Budget Presentation Made Tuesday Night to PTOs

The David E. Owens Middle School cafeteria was venue for the district's first public presentation of the proposed 2011-12 school budget on Tuesday night. Representatives from all four PTOs, members of the Board of Education and borough council members were in attendance to hear from Superintendent Michael Polizzi and Business Administrator Michael Sawicz.

The director of curriculum and instruction, Danielle Shanley, also created a power point presentation that was shown to the audience which highlighted the many changes and additions to the curriculum for the 2011-12 school year.

"Let's start off by talking about last year," said Sawicz. "We lost 64 percent of our state aid last year which was nearly $1.5 million as well as another $400,000 taken out of our surplus and reserves."

Polizzi said it had been a "whirlwind" year. "Little did I know then, a district already known for frugal spending habits would lose close to $1.9 million in state aid," said Polizzi. 

The superintendent said a focus of this year's budget was expenditures based on innovations as opposed to a focus on test scores. 

"They are not the ultimate measure of education quality," said Polizzi. "We must encourage innovation, imagination and creativity."

One example Polizzi cited was that educational studies show the greatest predictor of college success is receiving a grade of A or B in eighth grade algebra. A big focus of the district this year will be on the creation of the junior academy at the middle school and a greater focus placed on math education at that grade level, according to district administrators.

Polizzi said "parent partnerships" will be critical moving forward since "schools cannot do all of this on their own." He said expanding the roles of the PTOs in supporting these measures would be key.

"This is a really exciting time to have kids in this school district," said Sawicz. "The message is that we are doing a lot, with a lot less and we are being the model--people are looking at us and saying how are we doing that."

Sawicz said this year's budget is a 1.9 percent increase over last year's budget, which is below the state mandated cap of two percent. The average homeowner whose home is assessed at $414,035 in New Milford will see a $241 increase in their school property taxes this year. 

The total proposed budget for the district is $29,163,755. More than 36 percent will be spent on general instruction and more than 22 percent will be spent on special education. Another 16 percent will be spent on employee benefits and 14 percent will be spent on buildings and grounds, security, transportation and more. 

Sawicz said in spite of what happened last year, the district is "far better than it was a year ago and that is really exciting."

Board of Education President Dan Conner urged those in attendance to vote for the budget on April 27. "It’s imperative that you get out to vote," said Conner. "Let's have this be a landslide this year--the economy is tough and we need to pull together and we need to pass this budget."

Last year's school budget was narrowly defeated at the polls and district officials were forced to trim more than $125,000 out of the 2010-11 budget which led to several staff members being let go and a reduction in certain programs being offered to students.

The official budget hearing will take place at the BOE meeting on March 29 at 7:30 p.m. in the NMHS auditorium.