Montville schools to face difficult cuts

— Superintendent Laurie Pallin had to break some difficult news to school board members Tuesday night.

She told them Mayor Leonard “Lenny” Bunnell cut the 2024-2025 school budget by $1.18 million. The board’s budget had a 4.5% increase, which has now been reduced to 2.5%.

“That’s a big reduction,” Pallin said. “I don’t believe that a 2.5% increase is reasonable, because of the needs of our students and based on our steadfast commitment to meeting those needs.”

The reduction would bring the school budget to approximately $44.3 million. It would still be the largest department budget in the mayor’s $70.7 million town budget proposal. Bunnell recently sent the budget proposal to the Town Council for its approval.

Putting the proposed cut in perspective, Pallin said the total of the school’s new requests — a new high school special education teacher position, contractual raises for teachers and $100,000 in full-time paraprofessional positions — totaled only $305,000.

She pointed out the $305,000 is only a quarter of the cuts that need to be made.

If the mayor’s proposal is approved by the Town Council, it is unclear where the cuts would come from.

“We haven’t come to that point yet,” said school board Chair Wills Pike, adding if the mayor’s proposal is approved the board would need to decide where cuts would be made.

Pallin said she met with Bunnell, who had expressed the difficulty of the town having to now pay for previous spending funded by American Rescue Plan Act funds.

“Obviously we have those same issues here,” Pallin said, adding the school budget likewise had to account for numerous positions that were previously funded by a similar Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief grant.

“We felt that we had done a really responsible job of spending that grant, so that we created a small as possible funding cliff,” she said. “But that an increase of 2.5% from that original appropriation was not something that could be accomplished without very, very significant reductions to the district budget.”

“I think it’s really very critical that community members participate, they make their priorities known, so that the finance committee, town council and mayor you know, get a sense for what the people in the town of Montville want to support,” she added.

Pike said he hopes to meet with the town’s finance committee to discuss the school budget before the Town Council’s April 25 public hearing. Pallin said after that hearing, the board will have a sense for what the final appropriation will be.