The city’s tax board Thursday voted to give the school district a $1 million (or 3.7 percent) increase next year.
In addition, the school district and the tax board hashed out a plan that could see full-time kindergarten start in Ansonia next year — paid for, at the moment and hopefully for the next five years, by a state grant for struggling public school systems like Ansonia’s.
Nothing is official, yet. A final tax board meeting on the 2013 – 2014 budget is scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday, May 20.
The moves Thursday come after a heated meeting Monday (May 14) during which angry parents urged the tax board to loosen the city’s purse strings.
On Monday, the tax board had been willing to give the schools a 2 percent increase ($540,000) in funding — the same number recommended by the city’s Board of Aldermen.
However, school officials complained 2 percent wasn’t enough to cover fixed costs or pay for costs connected to special education.
Superintendent Carol Merlone warned 2 percent would trigger up to 45 layoffs and deep program cuts to sports, the arts and AP classes, all just a year after the school district laid off about two dozen staffers because of money woes.
The mood was much calmer Thursday, but the meeting was still packed with some 50 audience members. The number of people caused the meeting to be moved from a small room on the second floor in Ansonia City Hall to the Aldermanic Chambers a few doors down.
While there was no public comment period offered Thursday, the tax board invited Merlone to sit at the table with them, where she answered questions about what a budget with a 2 percent increase would do to Ansonia schools.
Merlone, speaking in off-the-cuff monologues, some of which reached almost three minutes in length, said the budget as proposed would, essentially, bleed the school system to death.
Then, after a discussion of school spending that lasted some two hours, Merlone and the tax board agreed on a plan that could establish full-day kindergarten in Ansonia next year — not to mention the $1 million increase.
Merlone told the tax board Ansonia schools will likely receive an additional $500,000 per year (roughly) as part of the state’s Alliance District Grant program. The five-year program already provides the city schools with some $540,000 per year.
Merlone promised to use that money to implement full-day kindergarten, a move that looks to bolster long-term academic performance in the district, which has a major achievement gap.
However, to secure the funding from the state, Merlone said she needed the tax board and the city’s Aldermen to agree to make a long-term “commitment” to full-day kindergarten in Ansonia.
In other words, the city has to agree to absorb the costs for full-day kindergarten “when and if” the state’s grant runs out. That will probably happen in five years — although nothing’s written in stone, school officials said.
School grants in general make the Ansonia tax board nervous because the grant funding disappears, at which time the funding is passed on directly to the city’s struggling taxpayers.
But tax board member Ed Norman said financing the program is doable, provided the city has adequate time to prepare for the expenditure.
The tax board agreed to make the recommendation to the Aldermen — a move that won applause from the packed audience.
More Money
Tax board member Karl Williams made the motion to give the schools a $1 million increase, a move approved unanimously by the seven members of the tax board in attendance.
Williams said public officials have to represent the people — and the people, based on what was said Monday, want the City of Ansonia to spend more money on education.
It’s still not all peaches and cream for Ansonia schools, however.
The district had initially said they needed a $1.8 million increase to run the schools next year. Cuts of some kind are still expected within the schools.
Merlone thanked the tax board for talking to her and deciding, at least as of Thursday, to give the schools some more cash. She shook each board member’s hands, even hugged two of them.
The video below shows the tax board vote. The audio is low because the microphones were not turned on in the Aldermanic Chambers:
A final meeting on the city’s budget is scheduled for Monday.
What’s this going to do to taxes, you ask?
Hard to say for sure, because Ansonia underwent a revaluation this year. New property assessments are all over the place thanks to the reval. Generally, residents with more valuable homes on Ansonia’s hilltop will see their taxes go up, perhaps as much as $1,200.
Car taxes will go up as well.
Multi-family property owners in more densely populated areas could see their taxes go down as much as $1,000.
School officials and parents were happy, in general, that the tax board wants to spend some more money on education.
Parents were fairly organized in Ansonia this year. Sign-up sheets were circulated at Thursday’s meeting, asking for parents’ email addresses and phone numbers.
Parent Saleh Hanaif said city officials need to be convinced that investing in education, while painful in terms of dollars, will result in long-term economic development. People want to move to places that have good school districts, he said.
The tax board, after parents and school officials left the meeting, seemed to be stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
They’d love to give even more cash to the schools, they said — but Ansonia simply doesn’t have it.
They agreed to pull $100,000 out of the city’s reserve to help pay for the additional school allocation.
After the meeting Sturges said he doesn’t see a long-term solution to school funding in Ansonia. If the state continues to give additional money to the schools, that will help, he said.
There had been talk last year about Derby, which has similar financial woes, merging schools with Ansonia, but that discussion seems to have fallen by the wayside, officials said.
A bone of contention among parents and tax board members — no Board of Aldermen showed up at Thursday’s meeting. The lack of Aldermen was mentioned several times by tax board members and it angered Ansonia residents commenting on the Valley Indy Facebook page.
One Ansonia Alderman, John Marini, submitted a guest column overnight Friday in response to the criticism. Click here to read it.
Traditionally, the Aldermen’s finance board starts work on the annual spending plan, then makes a recommendation to the full Board of Aldermen, who then send it to the tax board.
The tax board has the final say.
If the tax board formally adopts next year’s spending plan as proposed, the 3.7 percent increase in funding will be the largest increase given to the schools since at least 2008.
Increases to the school board have averaged 1.37 percent per year since the 2008 – 2009 school year.
The new mill rate will be 39.335, if the newly-tweaked budget is adopted as is.
