Schools

Savings Found; Education Programs Spared

Alternative methods bear out enough savings to keep Latin, teaching positions in the 2012-13 education budget.

Just a week after the Farmington Board of Education left the table unwilling to make program and staffing cuts to next year’s proposed budget, the board Monday night found a way not to.

Three creative options explored in hopes of avoiding reductions in programs, teaching positions and facilities repairs bore out nearly enough money to cover the $431,356 by which the Town Council reduced the board’s proposed budget.

The methods — assessing the district’s childcare program EXCL, reducing funding for the self-insurance fund and “belt-tightening” for the remaining weeks of the 2012 school year — were raised at the March 26 meeting and reviewed over the past week.

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Superintendent Kathleen Greider came back Monday night with good news.

A late retirement will bring retirement savings to $34,221 and the district will be able to charge EXCL a $15,000 assessment for technology and utilities use.

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A larger savings will be realized in the self-insurance fund. Board Chairman Mary Grace Reed said that though the board has "historically enjoyed budgeting flexibility" through its funding of the self-insurance fund, 2012-13 will be the first year under a joint policy unanimously approved with the Town Council requiring self-insurance be fully funded for 100 percent of anticipated costs – projected for $6.8 million in 2012-13. The board grappled last week with whether it could break the policy but found out Monday it doesn't have to.

Reed said she approached Town Council Chairman Jeff Hogan, who works in the health care industry and had been monitoring the district’s claims, about appropriate funding. Hogan, according to Reed, was supportive of bringing updated claims information back to actuaries to be reviewed.

Though the 2011-12 projections were made at the recommendation of the board’s actuaries at Cigna, based on previous year’s usage, this year’s numbers have come in dramatically below budget. The 2012-13 numbers were recommended in January, with data more than two months old.

The good health of Farmington school employees in 2012 means the district can budget less (closer to this year’s actual usage) in 2012-13 by $124,875 while still adhering to the new policy.

Greider also found $70,000 in savings in the special education tuition account.

“Since we put this budget together, things happened in the district and we felt we’d be able to reduce things in the budget,” Greider said at the March 26 meeting.

One reason is that the district has a new director of special services, Laurie Singer, who is working to serve more students in the Farmington school district, thereby avoiding tuition costs, Greider said. In addition, Business Administrator Mike Ryan said the expected reimbursement rate from the state of Connecticut may be slightly higher than originally anticipated.

Greider is hoping to find $110,000 in accounts from now until the end of the school year that can be used to prepurchase technology, defraying costs in the 2012-13 operating budget.

“Every year we have accounts with small amounts left in there,” Greider said. “We’re going to hold that and continue to apply it to the technology this year.”

Greider said that the “belt-tightening” attempt would only hold as long as the money was not needed for student services, and as recently as the past week, new students with needs have enrolled in the district.

Greider rounded out recommended cuts with $30,000 in curriculum development, $12,000 for a window-washing contract and $28,260 in the substitutes account.

Funding found from EXCL, self-insurance and the prepurchasing of technology, freed Greider to save the IAR Latin program and several part-time positions intended to boost curriculum development in anticipation of changing state standards, as well as summer school offerings.


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