New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Mayor says board ‘bluffed’
ANSONIA — Statements made last month in court documents that the city’s Board of Education would be unable to meet payroll and might have to shutter schools early and cancel graduation now have city officials fuming.
A running balance of the school board’s finances released by the city Wednesday show payroll was met with the school board still having a $533,567 balance as of June 29. The city said that’s without dipping into the $500,000 education settlement contingency account.
“The big media circus they created amounted to a bluff,” Mayor David Cassetti. “(Superintendent of Schools Carol Merlone) bluffed all the taxpayers and all the parents of Ansonia. It’s terrible what she did.”
Neither Merlone or Fred Dorsey, the school board’s lawyer, responded to requests for comment Thursday.
Documents released Wednesday by the city — which transfers money into the Board of Education checking account after vouchers are submitted — show the following:
On June 18, a payment of $1,934,923 for a balloon payroll voucher was cut, leaving $1,360,073 in the Board of Education budget. A payroll voucher of $307,197 was paid on June 20, leaving $1,052,875. And two payroll vouchers of $127,976 and $87,074 were paid on June 29, reducing the board’s budget to $533,567.
The city further claims that as of July 11 none of the $500,000 it put into an emergency contingency account — after a mediated settlement with the school board — has been touched. Under the agreement, that money can only be used for payroll, employee benefits, utilities, student transportation, insurance, special education tuition and up to $30,000 in textbook expenses incurred as of June 30.
“The residents now know that the (Board of Education) had sufficient funds to make payroll and to meet all of their costs for the close of the school year,” said Lorie Vaccaro, the Board of Aldermen president. “And in fact that’s what happened. Without using any of the $500,000 they claimed to have so desperately needed, the BOE in fact was able to pay salaries, utilities, insurance, special ed, costs etc. to finish the the school year.”
But Lisa Wilson, the school board’s business manager, told Board of Education members during their Wednesday night meeting there are still $643,000 in bills that have not been paid.
Just what bills fall into the allowable contingencyfund categories was unknown. There was no immediate response from Merlone to a request for a breakdown.
All this stems from the Board of Education’s lawsuit accusing the city’s Board of Aldermen of illegally removing $600,000 from the school board budget in January. The aldermen claim they provided that money to help the school board weather last year’s state budget crisis, and pulled it back after the state provided $1.8 million in school funding — about $600,000 more than expected. Which side is right will be determined following an October 2019 trial.
John Izzo, a school board member, questioned Wilson about the city’s report during Wednesday’s board meeting.
“It appears we had the money ... in April and May that we knew we would have the money to make payroll through the end of the fiscal year June 30,” he said. “We created a lot of havoc.”
Wilson told him there’s more to come.
“Our books are not closed,” she said. “Our books are not final because we still have invoices that we have to receive or make payment on.”