School officials from Derby are requesting face time with their counterparts in Ansonia to see if they can save money by consolidating some school services.
There are no concrete plans for the two school districts yet. At this point the two districts haven’t even had a discussion.
Derby School Superintendent Stephen Tracy said he contacted Ansonia Superintendent Carol Merlone several weeks ago to let her know the concept was being tossed around in Derby.
“I’m assuming we’ll let the school year finish, have the students graduate and then, maybe sometime this summer, the school board chairs and Carol and I will sit down and see if there is any interest. That’s really as far as it has gone at this point,” Tracy said.
The discussion could involve a number of areas of potential savings through consolidating some school services, such as central office staff or schools.
“The question is ‘Would there by any interest in cooperating in any way?’” Tracy said. “That could be some type of regional plan where some of their students come here or some of our students go there. We really haven’t done anything at this point other than reach out and say ‘Would you be interested in discussing this?’”
The Derby school district has a large strategic planning committee in place. Its members are creating a five-year plan for Derby schools.
The group is next scheduled to meet June 6 in the library at Derby High School.
A subcommittee of that large group is looking at organizational efficiency within Derby schools. One of the subcommittee’s tasks is to explore ways of saving money in Derby, where educational costs keep increasing.
Ken Marcucio, Sr., president of the Derby school board, reached out to members of the Ansonia school board to discuss regionalization.
At a special meeting on May 17, Merlone told the Ansonia school board that she and board president John Lawlor would be meeting with Derby school officials sometime soon.
Lawlor said he placed the item on the agenda so the board knew about the idea, not to start the board discussion on the matter yet.
The board didn’t otherwise talk about the proposal at the meeting, according to the minutes.
Merlone and Lawlor were unable to be reached for comment Tuesday.
Derby and Ansonia explored combining services some 12 years ago, when Derby was considering building a new high school.
At the time, Ansonia school officials said they were not interested, as did school officials in Oxford, Seymour and Shelton. All the school districts had their own building projects happening.
Ansonia officials had also said the Derby school buildings were “inadequate for regionalization.”
Budget Push
But the economy might make things different this time around.
Both districts received less money than requested for 2011 – 2012, as education and employment costs continue to rise.
In Ansonia, the board had asked for a 3.5 percent, or $900,000, increase over its current budget.
The city gave about $300,000 more, keeping it on the city’s side of the budget to be distributed later.
The Derby school board is scheduled to meet Tuesday to discuss how members will trim about $486,000 from their budget request to the city.
