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MINUTES
SPECIAL JOINT MEETING
BOARD OF FINANCE AND BOARD OF EDUCATION
NOVEMBER 19, 2002
A SPECIAL JOINT MEETING OF THE BOARD OF FINANCE AND BOARD OF EDUCATION was held on Tuesday, November 19, 2002, in the Council Chambers.
Present were Mayor Owen J. Quinn, Jr., members of the Board of Finance Theodore Miasek, Carl Michelet, Michael Nejaime, Diane Libby, Roger Dickinson, and Bruce Cornish, Board of Education members, Margaret Chadwick, Chairman (arrived at 5:26 p.m.), Laurene Pesce, A. Bates Lyons, Dawn Lambert, Kenneth Edwards, Ronald Bourque, Robert Kelly, and Hans Reichardt, Dr. Gregory Riccio, Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Elaine Coffin, Asst. Superintendent of Schools, and Hugh Murphy, Business Service Administrator, Corp. Counsel Albert Vasko, and Comptroller Alice Proulx.
Mayor Quinn called the meeting to order at 5:25 P.M.
This meeting was transcribed 99% verbatim.
Mayor Quinn: “There is one item on the agenda, which is budget; however, I think that one of the things that I would like to talk about is the situation where we had a budget process from last year that was difficult for all people that participated in the process, and I don’t want to get into a discussion of my version of municipal government, and please, pardon my lozenge in my mouth, but it’s become very abundantly clear to me as the Mayor that a budget, and (one would wonder why Margaret is with a young man from the Register Citizen).
The budget process that we go through is very labor intensive both for the city and the Board of Education and indeed for the Board of Public Safety, and there is no shortage of frustration, even including the Board of Finance, there’s no shortage of frustration that people have a degree of control over certain budgets to a certain point in time and then each budget is given over to another entity. Board of Safety, for example, works very diligently in making decisions with regard to public safety, police and fire, and feel very strongly that, at times, they have to turn that budget over to a City Council, who then ultimately makes decisions on the decisions that they’ve already rendered, which tends to cause some tension. It gets further complicated that the City Council prepares its budget with
the Board of Public Safety and then they, after working diligently in many man hours and woman hours on that, turn it over to a Board of Finance, who looks at their budgets and makes decisions.
Non-the-less, being a community person that I am and living in the City of Torrington and watching municipal government and state government, there is always a tension between a Board of Education budget, what educators need to educate the children in our school system and the needs of education facilities, etc. that you all grapple with. And, there is a frustration that your hard work and efforts then are turned over to a Board of Finance who has to make some decisions. Not going to debate the situation of the City of Torrington, happens to be that we have a Charter that outlines the respective roles and responsibilities, and, certainly the purpose of this meeting is not for the Mayor to lecture anyone, although I’m tired, cranky, unshaven, and not dressed in my usual, dapper way. So, if I am
sounding like I’m lecturing, I’m really trying to set the stage that it is a difficult process and one where we need to do a better job in the City of Torrington. That is not to cast dispersions on any board or agency, I think we all do a very good job under the circumstances we have. But, I’m looking not in last fiscal year necessarily, although there are people that are very concerned about last fiscal year, and maybe people are concerned about last fiscal year from different perspectives, and I can understand that as the Mayor, but I’m concerned about last fiscal year because I think we have to do an accounting change to make it right, but that’s as far as I’m concerned and those people that know my personality, I’m willing to move on to the next situation, but I think that it needs to be rectified and that we need to put collective heads together.
I have attempted to do that and am somewhat frustrated that it has not been resolved, and, I’ve shared that with a number of people, non-the-less with the Chairperson of the Board of Education, that I want it resolved, and I want it resolved quickly, and that has not been something that has been able to be done. But, I’m more concerned looking to an eye in the future where every financial report that I see from the federal and state governments says that there will be less money, that there will be less tax revenue in the next fiscal year, and that whatever frustrations we had last year, I think will be minor to the ones that we will experience in the upcoming year, and, if I am wrong in my estimation, so be it, and I will be pleasantly surprised if it’s better than I think, but, I
haven’t been wrong about these things since 1955 when I thought the flood would not occur too much rain. So, I think that I’m pretty much right that the next fiscal year will be even more difficult and whatever pain and agony we had last year will be compounded. Enough of my setting the stage.
One of the things that I want to do is I want to improve the communication and the cooperation between boards and agencies. I think that enough time, enough frustration has gone on. I think that there is enough egg on everyone’s face that we did a good job, but that we continue to carp in the newspapers and in the media that a lot of our good efforts falls from where it should be. Instead of complimenting and patting each other on the back, I think all too often, there is continued frustration, continued distrust, and part of my mission has been to be a consolidator, a person that brings consensus forward, and I think that I have been able to do that on a number of fronts that had been a lot more contemptuous than what I think this problem is. And, if I had the skills to do that in more
difficult circumstances, then what I am basically outlining is that I want to offer myself as a person that can be a conduit for more information going back and forth between the two boards, especially the Board of Finance and the Board of Education. I think that many problems that we have occurred either in this last budget process or in those before is lack of communication, lack of dialogue and that the more people understand each other’s point of view, the better off we would be. I think that, all too often, we take snippets of what we hear, we listen to political innuendo that are sometimes spun for other reasons, and I think that what we hear is information in regard to budgets and motives that are second and third hand, and that it gets to be very detrimental to the budget process into the process that we all want to do.
So, one of the things that I want to do is a plea for better communication, not only with your paid staff because I do believe that Dr. Riccio and the Mayor have on-going dialogue, we discuss everything on a regular basis, we invite him even to the Emergency Operations Center where we even discuss closing of schools. I think that the dialogue between the administration of the Mayor’s Office and the Superintendent is wide open. The same thing with Dr. Coffin. I think that when there’s issues that arise, there’s a forthright discussion that takes place and even with the financial situation between the Board of Education and the city, aside from the politics of it or board level stuff, I think that the working relationship between the Comptroller of the City of Torrington and Hugh Murphy is
nothing less then exemplary. I think that it always hadn’t been that way, but the more we have asked for dialogue, joint meetings, thinking outside of the box, the more that both sides have become more comfortable with each other. Understanding that what we’re trying to do is work on behalf of the citizens of Torrington, whether those citizens are senior, middle aged, high schoolers or grammar school, it doesn’t matter. We’re there to get the biggest bang for the buck for the tax dollar. So, one of the things that we have been doing, is we’ve been dealing with a budget situation that, in my mind, is not solved. It’s not solved because the Board of Finance sets the mill rate and has asked for certain cuts in certain areas. Board of Education feels, and rightfully so in some ways, that they are the authors of their budget and that state law allows them to make further cuts in their own way. We complicated
the situation because we presented two budgets, we discussed two budgets in a joint meeting that we were all at, which was the last time we set the mill rate. Since then we haven’t been sitting together. One of the difficulties is I would like to do this informally, but I can’t bring two boards and agencies together and have this discussion off the record as I would normally like to do, so I have to do this in this venue. And one of the things that happened is we cut the budgets in two parts. The Board of Finance did, and there became some tension in regard to that. I met with the Superintendent and the Chairperson of the Board of Education prior to going into the final budget cut of the Board of Education and we re-articulated the sense from the Board of Finance, we got to a point where we understood where we thought budget cuts were going to go, we never asked for a solid commitment from either the Superintendent or the Chairperson of the
Board of Education because what we said is that this is what we understood the mission to be and that budget cuts were going to come in this order and that we knew that neither the Superintendent nor the Chairperson of the Board of Education could deliver without the consent of the entire Board of Education.
I believe as I have said on the record that substantially the Board of Education, substantially the Superintendent, and substantially the Chairperson of the Board of Education, complied with what the Board of Finance wanted. Now, in my usual business, “substantially complied” sounds like a good thing. To people on the Board of Finance, they said “Did you comply or did you not comply?” is the critical situation. I think that situation continues to be gloomy as we go forward. I believe that the dollar amount is somewhere in the neighborhood of $200,000.00. ($219,000.00) The last number we hear is $219,000.00 separates us.
As it got confusing, one of the things that happened is that we talked at the last meeting before the Board of Education met to make final reductions in their budget and we discussed state statute history in regard to setting a budget and a mill rate. Your Chairperson was articulate, your Superintendent was articulate, and we had a difference of opinion on how you would interpret that statute. It happens all the time and that’s why there’s attorneys out in the world because opinions are like Carter’s liver pills, for lack of other analogies. I went to my trusted advisor of eight months in Corporation Counsel and said “What’s your interpretation of the legislation?” and he gave my a legal opinion. And, at that point, things began to get somewhat personal and
could we consider his legal counsel as a fair representation because he happens to have a sibling who is on the Board of Finance, and would that compromise me, his situation, or the sibling’s position. My simple mind is that he is a member of the Bar, he takes a professional oath, and so far he’s not rendered any decisions that were to my advantage or disadvantage; he gives them as he sees them and leaves them to me. As a result of that, (just let me finish, I recognize your.....), as a result of that, a member of the Board of Finance felt that as a result of that, that she would not participate in discussions until such times as whether or not a conflict of interest existed. If a conflict of interest did exist, then that member would have to make decisions regarding this. So, for the last two plus months, we have lacked a voice on the Board of Finance in regard to that, but we understand that that issue has been resolved, at
least as far as a conflict is concerned, so that that person has back a voice. But, non-the-less, that is not a major problem. It is a problem for the individuals to see their names in print or questioned, but, other than that, which is no small thing, easy for me to say, but aside from that, I think we have moved on from that discussion and that leaves us with the same budget situation that we had and $219,000.00 that is separating us from last year’s budget. And, one of the things that was suggested, that I don’t think that the entire Board of Education knows is that, pretty much, there was some feeling on the Board of Finance that, and certain members that would feel that they needed to state for the record, that it did not go far enough, that that was the agreement and that an agreement broken is a serious flaw between the workings of two boards. On the other hand, there were members of the Board of Finance, and certainly this Board of
Finance is just like a Board of Education, it doesn’t speak with one voice and very often it has some mixed voices. But one of the things that people said was “O.k., we understand that you substantially complied, but you’re still off $219,000.00", and one of the things that the Board of Finance requested is that the Chairperson come before the Board of Finance. I don’t think it’s necessarily summoned before the Board of Finance, but I think that, in some ways that’s what is felt as well, but the Board of Finance said “Bring those people forward, bring that person forward, (let’s not get people), let’s get the Chairperson there and say “You’re off by $219,000.00. Explanation of why you’re off by $219,000.00.” And then, I believe that there was a sentiment by some members of the Board of Finance that says “O.k., you know what, we’re not going to fight over this, this
year.” I mean there’s some people that feel very strongly that $219,000.00, do or die, but I think there was at least some willing to have some dialogue and discussion. I don’t know if that time has passed, but unfortunately, the more that people don’t discuss, it’s like a family problem, the more you sweep it under the rug or don’t discuss the matter, the stronger peoples’ opinions become that we’re not going to compromise and that’s not a good thing.
So, I think that that’s a fair assessment of where the Board of Finance wanted, to have somebody come forward and say “If you’re off by $219,000.00, if you didn’t comply with where we wanted the cuts, give an explanation. Tell us what happened from the time that we thought we had the agreement until the time that it was not possible,” and that communication didn’t take place and that’s where it leaves me as the Mayor, saying “I can’t continue to operate with boards and agencies that are elected, appointed, or whatever, and not have people communicating in some way that makes a lot more sense than what we’ve been doing in the past.” So, two things; 1) I mean, I’ve lived eight months without a budget being reconciled. That
is a priority to some people and I think it needs some explanation, and we should have some dialogue about that, so that everybody feels that they have their say and we do it face to face rather than through third or fourth parties, and 2) is, and I shouldn’t say this, but I’m almost less interested in that situation than I am going into the budget season for next year, which I think is going to be critical and how do we dialog between a Board of Education, a Mayor, and the Board of Finance so that we can make decisions that everybody, not that everybody is going to like, but certainly that we understand where we’re going. I give you my off-the-cuff, and I’ll stop talking, is I don’t think it’s fair, given the circumstances of where we are in the City of Torrington, and this is my own personal feeling, it’s not fair that we all work on a budget, but then the budgets become somewhat unrealistic for final passage. You
can’t have double digit budgets being presented and saying “Well, my job is to adequately represent what the educational needs of the community are, and our ability to pay be damned or that’s not what we’re here to do.” I think that there needs to be a look at a budget in both directions. 1) What is your educational need? How do we stack up against other communities? How do we stack up with other communities in our size and wealth, and all those, but I don’t think that we can afford, and this might be paraphrasing or going a little bit to surface, but I don’t think, we just can’t pass on a budget that says “This is what our educational needs are without analyzing our ability to pay.” And, I think that the Board of Education has to struggle with that issue on how they present a budget that says “This is what our educational needs are, this is what we want to do, and this is how we want to
be competitive in the State of Connecticut and in the country”. And, on the other hand, not just leave it so that it is a double digit budget that we know is not going to get final approval. That seems somewhat disingenuous to my way of thinking.
Likewise, the Board of Public Safety did essentially the same type of thing, although they cut largely the Police and Fire budget as a board, they went and worked with the department heads and said “Look, we ain’t getting this.” Isn’t that great of Torrington. “We’re not getting this.” There’s no way we’re going to get it and we need to cut this back and better we do it than give it to someone else to do. So, they took a different approach. And then, for Board of Education purposes, you have to understand that I held a fire to the city departments and to the Board of Public Safety and really knocked their requests sizably down and, while many people on the Board of Education at the final analyses said, “Well, how much did you
take from us and how much from the city side?” And I think that that is an important discussion to think about. One also has to realize that those budgets were pared sizably and the departments on the city side are somewhat angered that I took out $800,000.00, a million dollars out of the budget and then I went back and took a second swipe at them. I only say this because everybody puts a budget together in a different way, everybody analyzes it, and, if we just narrowly say “Well, what happened to them versus what happened to me”, it’s a simplistic way of looking at it and I don’t think it benefits anybody in the long term.
So, their budget was in a different set of circumstances. The city side has some anger and some angst over the whole thing and the only thing that I’m saying is that we don’t want to go through the budget process the same way. We need to find a different way of doing it, and the perceptions of what everyone is “thinking” is going on is not necessarily what everybody has been “seeing” as going on, at least from the Mayor’s vantage point.
So, I don’t think it’s fair that we leave that. On the other hand, I think that in a lot of ways the City Council left individual city budgets until the last hour. Only $40,000.00 were cut after three months of work. So, I’m not singling out anybody or any board or agency. I’m saying the City Council went over every line item for months and months and analyzed and looked at the departments who said “Yes, we need every red cent”, and then ultimately only took approximately $40-$50,000.00 out of those budgets. Until such time as the Mayor said “On the city side, I need $800,000.00 and I want 2% across the board from everybody, and if you don’t find the place for the 2%, I’ll find the place for it, and I would think, as a person who has
been a department head and manager, you would rather give me the 2 or 3% voluntarily rather than me try to figure that out in your budget because you should know your budget better.
So, again, the situation was that those budgets were left, in a lot of ways, the Board of Education budget was left, time was getting towards where we have to make a decision on sending out bills and the Board of Finance is in a situation of, not only looking as an appointed board, but they are charged with setting the mill rate and looking at Board of Education needs, city needs, Board of Public Safety needs, and squaring that with the City of Torrington’s ability to pay. And, we are looking at “It’s not fair”, or to me as an observer, as the Mayor, because I am an ex-officio or officio member of every board, or Chairperson of every board or agency in the city and say, “If we all leave it to the eleventh hour to this group to do”, that’s not necessarily a fair situation in
that there is going to be some wailing and mashing of teeth. We would have liked to see some cuts made by the individual boards and agencies that would have not left, for lack of better words, the “dirty work” to the Board of Finance. And I think that many people on the Board of Finance felt that a lot of people took a pass on the budget and left the more difficult job of cutting to them, and I’ve articulated that with a number of
people that I’ve had some conversations with and said “Now, that’s a realistic point of view from their vantage point.” And, I realize, as the Mayor, and maybe I didn’t realize that eight months ago, that everybody has a different vantage point of looking at these things but they felt that a lot of the heavy lifting was left to the Board of Finance at the eleventh hour. And, I’m not sure that they’re comfortable with that, and I’m not sure that you all are comfortable with that, and the only way that we can eliminate that problem from next year’s budget process is to improve communication and dialogue, and one of the things that I attempted to do and Margaret will bear this out, to be able to get some committee of Margaret and Bates Lyons
or whomever else, and Nancy Barrante and members of the Board of Finance so that we can do this without having quorums and even to get six people scheduled in this day and age took us two months, and I can’t keep being the scheduling person and be the Mayor of the City of Torrington and try to operate those..., and then when I do have those budget meetings or those subcommittee meetings, one of the things that happens is there has to be a degree of trust that the discussions that are taking place by the subcommittee are being articulated back to the full board so that it doesn’t feel to the full boards like someone is acting in a vacuum or people are acting on their own. There needs, again, to be that communication that, if three members of each board are working on a particular crisis, problem, development, that everybody agrees that they are authorized to do it, that they speak to a certain extent on behalf of the group, and that the group recognizes that they
are trying to get some middle ground that we can all move forward on. And, one of the things that, in talking to Margaret, and in talking to other boards and agencies, is that they’re authorized to a certain extent and then people are saying “Well, where does your power and authority begin and end?”, and I felt that I can’t do this continually in small groups because it’s too difficult to arrange and #2 is, I felt this is a perfect opportunity for the two boards who have requested this, and I can tell you that there’s a little bit of, the Board of Education doesn’t like to be summoned to the Board of Finance meetings. I can certainly understand that at times, the Board of Finance doesn’t like to have these meetings and joint meetings when they have their own agenda that they have to deal with.
The only thing that I’m looking at is how do we improve the dialogue, how do we solve last year’s budget process, how do we get to a resolve on $219,000.00 so that, as the fiscal operation is sound and legal, and how do we more importantly go forward, and how do we make sure that your discussions and your feelings are clearly articulated with the city, and the “city”, meaning the Mayor’s Office, and the Board of Finance. We need to have some way of understanding that a five mill increase is not going to be proposed by the Mayor, is not going to be endorsed by the Board of Finance, and some way that we can get that discussion so that people understand what the bottom line is. I mean, one of the
things that we said, and most of you were in the room, is that the end of the budget last year, which we all said was frustrating, is we said ‘If we look at our current expenses and we look at zero increase in our budgets for next year’, and you all know the difficulty of that, ‘that will result in a tremendous rise in the mill rate.’ And, with the number of people that are out of work, the number of people that are experiencing difficulty, a mill rate of that magnitude with a zero increase presents a huge problem for all of us, for the City of Torrington, for our educational needs, for our city needs, etc.
The only thing that I can say is that I am committed to looking at a way to share services. A way that Torrington will lead the state in cooperation and collaboration. I’ve talked numerous times to the Superintendent of Schools about this and I believe that there is a genuine feeling on both of our parts, that, given the financial situation of the City of Torrington vis a vis the nation and the State of Connecticut, that, unless we find ways to streamline government, to cut expenses, and to continue to provide those needed services so that Torrington’s youngsters and the city can compete in the way that we want them to, that we have to do business in a different way than we’ve been doing business in the past. And I think the only way that we can do that, quite frankly, is
that we have to look at innovation, we have to look are reports of Scully & Wolf that says that there is a way that we can merge financial systems between city government and Board of Education government.
We believe that there are ways that we can take duplication of services and eliminate them, or streamline them. I think it’s the only way we can do it without having a loss of people losing their jobs. It’s a way to re-define their mission so that they can be productive in doing the things that we need to do so that we can have an education system that is tops instead of having a city that is able to pick up the garbage and do those type of things, and plow our streets and do all the necessary things and make sure police and fire are on the street. It can’t be done if we don’t think of ways to share services. It makes no sense to me that we have a payroll system, perhaps in the Board of Education, one for the Police Department and one for the Fire Department with fifteen
people working on that function. Is there not a way that we can merge them and put people on different tasks that are necessary? I think we need to look at that as a Board of Education, I think we need to look at that as a municipality. I don’t think that we can go forward without merging some of the functions. One of the functions that I think we need to merge is, you have facilities. Those facilities are non-education of our children. They are brick and mortar. They need constant upkeep, and that is a different situation from educating the kids which is what your primary mission is. How do we take bricks and mortar, and plows, and sand that you need to have done and work in conjunction with a street department that does those type of things? How do we have a facilities manager that works for the Board of Education that isn’t working with all of the facilities within the municipality? It just seems like
if we discussed, if we really understood our individual missions, and we fine tuned what those missions are, then we could find to a lot more common ground than ground to fight over. And, it seems to me that if we don’t make those moves now, before the end of the fiscal year, before the budgets are necessary, while we’re still patient, and calm, and thinking in worldly and global ways, if we don’t do that now, when it comes down to the $50.00, or the $5,000.00, or the $500,000.00 to do an educational thing and we all get caught up in it, we’re never going to get the large, streamlining of government that’s going to be necessary.
So, I can tell you that I’m willing to talk, have meetings together, I don’t think that meetings of nine and fifteen and twenty seven are particularly beneficial. I do believe in bringing people in, I believe in having representation from all boards and agencies, I don’t mind conflict in different points of view. In fact, if you talk to department heads in the city, you’ll know that I encourage different points of view in the same room so that we can finally get to some consensus. I am offering myself as a person that would do that, but we do need to be able to settle on what representation from various boards can do that and then there has to be a trust level. There has to be continued communication to make sure that everybody is on the same page, and we always have to be on
the lookout for those people with ulterior motives who would like to see us working at cross
purposes rather than for the purpose that we are here for, which is the people of Torrington. The taxpayers and the non-taxpayers that use our services are the biggest minority population in the City of Torrington is those kids that don’t vote, that need an education. They’re the largest group of people that are looking for us to do our jobs, and how we do our jobs is going to affect their lives in the future, and I’m just here to say that I can’t have meetings, joint meetings all the time, but I can encourage cooperation and communication. I don’t think that there are any villains in the room, that in some way or shape we’re all volunteers. The last time I saw the Mayor’s salary, it’s not what I would consider to be a living wage. My
wife feels very strongly that way. I know that you all get paid per meeting and per hour and you’re almost at the same 1970 minimum wage or less than I am, and I know that the volunteers from the Board of Finance put in huge amount of time, and, in that, we are all volunteers, we are all public servants, and I would like to see, as we go into the next budget session that we have a different tone and tenor than we’ve had in the past. And maybe Owen Quinn continues to be a cheerleader, maybe Owen Quinn continues to be the rah rah, that all things are possible, I don’t know. But one thing I do know, is that I have watched disaster, I’ve watched people without power, I’ve watched people in homeless shelters, and I’ve watched this community from 9-11 and from re-dedicating plaques of people that have passed on in wars, I’ve watched young people at the Torrington High School talk about their educational process in going to
having ROTC, I’ve watched people be better, individually and collectively, than we ever thought we could be, and maybe it’s a dream, but I think that in the next budget process that we all can do better and that this might be a pipe dream to some, but I think that we can do better. I think that I’ve watched the goodness of this community and we need to capitalize on that. And that is, every board and agency. There’s that old saying that you know, I’m not quite sure what it is but it’s to the effect that you know, I kind of dreamed these things and wonder why, what that little saying is. But, you know what, I just think that, I think that the City of Torrington is a microcosm of the state, almost identical in population in that when we are faced with difficult times, we’re going to go into difficult times, financially, this next fiscal year, that all of us just need to be able to work on the process together, and I
think that if we stay true to those ideals, we can get the job done. And, I’m not so naive to think that it’s not going to be difficult and that there’s not going to be bumps along the road, but I think that everybody is doing the same type of job in that we all need, at least in this fiscal year, to jump into the same boat and row in the same direction.
And, I’ve been here only for eight, nine months and I don’t see that we were doing that in this last budget process. I think that what we need to do, we need to understand everybody’s point of view and that we need to be able to make substantial progress, and for that reason, I wanted the two boards together, face to face, and identify the $219,000.00, to put that to rest, to put that behind us, and then second of all, any thoughts and ideas on the budget process to come forward, and I know that Roger Dickinson, members of the Board of Finance have been thinking on how we’re going to do that and they would welcome representation from the Board of Education and it’s not budgets that we’ve ever done from the city side, it’s not budgets that we’ve ever done as far as the
Board of Finance is concerned, it’s not the same budgets that department heads have done or you have done before. We’re talking about budgets the way that is futuristic, that is looking somewhere outside the box that says “We know that we can’t reduce the services, we can’t reduce the level of expectation, but if we do our job more efficiently and smartly, that we can be able to deliver on both fronts, which is: make sure that government in the City of Torrington is cost effective, and that we provide the necessary services. They don’t have to be mutually exclusive. That’s somewhat of a radical thought, but that’s the thought that we need to have is that providing quality services, providing quality education, and having less money is not necessarily a devastating situation. It’s not devastating if we think in creative ways to work together to get it done. That means streamlining. That just
means doing it a different way.
With that, I would like to see, as a conclusion of this agenda, if we can get to resolve on $219,000.00 on last year’s budget without recrimination, without rehashing old events, settle it, look forward, and then some possibility of dialogue on going forward, what our future steps are, and your reactions to business not as usual going forward.”
Chairman of the Board of Education, Margaret Chadwick indicated that she would turn over the matter of the $219,000.00 over to A. Bates Lyons to respond.
To respond to Mayor Quinn’s comments, she said she agreed with 99% of what the Mayor had just stated.
Margaret Chadwick: I do have to clarify, yes we did meet, but as I told the Mayor and I think I need to say to this board, we are a board of ten and, although I’m Chairman of the Board of Education, I have one vote, and cannot, without asking from board input commit without being authorized to do so. But, I do think I can say this, and I need to say this in this forum, on this record, because the Mayor himself brought it up, comments made as to Mr. Vasko’s agenda and Mrs. Libby’s agenda. Those were never, ever the opinion of any single member of this elected Board of Education and we did say on a number of occasions, we need to say it right here, we have never questioned either the ethics of Mrs. Libby or Mr. Vasko, or ever considered them to have a conflict.
A. Bates Lyons stated that when two boards argue, someone is going to suffer, and what’s suffering at this particular point are the children of this city.
A. Bates Lyons: “Just to deal with the specific issue at hand, we do recognize the budget process when we turn a proposed budget to the Board of Finance for your messaging and whatever, and when you gave us a figure of which we had to cut, which was $1.8 million figure, we went back into our deliberations to particularly do that. It was always our intent and our thoughts that we were submitting one Board of Education budget with two particular parts to it. And to deal with the concerns of moving forward that this particular year at one of our Board of Ed meetings we had this as a discussion and just so that it can be perfectly clear for the 2003 2004 year, we will without a doubt have again one budget but that portion that is the capital portion will be a line item within that budget that will be I think
it will be a 9,000 line item in the budget. Also within our discussion within the budget committee and also at the Board of Ed that it was also discussed and decided that once the budget, our budget is set, that we would not be transferring from line item of 9,000 into our operating budget any amounts because we do recognize or have recognized the fact that the capital portion of our budget, but those monies were set aside for, has been neglected in the past and therefore, some of our buildings, bricks and mortars as you put it, have been deteriorating. So, it has been decided from this body that we would not be transferring monies from the line item of capital into the line item of any of our operating. Of course, this barring any emergencies or whatever, and I think in terms of even that discussions, we would be bringing it back forward to you. As far as approval of communication in the past and we’ve had a liaison from your board at our budget
meetings to be partaking in our discussions so that they, in turn, or that person can bring our discussions back to you and it would contribute to your deliberations on our final budget amount. So, I guess, all and all, when you’re dealing with the specific of the $219,000.00, that amount as we looked at it from this body as being part of our Board of Ed budget, and with our charge from you to reduce the proposed budget that we gave you of $1.8, we had decided to take, or reduce the capital portion of our budget by that $219,000.00. We did so in line of our responsibility to the city and to our responsibility for recognizing and meeting our educational needs and we felt that we have the responsibility to be able to make such reductions within our particular budget as we see it as elected members of the Board of Ed, and we continue to stand by the fact that we have one budget, which is a Board of Education budget that we submit, and that we do recognize that when
we do a proposal because that’s the process that we give our budget to you that you, in turn, tell us what our bottom line figure is and it’s then it’s our responsibility to go back and meet that charge that you have given us. That’s basically where we feel we are at this point in time. That line item approval of our budget is our responsibility and that we feel that your responsibility would be to just give us the approval of what our total budget would be. So, we kind of, looking at where we are for the 2002-2003 budget that we’ve accepted the final figure that you’ve given us and we’re ready to move forward to meeting our educational responsibilities with that number.
Mayor Quinn: “So, in other words, you have accepted, which you had to do, the bottom line number and the $219,000.00 is off from capital portion to operation.”
A. Bates Lyons: “We submitted a number on the capital portion and, to meet your charge from the Board of Finance, that capital portion is reduced by $219,000.00. That is correct.”
Diane Libby: “Can I ask an item on clarification, when you’re talking about next year’s budget item, you use the comment of ‘when we set the final budget, we will not transfer money from that capital line item to another line item’. When you say ‘set the final budget’ do you mean, you give us a budget, we come back to you with a potential cut, you at that point in time can choose to take it out of capital or out of operation, and once you’ve set that final number, that’s when you make a commitment not to move things from capital to operational, is that correct?”
A. Bates Lyons: “Let me just clarify your clarification. That once you’ve accepted, you know, we’ve met your final budget cut... you’ve given us a final budget, this is where we need to be and it will be up to us to meet that requirement and while we are doing that deliberation, yes, we may be taking money from one portion, one line item into another to meet that requirement, and then, once that number has been..., we’re saying that’s where we are, we’re all in agreement in terms of what our final budget is, this board has decided that we would not be taking money from the capital line item and placing it into the operating line item.”
Margaret Chadwick: “I think what we’re missing, as I think it’s just assumed on your part, I think what the prime thing, Diane, is that we have made a commitment to capital. We’ve made that over the last two budgets. We have set a capital budget because we need to address all these issues in the schools. When we were doing these budget figures, we had put in the operating piece of the budget, we had the computer piece. Through joint meetings with the budget committee and representatives from the Board of Finance, it was recommended to us that we put the computers into the capital side, and we agreed because that’s the way it seemed to work better than we thought, all right, that’s fine. When it came right down to the cuts and we had to move that piece, we went
there. But the point was you gave us $1.8 million that we needed to cut and we understood that this was a heartfelt decision on your part, these were the cuts we needed to make, that you needed to make the mill rate workable for the city. This was understandable. We had a responsibility to meet that, both morally and by law when you set the mill rate. We got to that point of that $219,000.00 and we took the computers out because we originally had them in our operating budget. So that’s why we cut that piece. But, that is not to say that next year if we change the format, because this is where I think we got against one another, if we make a commitment to a capital budget and we’re told to cut $1.8 million, $2 million, $10 million, whatever it is, and we can meet educational....we can’t just strip the capital budget. Not one member of this board would ever agree to say ‘We have $3 million in our capital plan, o.k., we’re going to take $2.9 million and throw it in operating.’
That’s irresponsible. That goes against what we were elected to do. And we took the charge of cutting $1.8 million from our budget very, very seriously.”
Dawn Lambert: “In terms of being respectful of the agreement to honor the capital budget once that budget is in place, which I believe is the agreement that we’re talking about ‘you will not transfer out of the capital budget into operating’, I think that the position of the Board of Education that that is after we have adjusted our budget to reflect the mill rate revision of the Board of Finance. If I’m summarizing that incorrectly for the Board of Education then tell me, but I believe it’s... and this is prior to expenditures, this is putting an adjusted budget in place to reflect the budget cuts that we all have to make because of estimated revenues, and that’s a difficult thing. I think in preparation of the budgets, and the overall educational
plan, the fact that right now we have two separate budgets, two separate components, that’s pretty much like a corporation. This is the best educational plan for the city, it has two components. Those components do not operate separate from each other. They were composed with an estimated overall, say, $50 million and if we had $50 million, the best way to split that to advance the education would be for this plan for the city, part capital, part operating. To take them and separate them is, in our opinion, not educationally sound because we can’t, in order to still advance the plan the most strategic way, which I think is what we all want to do. We all want to be able to make sure that we coordinate it and make sure we’ve cooperated. If we take those two components together, we didn’t development in separation of each other. We developed them at the same time. Take, for example, the computers; those computers are a
direct ...(inaudible) of our technology plan. It’s a five year plan. We didn’t unilaterally just sit down and decide that we were going to do that outside the context of the overall plan, so it’s a little bit more complicated, and I think most of the Board of Finance members are aware of the technology plan, the capital plan and how they need to be able to fit together in order to be able to maximize what we can do with the limited amount of dollars, so I think that at the beginning point, it had to do with an adjusted budget, prior to expenditures, once that adjusted budget is in place and the adjusted budget is developed as a direct reflection of the mill rate being set and the cut that is given to us for our educational plan. We develop an adjusted budget to reflect that prior to expenditures. Once the adjusted budget is accepted by the Board of Education, in compliance with your mill rate, then the agreement of not transferring begins.
Now, let me just also add that I think that there have been mistakes that we have made with respect to the development of the capital budget, and one might be the discussion of computers. There aren’t many Boards of Education that have policies and most corporations, about what goes into a capital budget in terms of dollar value. Our computers are less than $1,000 a unit, very often. Now, we put them there, it’s true. We did put them there, but there are boards that have policies that are $5,000 and maybe we have to explore that in order to be able to have more of a sense of process about that particular development.”
Mayor Quinn: “It may, to explore where we need to go for middle ground. One of the things that I was thinking is, the Board of Education or administration, separated the two budgets because there was not enough money being spent on the upkeep of the facilities, and one of the concerns that you’re going to have in the scenario that you give is, ‘O.k. a mill rate is set, you implement, and now, is the trade off going to be that facilities get the short end of the budgetary process, which happened over a long period of time, which led to deterioration of schools, which meant that a larger portion of our capital budget or referendum items have to go there. And that’s the down side there that I think needs to have some exploration because one of the compromises was we would have a budget in
two parts, so this was prior to me, but two budgets, one so that we would not have facilities that are constantly going so far down and not being repaired that it is affecting the educational process. So, you have to think long and hard as a board that if you do away with that, what you give up in control of that budget may signal that further budget reductions are going to be imposed on you because one of the things that the Board of Finance has been supporting in a joint effort with Margaret and the Superintendent is that we have to prioritize, making sure our buildings are maintained in proper working order.”
A. Bates Lyons: “We do recognize the fact that the capital portion of our budget and the upkeep of our buildings is an extremely important piece and we’ve recognized that and we’ve discussed it as a board and we know which way we are attempting to go, which is what we have just stated here.”
Roger Dickinson: “I see the same issue that Mayor Quinn sees, and if you take a look at that $219,000.00, compare it to the capital budget into a percentage, how much you reduce the capital budget and then compare that to $1.8 million or whatever the net result is for the operating budget, you’ll find that you’ve reduced the capital budget by a lot more percentagewise than you did the operating budget on this event, and, if you do go into next year and we, for some reason or another, have to do another $1.8 million decrease and there’s two budgets, even though they may be one budget summary, it’s in the 9000 classification, you still have the opportunity to cull a lot more of the capital than you do out of the operating, and we have no control over that, and we have the same deterioration
process potentially happening.
I would recommend that, I don’t mind having one budget, that’s fine, but if we do some budget cutting, then I would suggest that we have the same percentage decrease in both categories, and I’ll be happy with that. Both would come down by the same percentages, rather than having this fluctuation going on because I think you borrow from Peter to pay Paul, and I don’t’ think that works long term.”
F. Kenneth Edwards indicated that he thought this was one area where they could have dialogue to come up with some sort of scenario before they start the budget season. He thought the board felt they needed to have some flexibility to determine its priorities. On the other hand, the board recognized that cuts had, in the past, come from the capital budget. He felt the board could explore Mr. Dickinson’s suggestion. He thought they needed the freedom to set some of their own priorities and reconcile the budget to the bottom line, but they could have some sort of understanding about the capital being a certain percentage of the budget, or they wouldn’t cut below a certain dollar amount without further discussion.
Mr. Dickinson: “You should know all those things before submitting a budget to us. You should know the relationships and how they behave. We should actually be sitting here talking about a very small differentiation between where we think the budget should be and you think it should be. That has not been our history and that’s part of the frustration or reaction we’ve have over the time. But, I’d like to see, if you know the interaction between your capital and your operating budgets, and you know how they work together as you’re talking about doing, when you reduce the whole thing, the whole thing ought to come down. It ought not be that the capital budget, just like we’re talking about, the $219,000 is a bigger drop percentagewise than the operating
budget, right now, is what we’re listening to.”
Mr. Lyons: “You’re talking oranges and apples in a sense because when you take the percentage of a smaller amount, yes that percentage is going to be a larger piece, so you just can’t say that it should be an equal drop. I think what needs to be dealt with is the particular item more so that we’re taking away from any particular budget, whether it would be operating or the capital piece. The computers that we took out of this year’s budget does not affect the bricks and mortar and the things that we want to do to keep up our buildings. As Dawn had mentioned, our computers, and Margaret also, that the computers were part of our operating budget at one time, so, yes it’s part of our technology plan and it does, in a sense, hurt us in the future but we felt, as a
board, that we could deal with that at this particular point in time. So, I think it’s more so the item and not looking at it from percentages and having equal drops.”
Mr. Dickinson: “Looking into the past is the item, looking into the future is where I’m concerned about it. I need to understand, when you do this adjustment, after we do a cut, and you do this adjustment, where is it going? What are we going to borrow from to do the other thing? If we continue to move numbers into the operating budget, the builds a larger and larger operating budget that does get a percentage increase, historically, over the years, and that’s the problem I’m having. We’re watching something grow beyond what’s reasonable, so we need to have this balance as you go through that process after we do a budget cut, that’s fine with me, but I’d like to have everything come done as an aberration with the computers perhaps, but, in the future,
have it all come down equal. It should be like that, not this kind of thing so we’re building necessarily a bigger operating budget.”
Laurene Pesce: “I think that sitting here last year watching the city agencies and boards cut their capital budget, to think that we couldn’t in a logical, thought-out way where we were not affecting the bricks and mortar. I will admit, I’ve been on the board, I was one of those people that voted to raid that account in years’ past, but I do think we have done ourselves proud in the last several years by not doing that, by maintaining our commitment and that this $219,000.00 which was computers was not bricks and mortar. We watched other boards and agencies in the city cut capital items from theirs, and it is very frustrating when you have five year capital plan, and you have a technology plan, and there’s a vehicle replacement plan for the city, to have to look at those things,
which are supposed to help you build your budget. They’re supposed to be the foundation. You’ve done that and you look at them every year and you re-analyze them and then you stick them in and those are your starting numbers and you can’t do it because we don’t have enough money to do those things. I understand the need to be rational and logical about what we’re presenting at the budget, but, if we cut a whole bunch of programs and plans and hopes and dreams before we even get to you, how do we as a community know what we’re giving up, know what we’ve decided not to fund this year. We have not funded all-day kindergarten, it has been in our budget four or five years, easily. Every educational level says we should be supporting pre-school. The state is giving money to pre-school and we can’t even, in the City of Torrington and a community that absolutely needs it, have all day kindergarten. We
can’t do that, but if we don’t settle the budget that perhaps is a little bit more than we know we can afford, then we can’t go to the community and say ‘O.k., what don’t you want in this budget?’, and then make decisions from there.”
Carl Michelet: “I’ll address this both to Bates and to Margaret is, if we were to consider doing something with the $219,000.00, there’s a couple of things, I think if we were going to build this thing with communication and trust, then we’ve got to resolve, and we’ve got to put our minds to it to resolve and we’ve got to resolve it in the best interest of the city and the taxpayers of this town. I think one of the things, is your board committed to shared services? I mean, is it entirely committed to shared services, so when shared services come down the line in probably a bunch of different ways, that when the city approaches the Board of Education for it, is there going to be a situation where it’s going to always be debated and the obvious is that it’s going
to be denied. That’s the point that we’re trying to...(unfinished) the thing with the computer situation, I think it’s a great situation to start with, but is shared services supported, if that’s the case, we’re going to have the start of a positive road that we both can agree upon and see some positive results. I’d like to see from your board tonight what the consensus is on shared services.”
Robert Kelly: “From a personal standpoint, I can say ‘Yes, I agree with that direction.’ I don’t think we should be in the business of maintaining buildings. That’s not our forte, that’s not what we’re here for. So, in terms of shared services, it could be accounting services or building services, or plowing or all that, if it can be worked out, I would think that that would be much to our both advantages.
I would like to address the question that was raised in terms of the percentage situation. On the one hand, the percentage increases this year, for an example, were not always equal. For an example, even though we had something like a 5% total increase in total budget, our insurance factor went up by 20%, so, therefore, if we are to look at the drop in terms of the relationship between operating and budget, then we would only be able to do that across the board equitably if the increases also were of the same proportion. But, if I get stopped with an insurance budget of 20% and I’ve got to maintain an operating budget by taking a disproportionate amount away from the other line items that I have in that budget, it’s not fair to say that I should necessarily have to be able to maintain the
operating budget and the capital budget at the same reduction level.
The second point is that in every year, our operating budget and capital budget are not always the same. For an example, this year we have a million dollars in, next year we have a million three, the following year we have a million five, we come up to the year 006, we’re back down to $817,000.00. So, to try to lock in to a percentage deviation, I think there are more factors involved that must be taken into consideration before you can really tie yourself down to that type of a relationship drop. After reiterating this year, I think that’s what we did when looking at bricks and mortar as opposed to the computers. Now, if you consider the modern technology with the computers being not too much different than textbooks, because this is where they’re basically using it, it’s transferring information, a textbook transfers information, we have a line item of better than $300,000.00 just for textbooks. How is this different than if we went back and said ‘O.k. we will decide to
keep the computers, which happen to be in the capital budget this year, and we’ll go back and we’ll take out $200,000.00 out of textbooks.’ Well, it was our judgement that that wasn’t a good tradeoff. But, we wouldn’t be here tonight if we had done that, and I don’t think that the actual decision making that we went through was inappropriate, based on we did not neglect bricks and mortar, we chose to take computers as opposed to textbooks, which I feel was in our realm of jurisdiction, and I don’t think that we want to be able to get into a locking step for both operating and capital because, over our own forecast, we’re varying by as much of this factor as 100%.”
Mayor Quinn:... “I think that we would not be here if, when the decision was made initially by the Board of Education not to take the final $219,000.00 if we had this type of representation or a meeting that said ‘We attempted to, in exactly what you said today, is that, look, we are ten members, we have a different point of view, we went as far as we could, this is the rationale for the thought.’ I mean, I have to tell you as the Chairperson of this board that does not necessarily have a vote, is that I think that was the missed step. The minute the Board of Education said ‘This is what we have to do for our own piece of mind, for our own professionalism, for the Board of Education’, that step needed to be articulated at the next meeting that said, and that’s the reason why,
is that it’s gotten passed that. But, I’m not trying to go back any further, but, it’s not a matter of where the decision was made. I think the missed step was the lack of communication that says ‘This is where we needed to go, this is the rationale for it’, otherwise I think that, we should have had at the next meeting and we shouldn’t have wasted as much time, but that’s as much my situation as anybody else without recrimination. I just think that when boards make decisions, and it seems to be in conflict with another board, then we need to issue the rationale for that, and I think there are people that would have said ‘That’s crazy. You shouldn’t have done it’. There would have been the hard liners that said “You went back on the deal, you reneged,’ and I think there are other people that would have said “You know what, computers was not where we thought it
was,’ I mean, we would have gone the whole gamut, but there would have at least been some dialogue.”
A. Bates Lyons: “In defense of that, we had those discussions, just as you’re saying, in open session. We’ve even invited parents in to join with us on just what you’re saying, the rationale and the things that we were planning to cut, so we did have it an open communication forum.”
Mayor Quinn: “And we’re not going backward; we’re going forward.”
Mr. Michelet: “Margaret, I’m going to feel a lot better and I think, there’s no doubt in my mind that communications and cooperation is going to start with shared services. I see you shaking your head and a couple of others but I don’t see the whole board shaking their heads, when that comes about in the future, which it will, in probably several different ways, that the board in general or in consensus is going to agree to do that and take that vision and do the best it can with that vision and say ‘Listen, we’ve got good people trying to do this and you’re going to support...(unfinished).’ If I get the feeling and I think the rest of the members of this board gets the feeling you’re going to do it, I think it’s going to be a great, affirmative way of
starting building something we need to get...(unfinished).
The second thing is I think we get into this thing with capital. One of the things that was never defined, what’s capital? When we define that, we have a policy, we need that side, this side, I mean the city side to say ‘This is the policy on capital items. Now, if it includes computers, it’s going to be all kinds. The kinds that generate payroll, the kinds that sit on the secretary’s desks, the kind that sit in the library for kids to use, if that’s the thing, we’re going to say we’re going to live with it. If you’re going to exclude an item, we’re going to exclude the item in the policy. There’s going to be no more gray area, so when you bill a capital item, the capital item is those things, none other, no more, and this is
the policy. When the policy needs to be changed, we’ll change the policy. But that’s, I think, one of the downfalls we had in the situation...what was capital? It was our interpretation, it was your interpretation, it was other people’s interpretation, but, what I think we need to do is to set the road straight on what is capital and I think we’re working on a policy for what is capital and I think Hugh and Alice should build that thing quickly passed two boards and say ‘This is what we want to do.’
If we find this definition of capital and you want to put one line item for capital, that’s what’s going to be in there. It’s going to be none other than that. There’s going to be no more tweaking things over to, you know like we did, like we all know we did, o.k., cause that’s the sense of trust that starts being broken down because we do things outside of the circle. Once that happens, I think it’s going to be another great way for these two boards to start trusting each other. I really want to trust you, I mean I worked hard with you guys, and I asked you to move the stuff over from operating to capital because I thought it was the best way to keep technology going for the school system; it didn’t work out, so we’re not there.
The other thing is, how do we resolve the issue that’s currently standing with the meeting between your board, Margaret, and two people from this board? How do we resolve those issues that are sitting out there?”
Mrs. Chadwick: “I’m not understanding, Carl, the question.”
Mr. Michelet: “There was an interim meeting between this meeting and another meeting where two members of this board and two members of your board, how do we resolve those issues that are on there?”
Mrs. Pesce: “We don’t have those kinds of meetings. That’s how we resolve those. Democracy is...(unfinished.)”
Mr. Miasek: “I’ll clear up the question. You and Mrs. Barrante, along with Diane and the Mayor, and Mike Nejaime in the Mayor’s Office resolved the issue about the $219,000.00. There was a resolution on the table that was put forth to you people that you were going to take back to your board, and to this day, not a word was said to your board about anything on how to resolve it. And, I say that because of the fact that I religiously watched your programs, and I have religiously been upset because of the fact that all of the things that have been said by your board members about the Board of Finance and what they haven’t done about the meetings that the ball was in our court, that we wrote you letters, o.k., and all of those things that have been said about what hasn’t been done by us, when the very meeting that you attended was with the issues of how to resolve the $219,000.00 and for whatever reasons, you chose not to bring them to the board, the resolution.”
Mrs. Chadwick: “Mr. Miasek, Mayor, this is going on the table, and Mrs. Libby is here. Yes, Mr. Miasek, Mrs. Barrante and I met with the Mayor, and Mrs. Libby. Mr. Nejaime arrived 45 minutes late. It was a non-meeting, Mr. Miasek, because Mrs. Libby stated that there would be no discussion until she had a decision rendered by the Board of Ethics. Now, I am being yelled at Mr. Miasek by you for honoring the word I gave to Mrs. Libby that we would not have this discussion, that this discussion never occurred. All right, we did not discuss this. We discussed the arguments, we discussed all various and sundry things and the Mayor hit on it, most intelligently tonight when he said that I have reiterated a number of times that I am one member on a board of ten, and what we were
trying to do is to get this whole board together. That is why I started this meeting by saying that everything that has gone on in the last two months was not an opinion shared by the Board of Education. But, I have read repeatedly that it was my personal opinion or the board’s opinion, and it was not. Now, you’re asking me why I didn’t move forward on anything that was presented or agreed to at this meeting.”
Mayor Quinn: “Nothing was agreed to at that meeting. What we wanted to do is resolve $219,000.00. The resolve of $219,000.00 continues to exist today. How we resolve that $219,000.00 is a matter of opinion, which is what I started the meeting with. One of the things that we said in $219,000.00 to fulfill the letter, the word, the agreement of capital versus operational is not to touch the $219,000.00 and to move it from one to the other and the question that we only asked you, that I believe from Diane Libby was, now that you have had five months, six months of operation, is there any movement in your salary account that might alleviate the $219,000.00? Is there a difference from what was budgeted to what you’re actually using now that the school year was there, and so, would there
be an ability to keep the capital where it was and is there a sufficient amount of money in the line item that was salary? And that was the only question that was directed to you and that you were not privy to that information, that information was with the Superintendent, or the Business Manager, and that you would get back to them.”
Mrs. Libby: “No, I did ask for one other item. I did ask for Margaret to, that I would be willing to look very seriously at the transfer of the $219,000.00 for this year, assuming A) that I had received that payroll report so that I can determine in my mind, and I asked for a detailed teacher-by-teacher report to determine what that vacancy savings might be at this point in time, knowing that some positions had been filled late just before school started or even into the school year. Secondly, I did ask for an agreement between the two boards that we would continue to receive two budgets and that there would be no more of a transfer between one and the other without coming back to this board, any greater than a 5% transfer.”
Mrs. Chadwick: “Diane, that piece right there, I don’t remember. We did address the issues publicly.”
Mayor Quinn: “I do recall that that was the second thing, that Diane did say she continued to support two budgets for the reasons that we talked about, that we may have some meeting ground on that, but, yes, there were two budgets, and the reason why we didn’t want to see capital being left shortchanged because that caused other difficulties. Number two is that she said the two budgets and that she would agree to that and then there was a 5% wiggle room that she was proposing back to the Board of Education, saying ‘Look, if that becomes difficult because, as Mr. Kelly mentioned you have capital budgets, it might be difficult to come to the exact amount, to do a plus or minus 5% might be something that you could live with’. On the other hand, I’ll just say this,.... that one of the
things we were asking is for Margaret to research these things and to see if they were something that would be medium ground. It wasn’t as if a demand that if unmet would mean that we weren’t going forward with this, so I don’t think it is germane necessarily to us having this meeting, but it is one of those things that does cause some angst and concern, and thank you for bringing that up, on the other hand, I think that those were the two issues that Diane clearly articulated that say’s ‘You know what, I’m not convinced that you should be taking the money out of capital, but I’ll listen to that and here are a couple of areas that I would feel more comfortable about. One is the salary account, which she brought up even in the first meeting of the joint meetings of the Board of Education and Finance that said ‘I’m looking at salary account and think that there is additional savings that you can derive out of there’, and we didn’t argue any further. So, anyhow, those were two
things that I do remember, but I don’t recall it as a matter of that you were being asked to respond to that as an individual, or by the board and that that was not something that you had to deliver prior to anything else. It was a request that Diane made of you to get further information.”
A. Bates Lyon: “When this decision was made on the $219,000.00, we did look into our vacancy savings and where we were back at that particular point and we felt that this was the best decision as members of this board to...”
Mayor Quinn: “What are you talking, when you set the budget?”
A. Bates Lyon: “When we dealt with that $1.8 and the $219,000.00. At that particular time, we looked at our budget and we looked at whatever we had in...
I’m just saying, you know, in terms of that particular point in time, now, in terms of where we are, if we’re talking about the vacancy savings and whatever, this is our budget, to be able to make the decisions based upon our particular budget.”
Mayor Quinn: “Can we just stop for this moment because this isn’t where we really wanted to go, over the individual line items. I think that Ted brings up a point that he has an issue with and I have attempted to say that, ‘Yes, we had a meeting after the meeting of the budget, and Mrs. Libby said, ‘Look, $219,000.00 still remains unresolved at this point, and I would feel more comfortable if, when you told me that you looked at the budget of salaried accounts, which I thought that there was more savings, her, personally, thought that there was more savings that could have been generated there, one person’s opinion, is that now in September, October, after the school year has been opened, and now that you’ve set your budget, is, in fact, that the case? That’s the only
thing that she asked.”
Mrs. Chadwick: “Mayor Quinn, yes, that piece Mrs. Libby and I discussed. And, the board also had asked of the Business Manager to bring those figures to the board, and I believe it was either the second meeting in October or the second meeting in September, or the first meeting in October, it was after our non-meeting that the board looked at that, and I think it was at our meeting, a public meeting, that we discussed those vacancy savings and where we stood with them, prior to this meeting, and I would have liked to have Mrs. Libby had gotten this figures last week, but she did get them today, prior to this meeting for her to look at those numbers and where the vacancy savings were, but this was something that I took very seriously and that I did..... (unfinished)”
Mayor Quinn: “I don’t want to get to point, counter point over the whole thing because I think that that doesn’t go where I want to go, but I think that, quite frankly, she mentioned that, and you said you would research it and you have researched it. I mean it’s either there or it’s not there, in my way of thinking. I think she did talk about two budgets, I think she talked about if two budgets were acceptable plus or minus 5% and would that be something that the Board of Education...(unfinished.) Last thing, overview, I don’t want to point to anybody, but I do see the press here and I want to say ‘That was a meeting. It wasn’t a non-meeting. It was a meeting that I called, as the Mayor, to talk to two members, three members of the Board of
Education and the two members of the Board of Finance that said ‘You know what, we want to be moving on, on this whole thing, $219,000.00.’ Same type of meeting that we’re having here and we were saying if, and she brought up that point. So, all I’m saying though is that’s not a non-meeting, I feel very secure that the Mayor can call individuals in and discuss those things. It was not an open meeting, it was not published as such, but I think that we had dialogue around it, which is the same type of thing that we’re trying to do here tonight. So, I wouldn’t just call it a non-meeting, it was a meeting that I called with representatives of the Board of Education and the Board of Finance to try to address situations that we’re still doing.”
Dawn Lambert: “In terms of issues, not so much process, cause I think one thing that we need to do, at least in my notes that I’m doing right now, is take a look at that communication plan, learn from what mistakes are that we made in the past, what works, use the best parts and move ahead with those things and we’ll take a look at that on our side and maybe jointly look at some things and we can move away from that. Are there unresolved, is there information that’s still outstanding from that meeting that we need, are there still some issues from that meeting, for example, have you gotten the two things that you asked for?”
Mrs. Libby: “No.”
Dawn Lambert: “No, what is still outstanding from that meeting?”
Mrs. Libby: “I got a summary sheet today, which lists your current budget versus what you think you’re going to spend, but what I had asked for was a detail teacher-by-teacher line item budget which I had gotten from Hugh at budget time. I wanted the new one so that I could compare it, so that I could know in my mind truly what the numbers were. You know, I’m an accountant, so I’m a number person, and I need to see those numbers.”
Dawn Lambert: “So, what you’re looking for is a teacher by teacher account of the salary and then the two budget issue, just so I understand what the other two issues are, and some sort of consensus from the Board of Education whether or not we’re going to be presenting two budgets next year, within this 5% variance.”
Mrs. Libby: “No, that was... and again, sitting in a meeting, speaking my opinion and an opinion that I thought that I could come back to, if we could get some consensus on it, that I could come back to the Board of Finance, and to get some agreement on back at the board, but, our concern, and I think we’ve stated it clearly here on the capital side of the budget is that, as we move forward into very difficult budget times, which we are all in agreement that we are moving forward quickly and deeply into tough budget times, is that is that capital budget item again going to be the place that is the first hit because it’s the easiest budget to hit, and I think, before, year’s ago when it was the first thing to hit, it was during very difficult budget times, we’re getting back into that, and I
think, as a Board of Finance, cause, ultimately, we’re responsible for those buildings and replacing those buildings that there is a strong commitment to keeping the capital within that budget and our way of really, the only security that we have in that would be to have two separate budgets with some degree that you have some latitude to move from one to the other, be it 5%, be it 10%, I don’t know what the right number is, I suggested 5%. I thought that was a good approach that gave you some leeway without coming back to us. Anything beyond that, you would come back to us. I thought that that was a good medium ground. Apparently, the Budget Committee has made a different decision moving forward for next year, and certainly, again, as Mayor Quinn has said ‘You have to look at that from two perspectives. I don’t think we can mandate that you give us two budgets, that is your decision, but you also have to look at it as how we’re going to view that budget being one budget, or
how we’re going to view that budget being two budgets.”
Dawn Lambert: “I just wanted to find out what the unresolved things were because it seemed like there were issues, and let’s just take that and we’ll address that at another time. But I wanted to hear that because there were members of your board who felt very strongly about that, I wanted to record what those issues were. In terms of moving ahead, I think that the Budget Committee is very open and I think what we need to do, and I don’t speak for the Budget Committee, Mr. Lyons does, but, I think that we’re open to having very open dialogue there and that concerns such as that, in terms of cooperatively working together are things that we would want to hear about, and let’s just have a dialogue about that. Perhaps, and it’s up to the Chairman of the Board,
whether or not she would want to defer that business to the Budget Committee, but that seems like the logical place to have a dialogue around that specific issue, and maybe on some of these other things. Capital policy, I think that perhaps the Board of Education is very willing to sit down and even identify the need for a capital policy and so that’s something that I think we can take a check mark as a result of this meeting and say ‘Let’s develop capital policy for the Board of Education and let’s then have a way and a means to be able to monitor that, and if we decide the best way to monitor that capital policy is by having two budgets, so be it. If the best way to monitor that is within our budget and we have a way to be able to do it, so be that too, but the bottom line is, I think that we both jointly want to be able to make sure that the buildings and the structures of the City of Torrington are here for another ten, twenty years and that
we don’t end up with a whole lot of surprises going down the road that we didn’t plan for.
The other part is shared services, I believe there is consensus, but I may be speaking out of term, but I believe there is consensus on shared services; however, I believe the way to get to shared services, the way you started this meeting is ‘Let’s talk about cooperation’, I think cooperatively sitting down and looking at which vendors jointly meet the needs of both the organizations with representatives from both boards there to represent the needs of those organizations and take a hard look, and maybe as a result of this meeting, we could set either a time line or a goal number to work towards before we even get into the funding of the budget, whether that’s going to be a certain percentage of services, whether that’s a dollar figure that we’re going to look at jointly, but I think we
need to do it cooperatively. The problem with, and I don’t want to speak out of term, but the problem with at least my perspective as a board member of having a presentation come to the board, which was a surprise of the accounting issue, I think that the Board of Education wants to be able to share services there.”
Mr. Michelet: “It shouldn’t have been a surprise Dawn, it was going on for a period of weeks and weeks.”
Dawn Lambert: “And I understand that that speaks to the issue......we need a better communication plan. I couldn’t agree with you more. It shouldn’t have been, but the reality is that it was, and so we need to be able to look at that and say ‘You want to know what, a third part, and where I’m going with this, we can agree, I think, on a capital policy and we can sit down cooperatively and look at shared services, that was the ingredient of that part that may or may not have been missing, maybe that cooperative ingredient was there, we need to be able to cooperate on those things, set up a time line, maybe as a result of this so we can go home and a number, and the bottom line is we need a communication plan, and I don’t know whether that’s going to be cooperatively
agreed, or someone on your side wants to just present it and we’ll respond to it, but I think we actually need a plan to be able to communicate. We’ve got the decision makers here on both sides, let’s have a communication plan that works, not between just each other, but also with the community because one thing that’s happening for both of us is we end up with press that’s misinterpreting both sides, and it escalates the situation and then we end up with other things that we...(unfinished) so, let’s have a communication plan as the last piece and how will we get that. So, if we could just decide quickly, we could probably do that in five minutes, who’s is going to do each of these things.”
Mr. Michelet: “I think the Mayor hit on two aspects of doing that. One is that it’s done with a group of people that, when they come back to your board and our board with a decision, it isn’t where committees get involved in double thinking the thing, o.k., because then everything gets lost all over. You trust the people or you don’t them. If you have an expert or somebody sitting in front of you saying ‘If you don’t trust the expert, then we’re lost again.’ The other thing, I think that we need to do is build probably two or three committees right now, within the next couple of weeks in whatever subject matters you want and get two or three people from each side on them and I’m willing to go on any one, because I probably have the most free
time, but I’m willing to do this because I’m committed to having this done.”
Mayor Quinn: “I think you’re right. Time is going rather quickly, but I think we have to do one thing, communication needs to be talked about, there needs to be a plan for the communication. We need to be able to set up some committees that are going to go back and forth between the two, prior to the budget process, and I have to just tell you that shared service is the only way that this administration is going to see that I’m going to get out of the budget difficulties in the future. And, the other thing is regionalization. Those two things are watch words that we’ve been working on as a municipality because the City of Torrington has to be able to share services with Board of Education and other entities and we need to have some regional approach to this, otherwise, the
strain is just far too great on the taxpayers, so, I would say that... (unfinished)”
A. Bates Lyons: “May I offer a suggestion. We have a budget committee scheduled tomorrow over at the High School at six o’clock, although we do have some issues, I mean things to discuss, but I think, if Roger could, who is the liaison from this board be, and of course anyone else who would want to attend that particular meeting, we could throw this on the agenda and would have about an hour to discuss, so and then we can, at least set up whatever committees and things that we’d need to do, what are left undone, what needs to be done within that particular time. So, that’s what I would like to suggest at this particular point in time, in the interest of time.”
Mayor Quinn: “We will see that someone is there for that meeting. Number two is, I think that we need to talk, as Mrs. Lambert said about a way to communicate, and that needs to be endorsed by the board as well, as the Board of Finance, so that we have really set it up, that this is the way it goes, because we can’t keep going back to full boards and process and re-debating issues in a waste of time, so we will see that someone is there, the $219,000.00, we need to have the two issues that have been brought up tonight, that Mrs. Libby has requested, make sure that they’re fully responded to and then your board needs to convene and see if the two budgets, if that all meets where you want to go in the future or not, and that’s a board decision.”
Mrs. Pesce: “I don’t want to leave here like that. We made our decision.”
Mr. Lyons: “Yeah, we did, at our open board meeting, that we would be submitting one budget with a line item, which would have capital...(unfinished).”
Mayor Quinn: “Did anyone discuss two budgets with a 5%? Did anyone discuss that?”
Mrs. Chadwick: “We discussed the fact that we didn’t think we we’re percenting.. the 5% was never brought up. I will tell you right...I’m saying it may well of happened, Mayor....(unfinished)”
Mayor Quinn: “Look it, I’m getting the feeling that we’re going back to process.”
Mrs. Chadwick: “I’m saying I never mentioned 5% to the Board of Education.”
Mayor Quinn: “Understood. The Mayor is getting the impression that we’re back to process. You can make a motion, you can present one budget, if that’s a decision that has been made in open session, so be it. If there is discussion that Diane Libby has suggested, did anyone discuss the two budgets, I don’t think that that’s incongruous with a budget process or decision that you’ve made. Let’s take a look and say ‘Gee, with that, we’ve made a decision to do that, but, a member of the Board of Finance has suggested, if we go to two budgets, and there is a 5% forgiveness on that, if that’s something that should be added to the dialogue, and if the board, in its decision say’s ‘You know what, thank you very much for that
suggestion; no thank you, we think it’s gotta be one’, I don’t think that that’s a major problem. I just think that that’s part of the communication that may be lacking, so let’s take the information that a board member would say, ‘Gee, that might be something that would solve a problem’, and if you don’t think as a board that solves a problem, I don’t think anybody here, certainly not the Mayor, certainly not the Board of Finance want’s the Board of Education to give up any decision making process that it is done. All we want to do, in the interest of communication, is say ‘Is this option acceptable? Is that something that you might want to consider?’, and then get consensus with your ten members at your Board of Education meeting. Certainly not at a joint meeting. The object of this was not for any person to make a decision here tonight that would affect future decisions of
the Board of Education. Certainly tonight, a $219,000.00, although we discussed it, this Board of Finance is not prepared to make any decisions on its final decision on $219,000.00. The Board of Finance has already adjourned an hour ago, so the joint meeting’s purpose was (sic; wasn’t) to discuss $219,000.00. The purpose was to discuss common ground for budgets that are going to be difficult going forward and the process was to be able to say ‘We want communication better than it was last year’. It was not for either board to be able to make policy in a joint meeting that is really policy decisions that are made by the respective boards in their own venue.”
A. Bates Lyons: “Mr. Mayor, as far as that discussion, I think it can be brought before the board, and we will do that.”
Mayor Quinn: “And I think that where we want to leave this is where we began, that all things are on the table; all things are to be discussed so that we can make the best decisions for the taxpayers of the City of Torrington and for the children who need to have an education provided for them. That’s where we began, that’s where we end.”
On a motion by Mr. Michelet, seconded by Mr. Lyons, the boards voted unanimously to adjourn the meeting at 7:35 p.m.
ATTEST: JOLINE LeBLANC
ASST. CITY CLERK
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