Region 17 Voters Go to the Polls on Tuesday

Haddam and Killingworth residents will go to the polls Tuesday to decide whether to accept the Regional School District 17 recommended budget of $38.11 million, a plan that would increase district spending by 1.98 percent next year.

In Region 17, where Haddam has voted against the school budget 37 times, the annual budget vote is never an easy matter.

Voting hours officially will be determined in the district’s annual meeting Monday, but officials anticipate that the usual polling place hours will run from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., in Killingworth Elementary School and the usual polling places in Haddam.

While the budget proposal would increase spending, it is $317,368 less than the original budget proposed by former School Superintendent Gary Mala, which called for a 2.87 percent increase in expenditures.

Region 17’s current-year budget, crafted by Mala and endorsed by the school board last year, limited the spending increase to 1.58 percent, and was approved in a single referendum by voters in Killingworth and Haddam – even in the famously contrary community of Haddam Neck.

Known for his tightly constructed budgets, the school seldom made changes to Mala’s spending proposals as significant as this year’s $317,368 cut, reducing Mala’s originally proposed $1.07 million spending increase to $739,008.

The reduction was achieved by a change in the advance purchase of supplies, saving about $102,000; by reducing postage funds at each school, saving $10,000; and by eliminating a kindergarten section at Killingworth Elementary School due to low enrollment. 

The elimination of the kindergarten class allowed the school board to cut a teaching position by not replacing a retiring teacher, saving $41,500 in salary expense.

Those savings were transferred to the utilities budget in anticipation of a shortfall in previously allocated funds for electricity.

The school board also deviated from Mala’s plan by adding a custodian at the high school/central office, partially covering the $16,961 expense with revenue from renting office space at the former middle school.

Finally, the school board reduced the capital carry-over budget by $204,950.

The cost of running Region 17 schools in 2011-12 benefits from an $81,000 savings in salary expense created by teachers opting for an early retirement program and from negotiations with the teachers’ union; by a $337,000 savings in buildings and grounds costs; by $161,959 in reduced spending for learning programs; and by $40,000 in savings in other areas.

But the proposed budget for 2011-2012 also must cope with an increase of nearly 8 percent - $478,000 - in the cost of employee benefits and a drastic $242,160 increase in the cost of district tuition obligations for special needs students, a budget item over which the district has no control.

And it is impacted by a projected drop in revenues of $71,287, effectively raising the amount of the budget increase to $810,295. Projected revenues from the state and other sources amount to only $178,371 for the coming fiscal year.

The shared cost of next year’s proposed budget, if adopted at the referendum, would be $20.22 million for Haddam and $17.03 million for Killingworth. Those figures are based on the number of students each town has enrolled in district schools.