After Rocky Start, Newtown School Budget 'Feels the Love' from Legislative Council Members

By Rebecca Carnes

During a sometimes contentious legislative council committee meeting last night, Superintendent Dr. Joseph Erardi took some early hits from members who suggested his school budget numbers were misleading. But the tone quickly changed with members praising the 2015-16 school budget and with legislative member George Ferguson even giving Erardi a high five across the table for what he called a modest and responsible school budget.

Minutes earlier Ferguson had challenged Erardi on his staffing and enrollment numbers, accusing Erardi and his staff of “manipulating the base” in charts.

“If you look at these two charts, you get the idea that there’s been this dramatic decrease in staffing and an almost no decrease in enrollment; so they’re (charts) disingenuous at best,” Ferguson said to Erardi. “I’d rather you illuminate what’s going on than disguise it.”

Bristling at the accusation, Erardi shot back.

“There will never, ever be by intent, any deception, or fraud, or misleading,” Erardi said. “If there’s a correction needed, we’re going to correct that. But this was never intended to misrepresent or be disingenuous. It was never designed to mislead anybody. That’s not the way I operate.”

The school budget addresses the declining enrollment for the next school year with adjustments to staffing. Newtown’s student enrollment is projected to go down about 200 students for the 2015-16 school year. There has been talk of closing a school in town due to declining enrollment, but this can only be done by the Board of Education and will not be considered until 2016-17, which is the same year the Sandy Hook school plans on reopening on the old site. Erardi has said only the Sandy Hook school and the High School are off the table in consideration for closing.

The school budget of about $71 million represents a 0.34 percent increase over last year’s school budget and will not cause taxes to increase in town (taxes will decrease about 0.71 percent). The Board of Finance made some cuts last week to the school budget, but those were non-academic.

Some factors affecting the school budget are increases in transportation costs, out-of-district tuition, technology upgrades for students, and teacher salaries.

Board chairman, Neil Chaudhary, expressed that he was “scared about next year” because this year’s modest $242,642 increase proposal is “not likely to happen again.”

Erardi noted that the 2016-17 school budget does face some big hurdles, such as the Affordable Care Act causing health insurance costs to go up about 1.2 million. He also mentioned a 2016-17 end to much outside funding due to the Sandy Hook School tragedy, including a Dept. of Justice grant.

This year’s school budget is open for public comment at Wednesday’s 7 p.m. Legislative Council meeting at the Fairfield Hill’s Municipal Center. If approved by the Legislative Council in early April, the school budget will continue onto a town referendum vote on April 28.

With a smile, ex-officio council member Mary Ann Jacob asked Erardi after some tough questioning from members if he “feels the love?” She went on to say that in her opinion, the in-depth school budget presented to the town by the superintendent is “markedly better and more in-depth than any other BOE budget book that we’ve seen in the past.”

Image via Shutterstock

Want more Newtown news? Sign up below!