Board of Education Meets Tonight to Reduce Budget

The Board of Education will meet again tonight to discuss how to shave $430,000 from the board’s recommended budget for 2012-2013. The board discussed possible cuts during its March 26 meeting but decided to pursue other options: whether the district can charge the financially separate EXCL rent for housing its programs in school buildings; underfunding the self-insurance fund; and freezing non-essential accounts for the end of the 2012 school year and using that money to prepurchase in support of the 2012-2013 budget.

The board decided to go ahead and investigate those three options, made at the suggestion of board and audience members on March 26, and so put off voting on recommendations from Superintendent Kathleen Greider.

Greider offered three tiers of cuts, none of which, she said, was advisable.

In addition to rolling back proposed program additions like Latin, which the board was hoping to restore, maintenance funds to repair facilities may also be cut.

Restoring summer school to pre-recession levels was another place Greider said cuts could be made. The summer school program represents a two-fold loss, Greider explained, since the program not only helps students who are falling behind grade-level mastery in various subjects to catch up but it also serves as a training ground for new teachers. 

“This is an at-risk population,” said Board Chairman Mary Grace Reed at the last Monday meeting. “These are at risk students who will be coming back to us not having had the leg up they once did in Farmington to hit the ground running at the beginning of the year.”

Since budget cuts four years ago, the district has reduced the program, turning away about 10 students per grade level each year. In addition, the district has a high number of teacher retirements this year and will be bringing in many new teachers, who, previously, would have been hired to work at the summer school, receiving training and preparation during that time to help them adjust to the district and get ready for the school year, Greider said.

“We talked this one out for enough hours to realize that none of these cuts are good for the district, none of these we feel are right for the district,” Reed said.

The superintendent’s full recommended list of cuts:

Level 1: Least Significant Impact ($187,000)

• Technology: $80,000
• Special education tuition: $77,000
• Curriculum budget: $30,000

Level 2: Significant Impact: ($107,000)

• Equipment repairs: $40,000
• Summer school: $15,000
• Summer custodians: $12,000
• Substitutes: $40,000

Level 3: impacts programs and services to students ($137,347)

• IAR Latin: $44,745
• .5 FHS science teacher: $28,000
• .5 reading recovery position: $27,000
• .5 unassigned teacher: $28,000
• IAR Friday late bus: $9,602

If the board is unable to find savings through the three options, board members generally agreed to follow the superintendent’s recommendations, instead of searching through the board’s $55 million budget.

“We’ve been placed in a position to make unpopular cuts… and the superintendent has worked hard to come up with her recommendations based on what her staff has told her,” Bill Beckert said. “At the end of the day, the [Town] Council’s put us in a position where we have to make these cuts whether we like it or not.”

The board meets tonight at 7 p.m. in the Farmington High School library.