01/17/08

Statement From The West Hartford Taxpayer’s Association In Response To The Recent Approval By The Board Of Education For New School Additions and Renovations

Dear Members of the WHTA and other West Hartford Taxpayers who we hope will join us!

The town Board of Education recently approved a plan to renovate and improve four of our elementary schools due to overcrowding and general repairs. Many are wondering what our opinion of this is. The WHTA supports the improvements to our schools. We'd like to see a more detailed account of just what has gone wrong and the exact plans to fix the situation.

Apparently, many parents were up in arms about the prospect of their child being bussed to another part of town. We can understand that. What we are missing in this scenario is how we are going to pay for these improvements and the projected number of years we are expecting this overcrowding to last. Mr. Van Winkle stated in the Hartford Courant that there is $1 million in the current Capital Improvement budget for school projects. If this money is used here, what projects are being cut from the CIP that were already planned improvements? How will that impact our town? How are we currently paying for the architect’s plans that are already being drawn up for these renovations and additions? What have we given up in our budget to accommodate that expense?

Now, you may say that this is an urgent situation that supersedes all others. It’s kind of like when your furnace fails in your home and you have to come up with $8,000 to fix it. Do you simply go to the bank and borrow the $8,000? Or ask your Dad for a loan? Or do you look at your home budget and say, “Gee, with the two car loans we have, the mortgage and the tremendous taxes we are paying, we need to cut something out of our home budget for a while to pay for our furnace, so, no vacation this year, and let’s do our own lawn mowing and landscaping”?

We cannot simply go on paying and paying for things in the name of education without cutting somewhere to compensate for the added expenses. Our organization gave solid ideas for cuts in the Board of Education budget last year. What did they do? The Board cut a magnet program and other education programs. The Superintendant, Assistant Superintendant, and Director of programs still each have their own secretary. Teachers and Administrators all received nice pay raises (have you received a pay raise better than 5%?). We still have our own print shop at the Board of Education, instead of sending that out to bid by a private company. We are sure there is plenty of fat in areas that can be trimmed to direct our tax dollars to such an urgent project as this one regarding school renovations. We must set our priorities. There’s no doubt that hard choices will have to be made. It is also clear that we cannot rely on the State for extra funding.

Regarding the specific overcrowding issue; do we know just how bad it is and how long it will last? For instance - if Bugbee School is at 10% over capacity but the town's population is projecting that type of growth to last only 5-10 years, then why can't we install trailer class rooms? They'd be heated and air conditioned, and meet all safety standards, etc. That way, when the population of children goes down, we are not stuck with a big building, that was constructed poorly because we had to go with the lowest bidder who was the worst construction company and went into serious cost overruns which then we taxpayers got stuck paying much more than what our Board of Education was originally projecting. Think it won't happen?  Ask any town that's done this recently. 

Yes, we support the schools in town, but we’d like to see what other projects will be dropped in lieu of this one, and what cost savings we can find in other areas so that this project, that people apparently believe to be a priority, can be accomplished reasonably and responsibly with the least impact to West Hartford taxpayers.

President Chris Torino

West Hartford Taxpayers Association