The Dam Broke

The dam broke at Trumbull’s Tuesday evening Board of Education meeting. A frustrated, perhaps outraged board member, Lisa Labella, couldn't hold it in. She said the $1.862 million budget cut forced on our schools by First Selectman Tim Herbst, the Board of Finance and the Town Council is “totally the wrong direction to be going.”

Facing Another Underfunded Budget

Retiring Superintendent Ralph Iassogna put on his game face for perhaps the last time, to oversee a third consecutive year of cuts so consequential that not only has innovation been all but stifled, but Iassogna, also, and again, needed a scalpel to offset the other boards’ meat axes.

His task was to find money in an already underfunded budget without eliminating programs or people and while maintaining class size. Here’s “underfunding:” The state ranks Trumbull as the 38^th wealthiest of Connecticut’s 169 municipalities, yet our cost per pupil is 112^th. And here we are in the heart of Fairfield County.

This places Trumbull's per pupil cost close to the bottom among both nearby communities and the 20 other districts the state compares us against. We’re below Monroe, Fairfield and even Bridgeport – but we are above Newtown and Shelton.

Meanwhile, no one has been more positive in selling our schools than Iassogna.

To be fair, we have stellar programs like We The People, Mock Trial and DECA in which THS students use what they learn to compete against other schools. Our We The People class (team?) won the state competition and just finished eighth nationally. Applause, please!

We just witnessed the second Invention Convention at Jane Ryan – fifth grade innovators identified an unmet need, did their research then built their prototype. Two students created projects newsworthy enough to draw ESPN coverage. And they’re ten years old.

Our sports teams are traditionally successful, we have among the best marching bands and color guards in the nation, and every year audiences are treated to an outstanding student musical.

But some of the news is not so good. Trumbull’s schools are far behind the classroom technology curve. Last winter’s Gibson report found that the district owns 2,488 instructional and administrative computers. Two-thirds are seven years old or older.

And no school building has WiFi throughout (though once construction ends at the High School, it will). Frenchtown Elementary opened ten years as a technology model to be replicated at every school. Yet today no other building is Frenchtown’s equal, and it stands as it was.

In a district trumpeting its “21^st Century Education,” we’re working with 20^th century technology, and not much of it.

And some costs the community doesn’t want to pay become taxes imposed on our students as pay to play. This limits participation in some important extra-curricular activities – offerings that enrich our curriculum, more fully engage our students and teach life skills. The tax can reach $200 per child per season on the families of athletes, actors and elementary school string players. Trumbull is one of the very few districts in the state to impose this tax.

The Cuts

Iassogna first identified $915,000 of low hanging fruit – $235,000 by leasing buses under the new contract rather than buying them; $300,000 from the already tightly managed energy and utility accounts; and down to assuming the district will use fewer Special Education consultants to save $9,000.

One glaring cut was $160,000 from what the finance board seems to view as a slush fund – textbooks, software and supplies – because every year they make it a target. The district already uses too many textbooks until they are no longer available through used book outlets.

He recommended that the remaining $950,000 come from cutting spending this year by $420,000, and by taking $530,000 of the $874,000 set aside from last year’s underspending to fund this year’s start up of Full Day Kindergarten (the sole board sponsored initiative over the last three years).

Technology Funding

The superintendent told the board the $340,000 remaining from the $874,000 should fund what he called the “Tech Bond shortfall.”

The board had approved $1.36 million to update technology. First Selectman Tim Herbst sought to bond the equipment to reduce the operating budget.

During an April meeting of the Boards of Education and Finance and the Town Council the bond amount was cut to $785,000. The other $575,000, allocated to acquire equipment with useful lives too short for bonding, was returned to the operating budget.

The Vote

Following Iassogna’s presentation member Loretta Chory suggested calculating a “vacancy factor” – funds budgeted for long term teacher absences that go unused – and applying those to fill the shortfall.

Chory insisted the calculation was possible. Labella stated she had canvassed area businesses for her employer and found that some companies make such a calculation, others do not.

Business Manager Sean O’Keefe said he is unsure that a meaningful number could be calculated, and if it were, whether it would be a source the board should tap.

No one came to Chory’s support. Vice Chair Deborah Herbst commented she didn’t have the information needed to approve Iassogna’s cuts. The point was dropped. But the discussion brought out Labella’s frustration and ended when she said “this is not what I signed on for.”

The board voted to accept Iassogna’s recommendations, four for (Board Chair Steve Wright, Rosemary Seaman, Labella and Mike Ward), two opposed (Kelly and Chory), with Vice Chair Deborah Herbst abstaining because she had insufficient information.

The teachable moment here is that unless and until parents demand an end to the backsliding and put pressure on the decision makers Trumbull will remain at the low end of the funding scale.

The cynic would add - parents you are getting the schools you deserve – a solid well taught core with essential extras, but with too few teachers filling too many roles, minimal staff support, outdated technology, no non-mandated initiatives on the horizon, and students picking up the tab for extra curriculars.