse, and maybe we should have a policy in place of how we can handle these extracurricular activities and then we fund them—instead of putting a pool there without a policy that we are reviewing as a board,” Carlson said at the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. “I think we have bigger things that we are not funding this year which are disappointing, I am sure, to many parents in the district.

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Officials: Saxe Needs Not Just Auditorium Overhaul, But Also Arts Space Expansion—Total Cost $10.1 Million

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Even an estimated $5.3 million renovation of the Saxe Middle School auditorium won’t accommodate a burgeoning student population, meet visual and performing arts space needs and bring much-needed flexibility to classroom scheduling, according to town officials overseeing a renovation of the facility. Creating sufficient storage and practice and classroom space for an increasingly large student body will require a footprint expansion of about 6,200 square feet off of the building’s south side—a project whose early estimate comes in at about $10.1 million, an owner’s rep for the project said at the Board of Education meeting Monday. The estimate is conservative, said Gene Torone, executive vice president of construction services as Glastonbury-based S/L/A/M Collaborative. Though some money may be saved in lower-cost materials, the figure doesn’t include removal of contaminants that officials expect to find as more testing is done on the auditorium, which is original to the 1957 building. “There is evidence of some [hazardous materials],” Torone said at the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School.

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School Board to Weigh Funding for Varsity Club Sports in Budget Request

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District officials as they finalize a budget request for next year are looking at whether to include stipends for varsity club sports such as squash, skiing and crew. Board of Education members on Monday said that treating the separate sports fairly means establishing firm criteria in areas such as program history and participation. “I think it is really important for us to be consistent and I appreciate that we all love the sports that we love,” Secretary Dionna Carlson said at the school board’s meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. “But as a board I think we have to be consistent.”

The comments came as Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi proposed a budget for fiscal year 2016 to the BOE. The full board is scheduled to come back Jan.

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Schools Superintendent Proposes 5 Percent Increase in Spending

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Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi on Monday night proposed an operating budget for the district of $84,912,121 in fiscal year 2016—a 5 percent increase over current spending. The figure is driven mainly by staffing costs tied to rising enrollment—especially in teacher salaries (65 percent) and benefits (17 percent), Luizzi said during the Board of Education’s regular meeting. Citing district-wide enrollment, which is expected to rise next year by about 40, and then steadily increase through 2021, Luizzi said the proposed teacher salaries anticipate additional staffers: two classroom teachers for the seventh grade, one additional K-4 teacher, two supervisory aides at Saxe, one custodian at the middle school and a part-time district-wide social worker. “To be fully understood, we need to understand that [the proposed budget] is comprised of multiple drivers, that some are obligatory and some are discretionary,” Luizzi said during the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. “Those drivers are significant numbers.