The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Proposed schools budget adds teachers, funds for maintenance
CHESHIRE — The school system will see the addition of two elementary teachers next year, as well as more funding for building maintenance, under the 2021-22 budget approved by the Board of Education.
The $78.48 million spending plan is $3.89 million, or 5.2 percent, higher than the current school year.
The board’s 6-1 vote, with Democrat Anne Harrigan casting the only dissenting vote, leaves untouched the budget that Superintendent of Schools Jeff Solan presented in mid-January.
Harrigan unsuccessfully sought to add about $400,000 Solan’s proposal that would have added several more positions to the budget, including a math intervention specialist for students having trouble in that course.
Solan said the additional elementary-level teachers are needed to keep the ratio of students teachers at 17.8 pupils per educator.
“The things that are in this budget are absolutely critical,” Solan said prior to the vote. “Our maintenance account has been very lean for an extended period of time. I’m trying to be fiscally responsible, but I acknowledge this budget does not move us forward (in terms of the district’s goals).”
Solan said because the district has curtailed spending on building maintenance over the past five
years, he requested a $295,013 increase for the next school year over the current budget.
Adam Grippo and Tim White, two Republican members of the board, acknowledged the increased spending in next year’s budget is more than in previous years, but both voted in favor.
“Next year we a looking at world of uncertainty,” Grippo said. “This budget gives us some areas to play with without hurting students and staff.”
But board Chairman Tony Perugini didn’t share Grippo’s optimism about having wiggle room with the budget. Perugini said his biggest concern was whether the Town Council will choose to make any cuts at the end of the budget-making process. Following board approval, the budget now goes to Town Manager Sean Kimball for further review and inclusion in the overall municipal budget that will be presented to the council.
“We don’t have anywhere to go to make cuts (if the council cuts the budget),”
Perugini said. “It is critical that this has to be funded as-is.”
One reason for the lack of flexibility Perugini referred to are contractual agreements with teachers and a need to replenish the district medical trust fund.
Board member Andrew Martelli noted that $1.6 million of the proposed increase will go toward salary increases negotiated with the district’s teachers. Another $1.8 million of the increase is aimed at replenishing the medical trust fund, which is used to pay health care claims of teachers and other employees in the district.
The board in past years has underfunded the contribution to the fund in order to get some financial flexibility elsewhere in the budget. In doing so, past boards gambled that the district wouldn’t see a surge in claims that could significantly reduce or wipe out how much was in the fund.
Grippo said if the $1.8 million to replenish the medical trust fund was excluded, the proposed budget increase would be “more line with what we have seen with previous budgets.”
Kathryn Hallen, a Democrat on the school board, said members “made a decision last year to underfund the medical benefits fund.”
“Now we’re paying for that,” she said.
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