MINUTES
SPECIAL JOINT MEETING OF THE
BOARD OF FINANCE AND THE BOARD OF EDUCATION
APRIL 24, 2003
A SPECIAL JOINT MEETING OF THE BOARD OF FINANCE AND THE
BOARD OF EDUCATION was held on Thursday, April 24, 2003 in the Council Chambers.
In attendance was Mayor Owen J. Quinn, Jr., members of the Board of Finance Theodore Miasek, Michael Nejaime, Diane Libby, Roger Dickinson, and Bruce Cornish, members of the Board of Education, Chairman of the Budget Committee Bates Lyons, Laurene Pesce, Dawn Lambert, Ronald Bourque, Robert Kelly, Kenneth Edwards, Thomas Slaiby, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Gregory Riccio, Assistant Superintendent of Schools Dr. Elaine Coffin, Business Service Administrator Hugh Murphy, and Director of Human Resources Gary Lambour.
Mayor Quinn called the meeting to order at 5:45 p.m.
Mr. Murphy walked the boards through a powerpoint presentation on how the Board of Education budget was established and reviewed the budget methodology. He noted that the student growth was basically flat. He noted that the benefit renewal number didn’t include a credit that they will be receiving for running less than 110% of expected claims for the year. Positions were added for students presently being educated at Gateway. That resulted in the movement of dollars from contracted services into the salary account. The Board of Education is assuming that these students will be educated at Southeast School. Mr. Murphy noted that the per pupil allotment was frozen at this year’s level.
Gary Lambour, Director of Human Resources, stated that 8.65 positions were added to the system and 10.2 positions were deleted.
The total increase to the budget was $2,945,345.00, or 6.4%, including the contractual increase of $2,574,145.00 or 5.6%. The Capital budget totaled $1,261,550.00, with the largest expenses being roof repairs at Torrington High School for $665,550.00, replacing the carpet with the tile at the Middle School for $210,000.00, and reroofing the Middle School for $100,000.00.
Salaries and benefits accounted for 76.6% of the total budget. The cost per pupil was well below the state at -11.1% and below ERG at -6.1%. When Torrington was compared to 16 similar districts, it ranked 13. Statewide, it ranked 124 out of 169 towns.
Dr. Riccio indicated that the system had charged all of its employees 110% to pay for the insurance package on the outside chance that claims would be higher than 100%. The trend in recent years had been to receive a credit of anywhere between $300,000 and $500,000 a year. A similar credit, which was expected in the current fiscal year, would reduce the total percentage of the budgets by 1%, or 5.44%.
Mrs. Libby pointed out that, even if the net budget was reduced from 6.4% to 5.4%, the increase to the taxpayers of the City of Torrington would be 10.1% because of the loss of state monies or other revenue resources.
Dr. Riccio said they realized that 10% was a lot to the local taxpayer. He thought they should look for ways to increase revenue as well as for ways to decrease spending. He pointed out that Torrington was below the average of ERG and the state and he didn’t think anyone would support going backwards. He noted that families moving into Torrington were diverse. Some were upper-middle class who helped increase test scores and others had children who needed additional resources. If the city continued to decline by cutting programs and services, it would be a great challenge for the quality of life in Torrington.
Mrs. Libby noted that Torrington had a much higher percentage of population deemed to need special education in comparison to the State or the ERG average and inquired what the Board of Education was doing about controlling that issue.
The Director of Student Services indicated that the Superintendent and principals had met to talk about a plan to look at a pre referral process and more interventions that could be put into place at earlier intervention levels to try to decrease those numbers. It was her belief that the problem wasn’t that they were identifying too many special education students but more the fact that they weren’t dismissing those who needed to be dismissed or those who would be better suited with accommodations from the 504 Plan.
Dawn Lambert indicated that the school board had implemented a strategic plan to deal with the special ed issue last year. State IDEA funds paid for a consultant to examine whether they had over identified students and, if so, to locate where it was happening. When the consultant indicated that she didn’t see any over identification, the board looked at preventive measures with early intervention.
Mayor Quinn asked the board if anything had been done to address benefits in contract negotiations.
Dr. Riccio indicated that they had met with the Teacher Associations and other unions. The original proposal in the budget was that no dollars would go toward an increase in the insurance benefits; that the employee would make the match and they were not willing to do anything until the budget was finalized, at which point they would take a look. He noted that the teachers took a two-year package which will be up for negotiations this fall and most likely to be in arbitration during the summer. Spending almost $15,000.00 on the family plan and, in some cases, on employees that were considered part time, needed to be changed. Also, discussions had been held on whether to go back to proprietary plans instead of being self insured. Dr. Riccio added that the system could
offer furloughs on a volunteer basis that could result in tremendous savings.
Mayor Quinn inquired about the high percentage decrease in equipment.
Mr. Murphy indicated that some of the equipment had been moved to the capital budget.
Mr. Dickinson inquired as to what plan the Board of Education had, should their budget be cut from six to three and then from three to zero.
Dr. Riccio indicated that they might be able to get to a point significantly lower than where they were if they had two years, however, since they had a list of approximately $1 million, doing it in one year would start cutting into the High School significantly. The option to increase class size was always a possibility, however, if there were cut one of the four elementary teachers in first grade, they would have 29 students in each class. There wasn’t a lot of option to cut elementary teachers. As Superintendent, it was his belief that they had the ability to absorb one more position, either a teacher or two aides, in elementary school. He pointed out that twenty-five positions were cut last year district-wide, including eight at the Middle School, so only two
teaching positions could be cut at the Middle School because of declining enrollment. That would be five positions at the elementary schools and two at the Middle School. The High School deserved to have four more teachers because of the additional sixty students. Based on a ratio of 19:1, they should have additional teachers. The High School principal spoke against cutting four positions during a recent board meeting. In reality, he stated that cutting four positions was like losing eight, based on the student population. The total of eleven would be about 1% of their budget. Anything beyond that would bring them to a competitive disadvantage with other districts.
Dr. Riccio indicated that, at some point in the future, the board will have to discuss the possibility of charging for bus transportation, as well as look at foundations or businesses to partner with the school to offset costs of athletic programs. Citizens support fully funded athletics. The board wouldn’t want to keep fully funded athletics at the expense of having to cut music or art programs when Torrington is one of the top one hundred communities and art and music are part of the curriculum that’s required by the state.
Again, Dr. Riccio stated that anything beyond the percent would be significant however, they could, some day, eliminate benefits for part time employees. That would create a savings even if they had to pay employees a slightly higher salary.
Ms. Lambert assured the public that charging for bus transportation had never been a topic on their agenda for any sort of discussion at this time. It was her belief that staff would have to be cut significantly in order to get to “0" and, if staff was cut, classroom size would increase. If they were not able to meet the mandates of special education and the Leave No Child Behind Act, the system would be significantly impacted by not receiving some of the federal funding. Mayor Quinn noted that every department on the city side was asked to present a zero based budget, plus contractual.
Dr. Riccio said, “We’re below that charge. We came in under contractual knowing that contractual is a number that can vary depending upon how many people you have in your organization.” Realistically, if the budget is brought down to zero, there will be nearly thirty children in a class and basically be the only school system in Connecticut with that class size.
Mr. Dickinson said, “I have a hard time with that analysis simply because 6% reduction in your budget, i.e., a 0% increase is a 6% number, and if it’s mostly salary people, that’s a 6% change, 6% of a class size in elementary, class sizes are currently about 20. It doesn’t take you to 29. That’s a 50%, or a 45% change.” It could be done with some re zoning.
Mr. Nejaime inquired whether the school system had fewer teachers today than five years ago. He requested a printout of how many teachers and IA’s the school system has had each year for the last five years.
Dr. Riccio said “The way we get out IA’s is through an IEP written that they have a special education student. We all agree that we are high in Middle School. We’ve addressed it by changing the entire administration. We cut twenty-five last year.” (Twenty-five existing teaching positions.) It was pointed out that some of those cuts were brought about through attrition.
Dr. Riccio indicated that they had between five and seven fewer administrators than they had three years ago and the number of students had increased from 4,800 to over 5,000. They had a drop out rates of 4% + every year which comes to 20% over a four-year period. Even if everyone at Gateway was successful, it wouldn’t put a dent in their dropout rate because that program handles only one quarter of all the dropouts. They should be doing more, not less. If they saved all the dropouts, they would have another eighty students. The city wouldn’t give the Board of Education any more funds for having eighty more successful students and that’s the dilemma or challenge they were faced with. Those students deserve to have the resources to succeed and yet
there is no reward for having eighty more students.
Mrs. Libby noted that the Board of Finance had to consider how much the taxpayers could afford to pay in taxes and how would they allocate those taxes. She indicated that she would be asking anyone speaking for or against a 10% increase in the school budget if they were willing to pay additional taxes and/or if they felt there were areas that could be cut on the city side. She hoped to get ideas from the taxpayers of Torrington.
Robert Kelly indicated that sacrifices would have to be made if the Board of Education was forced to go down to the levels that the Board of Finance was talking about.
Ms. Lambert stated that it was time for the city and the Board of Education to jointly establish a strategic plan on how the community could advance in the future. She noted that Dr. Riccio had promised the planning committee of the town meeting that there would be no significant change to programs and that they would present the existing programs tightened up as much as possible and that, after they listened to the public during the town meeting, they would go back and do whatever they needed to do in order to balance the budget.
Mayor Quinn pointed out that the outstanding issue of the $219,000.00 from the capital portion of the educational budget that had to be addressed and rectified. Mayor Quinn and Dr. Riccio had talked about a possible scenario and would like the Board of Education to contemplate a 20% proposal that they had. Representatives from the Board of Education and the Board of Finance needed to resolve that matter before this budget process went much further. It was noted that there was a draft proposal that could possibly end this impasse.
Mr. Lyons noted that the Board of Education had not discussed that proposal to date.
Mayor Quinn said he expected representatives to meet to end this matter soon.
Mr. Lyons indicated that the board would discuss the proposal and have representatives of the board meet with representatives from the Board of Finance to resolve the issue.
Mayor Quinn called the meeting to a close at 6:45 p.m.
OWEN J. QUINN, JR., MAYOR
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