Instead of voting on a dollar amount to request from the city’s tax board, school officials Tuesday opted to take more time to review their options.
Superintendent Stephen Tracy has recommended an $18.9 million budget to run the schools next year. That’s a $1.23 million — or 6.9 percent — increase over the current budget.
The budget includes layoffs — nine current positions will be cut. In addition, the budget will cut the district’s full-day kindergarten program to a half-day program.
It’s a painful budget — yet delivering a budget carrying a 6.9 percent increase to the city’s tax board just won’t fly, some school board members think. They have good reason to assume that, since the school board requested a 7 percent increase last year. The tax board allocated a 3 percent increase.
What’s the magic number then?
School board president Ken Marcucio, Sr. said board members told him they want to try for a 5 percent budget-to-budget increase.
School board member Kimberly Kreiger disagreed, saying Derby has historically been underfunded. School board members were staring at a budget that proposed to layoff school teachers — and yet school board members were still trying to find areas of the budget to chop.
Her feeling — enough’s enough. Send it to the tax board.
“We have an obligation to adequately fund this school district,” Kreiger said.
The school board met for several hours at the middle school Tuesday trying to trim their request to the city. After a 15-minute break in budget discussions, board member Andrew Mancini proposed that the school board table the matter.
Mancini told the Valley Indy the school board wanted more time to weigh the options.
By the time the school board suspended budget talks, they had considered trimming next year’s budget request to $18,864,855 — a 6.37 percent increase over the current budget. That budget number would have included about $40,000 to make sure that boys basketball and soccer — along with cheerleading — were kept alive at the middle and high schools.
However, the school board did not take action.
