Stratford school board requests $4.6M increase

STRATFORD — The Board of Education has requested a 3.88 percent, $4.6 million budget increase for next year.

The 4-3 school board vote came during a special meeting Thursday after a 5-4 vote of the board’s finance subcommittee.

Last month, Superintendent Janet Robinson proposed a 3.99 percent $4.7 million budget increase for the 2021-22 school year that would eliminate eight teaching and four administrative positions.

That number has since decreased slightly to 3.88 percent, or $4,556,489.

The school board’s budget for the current year was $117.5 million.

Discussion Thursday echoed the finance committee’s meeting Monday, which centered on whether the Town Council would approve the full request.

As she did Monday, Robinson asked the school board to approve the 3.88 percent request.

She said without a crystal ball it’s impossible to know what the Town Council will end up approving.

And as with the finance board debate, school board members went back and forth about the implications of putting forward the full request and its chances of being approved.

School board Vice Chairwoman Amy Wiltsie called the request ambitious but dangerous — especially in a time of COVID-19.

Benjamin Proto said he’d vote no, and that the school board should prepare to cut more than $1 million if they did send the full request to the council because he did not expect the town to approve that amount.

Janice Cupee said the board had a responsibility to send a request that would properly fund education.

Robert David said suggested a 3.58 percent increase, and when pressed to specify actual cuts, targeted assistant principal positions.

School board Chairwoman Allison DelBene said that if the board has to make cuts, it would be better to wait until the council specified an amount.

She said David’s suggestion to cut assistant principals “would be completely off the table in my mind.”

In response to questions from Bob DeLorenzo, Pamela Mangini, the school district’s chief operating officer, said the board can’t rely on any of an anticipated $4.3 million federal grant for COVID-19 expenses to plug budget gaps.

David said he’d be shocked if the council approved the request, adding that typically funding is lower in election years.

DelBene said that the board was already struggling to find savings. If the cuts have to come, she said, they’re going to be significant.

“I don’t want to do it until I’m forced to do it,” she said.

Andrea Cororan said she wouldn’t be comfortable suggesting cuts without administrators vetting the possible implications.

After the discussion, members voted 5-4 to approve the 3.88 percent increase.

In favor: Cupee, Corcoran, DelBene, Vincent Faggella, and David. Opposed: DeLorenzo, Proto, Wiltsie, and Karen Rodia.

The full board voted 4-3 along the same lines, minus the votes of David and Proto, who are on the finance committee but not elected members of the Board of Education.