Valley Independent Sentinel

Valley Community Foundation Teams With Shelton Schools

by Kate Ramunni | Jul 22, 2010 7:24 am

(0) Comments | Commenting has expired | Send link to a friend | E-mail the Author

Posted to: Shelton, Education, Shelton Budget

The city’s school district Wednesday became the first in the Valley to partner with the Valley Community Foundation to establish an educational endowment fund.

The move comes on the heels of a tough budget cycle in Shelton, where a large group of parents complained the city wasn’t allocating enough money for the school system.

VCF president Jamie Cohen said the Shelton Public Schools Endowment Fund can fund a variety of things, from scholarships to “extras” that go beyond the scope of the board’s budget.

As Derby’s corporation counsel for several years, he saw first hand how a school board can have trouble wrestling funds intended for education from city coffers, Cohen said.

That’s not a problem with an education foundation, he said.

“You are creating a permanent fund through the Valley Community Foundation that is safe and separate from municipal control and you can use the income for whatever part of your education system that needs help,” he said.

“Most of the money we take in has to go through city coffers,” school board chairman Tim Walsh said. “Some of it comes back to us, some of it doesn’t.”

And the endowment fund solves a problem that has plagued previous efforts that have proved less than successful, Cohen said.

For example, when former Shelton High School headmaster Anthony Savignano retired from that position in 1993, a scholarship was established in his name, Cohen said.

The money was deposited in a passbook savings account that accrued only a small amount of interest, he said, and with limited growth, the fund was soon exhausted.

That also was the case with a scholarship fund established in Seymour upon the retirement of Superintendent Eugene Coppola, Cohen said. That fund started out with about $20,000, he said, but now stands at around $13,000 and continues to drop as more of it is distributed.

Going through the VCF, the fund is professionally managed and grown, Cohen said.

Last year the foundation’s funds increased an average of 27 percent, he said.

The separate funds that exist now can be brought under the umbrella of the endowment fund while continuing to stand alone, he said, and benefiting from the higher rate of return. And new funds can be included as people retire and die and funds are established in their honor.

“In a bank account, it earns half a percent to one percent,” he said. “They’re really missing the boat.”

After Savignano died last year, his family established a fund with the VCF in his memory, Cohen said, and this year that fund will donate money to several groups at Shelton High School, including the Robotics Club, the Beautification Club and the Student Council.

That success record also has led to the Seymour Board of Education to recently approve the concept of establishing an endowment fund, Cohen said. The board referred the issue to its Finance Committee two weeks ago, he said.

He’s also discussed the possibility of establishing an education fund in Derby, Cohen said, and wants to approach the Ansonia and Oxford school boards with similar proposals.

But with the Shelton board’s approval Wednesday, it becomes the first Valley town to actually establish an endowment fund. It’s the VCF’s goal to host one for each Valley community, Cohen said.

“Our goal is to have every Valley community to have its own education fund to give people who believe in education the opportunity to contribute,” he said. “It’s a way the school districts can supplement things they wouldn’t ordinarily be able to do.”

The board unanimously agreed, approving both the establishment of the fund and an advisory board to oversee it that will be made up of members chosen by the superintendent of schools, the school board chairman, the mayor, the Shelton Education Association and a parent representative.

Comments

view the full calendar »

News Feeds

Sponsors

Sponsors have no input into or responsibility for articles published on this site.

V.I.S. Site Design & Development