You can’t always get what you want — but can they get what they need?
Yes, the spirit of the Mick Jagger-Keith Richards masterpiece was invoked Feb. 11, as members of the Seymour Board of Education officially passed their $32 million spending plan for the 2014 – 2015 school year to the town’s Board of Finance.
Over the coming weeks, the finance board will review the budget, and the $32 million proposal could be reduced.
But, ultimately, the Seymour voters have final say on the school budget — and they haven’t been kind to any increase in education spending the last four years.
“It’s like the Rolling Stones say,” finance board chairman Bill Sawicki said Monday. “You can’t always get what you want.”
The School Budget
The education proposal represents a 3.5 percent, or $1.08 million, increase over current school spending.
Since 2010, every year it has taken three or four attempts to get a school budget approved at referendum. Each time voters reject a spending plan, it is sent back to the finance board for adjustment.
One year, voters even rejected a budget that carried no increase in spending.
“If we come in high, we fail three times. If we come in low, we fail four times,” Harmeling told members of the Board of Finance.
This year’s proposed budget includes about $91,292 in new initiatives, including:
- Two new teachers at the middle school — one to teach STEM subjects through Project Lead The Way and another to teach language arts.
- A new fine arts teacher at the high school to teach graphics arts and photography.
- A part-time special education teacher at Bungay School.
- Four new paraprofessionals for kindergarteners at both Bungay and Chatfield-LoPresti elementary schools.
- A language arts coordinator for grades 6 through 12, who would also teach high school English classes.
- A full-time physical education teacher at the high school, in place of a part-time teacher.
- Stipends for club advisers at the high school and middle school.
The budget pays for the new positions through a series of savings from retirements and shuffling of other positions. School officials said the district would be getting 5.5 new positions for roughly $91,000.
The current Seymour school budget is $30,942,984. Town government expenditures total $22,045,915, for a total annual town budget of $52,988,899.
School Budget History
Over the last five years, the schools budget has increased 6 percent — or an average of 1.2 percent per year, according to the district’s figures. That includes two years when the school funding wasn’t increased at all.
Harmeling said the small annual increases doesn’t cover the district’s “level services budget” most years. That’s the amount the district estimates it will need if it carries over the same items year over year, accounting for increases in costs.
Board of Education chairman Yashu Putorti said 2 percent of the increase alone this year is eaten up by salary increases. Comparing that to the 1.2 percent per year average, he said “we really are moving backwards instead of forwards.”
Part of the Board of Education’s budget information campaign this year will include tidbits about places the school district is already saving money in areas such as energy and health care.
The district has switched health insurance options for teachers in the most recent contract negotiation, and plans to switch for administrators in their new contract, according to Rick Belden, Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations.
More information about the school district’s budget proposal is available at the district’s website. Click here to read a past article about the proposal.
Board of Finance Reaction
Board of Finance members asked several questions Monday, but made no comment about the request level.
“You have to frame budgets in terms of the context of the entire town,” Sawicki said after the meeting.
As the Board of Education was the first to present its budget to the Board of Finance, that context isn’t clear yet.
The Board of Finance will hold workshops each Monday and Wednesday night through the middle of March to hear requests from all other town departments.
Sawicki told the school board members they would need to get out to the public and sell their proposal.
“It’s not the vote of us seven here as much as it is the vote of the people out there,” Sawicki said.
