Superintendent Stephen Tracy unveiled a school budget Thursday that asks for a 7 percent increase in funding from the city while also eliminating nine positions within the school district.
Tracy’s budget asks the city for $18.9 million to operate the school district during the 2011 – 2012 school year. That’s a $1.25 million increase.
The school board will convene several times this month to consider Tracy’s budget before it gets passed to the city’s tax board.
Federal dollars in Tracy’s budget is projected to fall by 9 percent.
Tracy called this budget, coupled with the tough budgets of the last few years, a “slow motion disaster” for Derby Public Schools.
THE LAYOFFS
If adopted as is, the following layoffs would take place:
- Full-day kindergarten would be eliminated, with two teachers and two paraprofessionals losing their jobs.
- Two teachers would be laid off in grades one through five
- Two classroom positions would be eliminated at Derby High School
- A special education paraprofessional would be laid off at the high school
- The sports budget would be reduced by $14,500 to $187,000
A copy of the superintendent’s presentation to the school board is posted below. Article continues after the document.
“There is no padding in this budget,” Tracy told school board members.
THE INCREASE
The $1.25 million spending increase can be broken down as follows:
First, Tracy listed what he called things the district has little or no control over. Those items total $950,000:
Wages: Increasing by $91,000
Benefits: Increasing by $408,000 (including an expected Anthem premium increase of 15 percent)
Energy: Increasing by $211,000 (number could decrease once the savings from the newly installed electricity-generating turbines at the middle school are realized)
Unemployment: $147,000
Transportation: $22,000
Special Education tuition: $21,000
Substitute teachers: $50,000
Next, the superintendent listed $329,000 in program improvements ranging from summer school to technology infrastructure upgrades.
$950,000 fixed costs + $329,000 in program improvements = the $1.2 million increase in school funding.
IS THIS BUDGET DOA?
Last March, the school board sent the Derby tax board a budget that carried a 7 percent increase. The school board discussed it with the tax board in April. Tax board members listened, but didn’t ask questions or have much to say.
Then the tax board gave the school a 1.6 percent increase.
That created concern among Derby parents, who showed up to protest the funding extremely late in the budget process.
At Thursday’s meeting, about four parents were on hand.
Tracy told parents that waiting until May or June to get involved in the school budget is too late. He told them to start attending Derby tax board meetings immediately.
Tracy also said there have been questions in the community as to why the school district can’t simply offer a flat budget, given the horrendous economy.
Tracy’s presentation, posted above, shows that a zero percent increase would eliminate all sports, music and art programs from the district — in addition to a slew of other cuts.
