East Granby Residents Question Open Choice

Most of the questions that residents had at the East Granby Town Meeting on Wednesday centered on the school district’s proposed $14.1 million budget.

The proposed school budget calls for a 3.72 percent increase over current levels and is $100,000 less than the $14.2 million that failed at referendum earlier this month. The schools budget was part of a new $18.91 million budget, set last week, that calls for a 1.85 percent tax increase — or .5 mills — that includes the following:

• $4.218 million — or a 2.5 percent increase — for general municipal operations;

• $14.1 million — or a 3.72 percent increase — for school operations;

• $415,556 for capital reserve; and

• $178,112 for debt service.

Some 60 percent of the 1,013 voters who cast their ballots at the first referendum said in the non-binding advisory question that the schools budget was too high.

“Everyone understands the tax burden,” said Board of Education Chairman Kirby Huget, who added that the main drivers of the cost increase for schools are unfunded state mandates. “No one is looking to pay more taxes. [But] education is expensive.”

Huget said during his presentation that the district shaved $100,000 from the budget at the direction of the finance board through anticipating an additional retirement ($8,000); decreasing the building maintenance line item ($14,550); not increasing the supplies, books and equipment line items ($42,938); cutting legal expenses ($16,741); and saving an additional $18,000 through the conversion of Allgrove from oil to natural gas.

Huget noted that the numbers reflected several assumptions, including the addition of 50 Open Choice students, for whom the schools will receive $327,000 from the state in reimbursement.

If the school district is successful in having that many more students enrolled (as of now, 30 Hartford families have accepted East Granby’s invitations), then it would bring the number of Open Choice students to 86 — or just under 10 percent of the student population — in East Granby.

Huget said that he was “optimistic” that 50 new Open Choice students would enroll in East Granby schools by August.

Still, it’s a figure that several residents at the Town Meeting were not necessarily comfortable with.

“It’s excessive,” said East Granby resident Colleen Colabella, claiming that, subtracting the $6,000 tuition that the school district receives from the state for each Open Choice student, the per pupil expenditure in town is $17,200. “I want that deal. … I think the board should come up with [an alternative]. Enough is enough.”

Huget noted that the 50 additional students was the maximum number that the school district could accommodate without having to hire any additional staff members — certified and non-certified.

Still, resident Joe Foy said that he was “frustrated” with how the schools presented its budget.

“I think that Choice is good for the kids and good for our kids,” Foy said. “But I think you guys treat us like mushrooms.”

Foy elaborated that he believed that the additional Choice students created a budget “fiction.”

“They’re coming in at half price,” Foy said.

Eugenia Drake said that while she was in favor of diversity in the school system, she believed that 86 Choice students was too many.

“At some point we’re going to become a Hartford suburban school system,” she said. “That’s not why I moved to East Granby. That’s 86 students whose parents are not volunteering in the schools, 86 students who are not on the PTO, that’s 86 parents who are not all hands on deck.”

First Selectman James Hayden at the Town Meeting said that the general government’s budget increase request was reduced from 2.82 to 2.5 percent — or $13,400 — by adjusting the insurance and police overtime line items.

The Town Meeting was adjourned to a second referendum scheduled for May 23.