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School Leaders
Make Cuts
$1.84 Million Taken From Budget
By FULVIO CATIVO
Courant Staff Writer
June 6 2007
WEST HARTFORD --
School officials Tuesday night tapped hundreds of thousands of dollars in
last-minute savings and voted against adding several staff positions to come
up with $1.84 million in budget cuts.
Education leaders scrambled to find a series of savings and cuts to reduce
spending to $118.3 million to meet the new bottom line set by the town
council. The school board originally approved a $120.1 million budget.
The 2007-08 school budget is now 4.24 percent more than
current spending.
Nearly 100 people attended a public hearing last week to debate where the
school board should cut the budget.
Two people showed up Tuesday night to address the spending plan.
Resident John Joyce urged the board to be more transparent in its budget
deliberations.
Susan Daly, president of the West Hartford Education Association, told the
board that there were places to cut the budget without hurting students,
schools and programs. Daly said replacing retiring teachers with new personnel
could save the board hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"I believe there is money in this budget to [fund] almost everything you
want," Daly said.
Moments later, the board used $216,000 in savings from replacing retiring
staff with new staff to offset the required cuts. The sum was one of many
last-minute sums school officials calculated to cut spending.
Other savings included $200,000 from decreased utility costs; $100,000 from a
new photocopier contract; $90,000 by reducing secretary and clerical
positions; and $50,000 from reduced maintenance and custodial costs.
The school board did, however, cut the equivalent of nine full-time staff
positions, many of them new for the next year.
These cuts mean Smith
School will not get a
new assistant principal in the fall and three new full-time teaching
positions at the high school and elementary school levels were eliminated.
The board unanimously approved nearly $1.6 million in cuts, but two key
proposals divided the panel.
In a 4-3 vote, the board chose to eliminate one position in the middle school
Quest program for gifted and talented students. Clare Kindall,
Bruce Putterman and Terry Schmitt voted against the
cut. The other 4-3 vote eliminated plans to rollout $19,500 worth of new
software at Aiken, Bugbee and Norfeldt
schools.
And though district administrators did not endorse the idea, school board
members unanimously voted to tap about $50,000 from the district's reserve
account to meet the $1.84funding reduction.
"It's a rainy day fund and it's raining outside," Putterman said, explaining the move to use emergency
funds.
Putterman questioned Superintendent David P. Sklarz on why some of the cuts seemed to largely affect
some of the district's highest-need students - alluding to cuts in funding
for a social worker, less funding for busing, new staff and technology at
Smith and Charter Oak schools and reductions in staff teaching students on
how to speak English.
Sklarz said many of the cuts represented as
"conscious of a decision as possible," but explained that "we
could survive another year."
With the education budget process now complete, officials turned to the
referendum Tuesday on the $203.3 million municipal budget, which includes
school spending.
"I hope that all of our residents will get out and vote," school
board Chairman Jack Darcey said.
Contact Fulvio Cativo at
fcativo@courant.com.
Copyright 2007, Hartford Courant
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