Shelton Aldermen on Thursday passed a $120.7 million budget for 2015 – 2016 that will result in an unchanged tax rate for the third straight year.
And for the third year running, school officials said the dollar amount allocated to the city’s school district falls well short of what they need.
Board of Aldermen President John Anglace, while reading a prepared statement during the meeting, said Aldermen have “unanswered questions” about the school budget, and would hold meetings with school officials in the coming weeks in the hopes of clarifying them.
Mark Holden, the Board of Education’s chairman, said afterward he doubts those meetings will result in a viable way to bridge the $2.7 million gulf between what the school board requested and what they ultimately received.
Holden said the school board would meet to adjust its budget in the coming weeks, adding they’d have to consider things like laying off teachers and a return of “pay to participate” for sports and activities.
The Numbers
The bottom line on the budget is $120,763,27, an increase of $2,659,457, or roughly 2.25 percent, over the current year’s budget.
But the mill rate will remain unchanged at 22.31 due to a modest increase in the grand list of taxable real estate and other increases in items like state education grants, fees for licenses and permits, and other miscellaneous revenues.
A person with a house assessed at $150,000 will pay $3,346.50 in property taxes next year.
The school district will receive $69,345,000 in 2015-2016.
That’s an increase of $1,500,000, or 2.21 percent, over the current year.
The schools number is unchanged from the figure proposed by Mayor Mark Lauretti in March.
Discussion
Anglace began discussion of the budget with a five-minute reading of a list of account numbers with adjustments made to Lauretti’s budget proposal.
Click the play button on the video above to watch the meeting. The budget discussion begins at about the 4:10 mark.
The only other Alderman to offer any input whatsoever during the meeting was John “Jack” Finn, the board’s lone Democrat.
“I only can recall three items that we actually discussed at the Board of Aldermen (budget) meetings and the Board of A&T (Apportionment and Taxation). The rest I have no idea where they came from,” Finn said.
“What’s most disappointing is the Board of Aldermen failed to fund the Board of Education,” Finn said. “I cannot support this budget.”
Anglace then read a prepared statement during which he said the budget “will manage our city well and give our citizens one of the most affordable tax rates in Connecticut.”
He said the Board of Aldermen “applauds our Board of Education, their administrators, teachers, and support staff for the excellent education product they continue to turn out year after year.”
“However, we have unanswered questions about some aspects of the Board of Education’s spending, and are committed to partnering with our education colleagues in the weeks ahead to examine a number of important spending issues,” Anglace went on.
He said he’d contact Holden to set up a joint meeting to hash out the details.
The budget vote appeared to be unanimous, but Finn said after the meeting he meant to vote against the plan, and would contact the Aldermen’s clerk to clarify his position.
Reaction
Board of Education Chairman Mark Holden said he isn’t holding out much hope of closing the budget shortfall in meetings with Aldermen.
“I don’t know,” he said. “My impression from the brief conversation that we had before this meeting is that the focus of these meetings will be to help us identify savings.”
But he said the savings possibilities Anglace mentioned in a private discussion — possibly consolidation the city’s elementary schools, for example — aren’t viable options.
As a result, Holden said, the school board’s finance committee, and then the entire board, will in the coming weeks have some difficult decisions looming, including possible layoffs and a return of “pay to participate” for athletics and extracurricular activities.
“We would prefer to avoid layoffs, and I’m sure that we’ll be looking for any way we can to reduce the number of layoffs or hopefully eliminate layoffs, but at this point in time, I’m of the opinion that we will end up with layoffs,” Holden said.
He said he couldn’t estimate a number of layoffs just yet without looking at the numbers more.
“I’d love to do zero (layoffs),” he said. “I don’t think we’re going to get there, but we’re going to try.”
“Unfortunately, I’m not Santa Claus and I can’t pull money out of a magic bag,” he added, referencing a remark Lauretti made during his March budget proposal, to which school officials took offense.
Anglace said after the meeting he believes there are many areas the school system can save on spending.
“We need to examine that,” he said.
Arlene Liscinsky, the chair of the school board’s finance committee, said Aldermen could have had those discussions during their budget workshops over the course of the last several weeks.
Beyond that, the Valley Indy pointed out, the meeting itself was difficult to follow — no copies of the spending plan the Aldermen were discussing were made available to the public, and the audience of about 50 people couldn’t be expected to know offhand what accounts Anglace was referring to while reading off their lengthy list of adjustments.
Anglace gave a reporter a copy of the budget documents, and said the spending plan is printed in the Connecticut Post.
How about putting it on the city’s website, so residents don’t have to plunk down a buck at the newsstand to see how their tax dollars are being spent?
“That’s a good idea,” Anglace said. “I’ll have (Finance Director) Paul (Hiller) do that.”
