Board of Education Budget Reductions

BoE Budget Reductions On Friday night, the Board of Education voted to reduce its budget by $608,000. The reductions are as follows: $95,000 savings from combining two positions in the district. The two current positions are a Sage Park Middle School teacher and an administrator who currently spends half-time as a Vice Principal at Sage Park and half-time as the District-wide Positive Behavior Intervention Strategies (PBIS) Coordinator. This position will be combined into one position which would be 60% Vice Principal at Sage Park and 40% teacher. Effectively, this change increases the number of Vice Principals at Sage Park from 2.5 to 2.6, eliminates the PBIS Coordinator and reduces teachers by .6 full-time equivalents (FTEs). $127,000 savings from retirements announced since the budget was adopted by the Board. Typically, when a teacher retires (at a higher salary), a less experienced teacher is hired (at a lower salary). The savings from this new hire are called salary breakage. $55,000 savings from the elimination of part-time clerical and other hourly, annually contracted employees at Central Office. $100,000 savings from pre-spending based on the current year budget surplus. Central Office anticipates a budget surplus of at least $165,000 in the current year and proposed using those funds to purchase textbooks, software and other technology items it was planning to purchase with next year's budget funds. The $165,000 proposed in the Superintendent's plan was reduced to $100,000 due to other savings adopted by the Board. $145,000 savings from the elimination of the Foreign Language in Elementary Schools (FLES) Program. This program was started in the fall of 2012 with one teacher splitting time between kindergarten and grade 1. For the fall of 2013, the district proposed hiring a second teacher to expand the program to grades 2 and 3. The program would have required hiring two additional teachers in future years to flesh out the program. The Superintendent had recommended cutting two elementary teachers, two FLES teachers, two instructional coaches, some combination of two of these positions or cutting one of the above mentioned positions and returning Roger Wolcott to the Town. $65,000 savings by returning Roger Wolcott to the Town. It currently costs the BoE $65,000 per year in maintenance and utilities for the Roger Wolcott building, as it was closed in June 2012 during the school consolidation. This change makes the Town responsible for the upkeep of this building but does allow for the community as a whole to decide what to do with the building. The Superintendent originally proposed giving back Roger Wolcott as an alternative to cutting one of the positions listed above. $21,000 savings from eliminating software that is no longer used by the district and negotiating a better deal on current software used by the district. The Board voted 5-3 (one member was absent) to accept the motion. The motion was supported by members of all three parties. Please remember that the next Budget Referendum is this Tuesday, June 4th. Polls are open from 6am to 8pm.