Simsbury Board of Finance Meeting March 4, 2025

Board of Finance Meeting March 4, 2025

When my children were enrolled in the Simsbury schools with a high enrollment, there was not a Department of Special Education

Over the years many special interest groups focused on a cause and developed an industry around Special Education with teachers, social workers, therapists, and many other support groups to access funding for this new industry.

The State was lobbied by special interest groups to mandate the public schools develop programs with students that were tagged as Special Education students to meet the needs of students with unregulated expenditures.

Governor Lamont just vetoed a bill for $40 million dollars for Special Education.

Unless a new model is developed, the taxpayers will be burdened with the escalating costs.

Throwing money at a failed system is not the taxpayers’ responsibility to keep funding Special Education without any changes in the delivery of services to reduce costs.

The taxpayers have the power of the purse and they should use it.

It is time for the taxpayers to veto the budgets as approved and VOTE NO on all expenditures, until a new resolution is developed.

ARPA funding was used by the Board of Education for 2 Social Workers as a Pilot program at a cost of $450,000.

$250,000 was added to the Pilot program for Youth Services.

These expenditures should have been eliminated in the operating budget but they remain.

According to the State Education website Simsbury spent $10,642,207 in the 2005-06 budget for Special Education.

The budget for 2022-2023 for Special Education was $21,054,775.

The Simsbury Schools have had fewer students over the years but the budget for Special Education has doubled.

It appears like everything in government, find a cause for concern and build an industry around the issue.

The Special Education industry has encapsulated Special Education funding by using taxpayer money to enrich themselves with adding expenditures year after year.

The schools should not be spending thousands of taxpayer dollars on behavioral issues of the students.

The schools should return to educating students with the core programs that have endured over the years with funding needed to continue those services.

Eliminating funding for Special Education should be incremental to return to the reality that the schools must provide a safe and learning environment where most of the students can flourish.

How many students in Special Education programs are mainstreamed full time in the regular classrooms ?

An alternative to providing an environment for Special Education students that cannot matriculate in the school is home schooling.

The State offers all the tools needed for home schooling.

Another option is eliminating all programs that are unfunded.

If the State does not provide funding for unfunded mandates, they do not consider it a priority.

Therefore, all programs associated with unfunded mandates should be eliminated.

It is time to defund many programs that have developed over the years.

Another example of budget creep is the purchase of 2 Farms Village Road for Special Education.

This project should be eliminated before it develops into another increase in expenditures year after year.

The taxpayers can no longer continue to fund projects that are not core programs.

It is time to demand that our elected officials take a leadership role in reducing programs and employees associated with the programs that are not cost effective.

If the elected officials are not willing to reduce expenditures, then the taxpayers should vote NO on all the budgets to force reductions.

The Board of Finance should demand that all budgets associated with Special Education be greatly reduced.

Special Education programs appear to enrich the providers of the services without any responsibility to show positive results.

As a taxpayer in Simsbury, I cannot support these budgets and I urge everyone to vote NO on the proposed budgets.