Early battle lines drawn over Greenwich schools funding
GREENWICH — When the town tamped down on its spending plan after the coronavirus hit last spring, it was the school budget that dominated the debate.
And that debate is likely to happen again over the 2021-22 municipal budget.
Members of the Representative Town Meeting’s Education Committee have sent a letter asking the Board of Estimate and Taxation to “support” the Board of Education’s upcoming budget plan “without imposing an arbitrary percentage increase cap.”
Superintendent of Schools Toni Jones has not yet presented a budget plan, and a Board of Education vote on it is not expected until December. But work on it is underway, and the BET Budget Committee is deadlocked on budget guidelines for 2021-22, with school spending as one of the sticking points.
Currently, the proposed guidelines, which have not been approved, would call for a 4.36 percent increase in public school spending. In the 2020- 21 budget, the BET dropped the proposed increases for all town
departments, including the schools, to 2019-20 levels because of the pandemic. This caused a deep fission on the BET and widespread parent outrage over curtailed school spending.
The letter is not an official statement from the committee but is signed by more than 40 members. Created by some committee members, it expresses concern about cuts to programs and staffing in the Greenwich Public Schools in recent years. It links the cuts to efforts to meet the BET guidelines while still covering contractually mandated salary increases and other set expenses.
“Some recent examples include, but are not limited to, professional development, curriculum development, student assured experiences, books, half of a full-time staff position from each of the high school choir, orchestra and band programs and the high school assistant deans of student life,” the letter states. “This annual budget cap also prohibits the hiring of essential staff such as social workers, which is an increasingly critical need.”
Process and procedure
Janet Stone McGuigan, a member of the RTM Education Committee, was one of THE authors. She said they wanted to “get in on the process at the appropriate time.” Even a 4.36 percent budget increase might not be enough for the schools, she said, after the flat budget of the past year and growing student needs.
“When the budget comes to the RTM, it’s late in the game and all we can do is approve, reject or cut,” McGuigan said. “It is our responsibility to follow the budget process. We wanted to share our views earlier rather than later.”
RTM Education Committee member Janet McMahon, another author, agreed that the timing was important.
“We want to make sure the Board of Education isn’t cutting things again because they are going to be beholden to the budget guidelines,” McMahon said.
McMahon was also one of the authors of a RTM sense of the meeting resolution that was hotly debated in June that called on the BET to restore funds it had cut from the 2020-21 school budget. Ultimately, the resolution did not move forward after the school district said it could accommodate the BET’s cuts without reductions in programming or major personnel cuts, which had been feared by parents.
The worst-case scenario of cuts was taken off the table only after district COO Sean O’Keefe renegotiated favorable terms in the district’s bus contract after the pandemic hit, she said.
“I think an overwhelming majority of the town was against” the proposed school budget cuts, McMahon said.
Opposing views
But the letter is not universally supported among all members of the Education Committee.
Committee member Alex Popp, who is also a teacher in town, sent an email last week as a private citizen to the BET and RTM members, saying he disagreed with the letter’s request.
“Rather, I trust your guidance and judgment to establish a thoughtful town-wide department cap, one that reflects the economic realities of the COVID world,” his letter said.
Popp also criticized the dialogue around the earlier sense of the meeting resolution, saying that the signers of the letter “make no mention of their shocking predictions that never materialized” about what the school budget cuts.
BET Budget Committee Chair Leslie Tarkington said she appreciated all input from residents. She noted the challenges of developing the 2021-22 municipal budget during the pandemic, but she also stressed the “excellent” communication between the Budget Committee and both the Board of Education and district administration.
“The Budget Committee has been responsive to the Board of Education needs, especially as seen by their applications, both in the last fiscal year and in the current fiscal year,” Tarkington said. “We have had two releases of conditions for funding for the Cardinal Stadium bleachers in the last two months, our second and third BOE applications this fiscal year. I expect these communications to continue throughout this fiscal year and the (21-22) budget cycle.”
Budget Committee member Leslie Moriarty, chair of the BET’s Democratic caucus, said, “The current unresolved status of the budget guidelines is an indication of a challenging budget year. Education is one of the most important services that our town provides and, given the 7-6 vote on the budget last spring, I understand the nervousness of those signatories that the schools’ needs will not be met.”