The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Bridging the school budget gap
Board of Education, Gilbert superintendent at odds over tuition
WINSTED — The Winchester Board of Education and superintendent of The Gilbert School continue to be at odds over the tuition requested by the school and the amount the district has budgeted.
The gap between the two is large.
The School Corporation recently approved the Gilbert budget that requests $7.1 million for tuition and a total of $7.8 million from the district for the 2019-20 school year. The budget was recently submitted to the school board.
Winchester Superintendent of Schools Melony Brady-Shanley told the school board in late February, according to the minutes, that the “parties are far apart at this time.” She noted that the budget request from Gilbert was $600,000 more than last year. “It would be a 10.15 percent increase which is a 17.7 percent per pupil increase. The town manager is looking for a zero percent increase in budget,” she said.
Last year’s school district budget was $6.475 million.
Gilbert School Superintendent Anthony Serio said Friday that the funding differences can be “referred to the Joint Finance Committee,” which consists of both Gilbert School and district board members. “That is where it should be ironed out.”
Serio said funding negotiations could continue into the summer. However, Brady-Shanley has been told the school district’s budget should be submitted by March 15.
Funds from state grants for the school district are expected to be $1.89 million less than the last school year, or a decrease of 63.3 percent, from the current year. Funding from the education account from the
town is expected to be $19.9 million, reflecting no increase from the prior school year.
The total revenue for the school district, given the decrease in state grants and other funding, is expected to be $22 million, down nearly 8 percent from $23.9 million 2018-19
budget. Budget documents show that contractual pay increases, transportation and insurance costs increases, as well as an increase in special education spending, are among the district’s “major budget drivers” this year.
“The selectman will pass the budget and perhaps they’ll give us more money,” Serio said.
Asked if the annual budget process is normally
this fraught, Brady-Shanley said, “historically, it comes to an impasse regularly.”
“We sought to go back to the table. It doesn’t need to be this way,” Brady-Shanley said Friday as the budget deadline approaches.
A special meeting of the Winchester Board of Education was scheduled to be held Thursday evening at 6 p.m. at the Beardsley Library. The only item on the agenda was the “Quarterly Gilbert Corporation / Winchester Public Schools BOE Meeting.”
However, the meeting was postponed, with a rescheduled date yet to be announced. Serio said the postponement was for a lack of a quorum.
The school board had six members who were to attend, while only two members of the Gilbert Corp. were available, Brady-Shanley said.