Derby Schools Cut Two Teaching Positions, Institute One-Day Furlough

DERBY — The Board of Education voted Tuesday to eliminate two elementary-level teaching positions and to ask all employees to take a one-day furlough in the upcoming school year.

Eliminating the teaching positions saves the school district $141,000 while the forced day off saves another $139,500.

The move comes after the Derby tax board voted in June to flat-fund the school district for the second year in a row.

School officials had requested a $555,201 increase to their $18.6 million budget. The increase was needed, school officials said, to cover escalating special education costs and routine contractual obligations, such as those tied to union and transportation agreements.

The school board spent an hour of a meeting Tuesday going over list of budget reductions that totaled about $555,000.

While the two positions will be eliminated, the two teachers employed in those positions may have the opportunity to work elsewhere in the district. One person could fill a teaching vacancy at the high school while the other person could possibly fill a grant-funded position having to do with a gifted and talented program.

The furlough means the upcoming school year will be 182 days instead of 183. State law requires at least 180 days of school.

The furlough will need to be approved by the school district’s labor unions.

The school district is also shuffling positions supported by alliance district funding to save somewhere in the neighborhood of $170,000.

Derby schools are an alliance district, a state program that provides extra funding for the state’s most under-performing schools.

The money must be approved by the state and go toward school-reform efforts.

School officials have credited the alliance district funding with improving Derby schools. 

The school board and district administrators have been working each year to gradually absorb the alliance-funded positions into the district’s regular operating budget, which is paid for by local taxes.

However, because of the budget crunch, the school board is now taking a number of items that had transitioned from alliance grant funding to the operating budget — and moving them back to alliance grant funding.

Example — a tutoring position at the Irving School was originally created through alliance district funding, but was then absorbed (or most of the funding for it anyway) into the operating budget. Now the school is relying on the alliance grant to fund that position again.

The state will have to review those changes, Superintendent Matthew Conway said.

This year’s budget cycle in Derby was problematic, because city officials announced in April that they had discovered past budgeting mistakes with the way the city recorded alliance district grants. Click here for more info. An audit detailed a number of flaws in the way the city and the school district handles its books.

Ultimately the tax board voted to add 2.5 mills to the mill rate to correct the past mistakes.

Here is a list of budget items that were reduced:

The school board also reduced the budget for substitute teachers, reduced custodian overtime, and Conway opted to forgo a $5,700 salary increase.

The school board also voted to reduce office supplies, which prompted school board member Janine Netto to ask a question.

Is it going to be like, OK teacher, here are your five pieces of paper’?” she asked.

Mark Izzo, the school district’s business manager, said yes, the district’s central office will be counting paper to cut costs.

I could have a hard discussion in May when Irving School says Hey, we have to get ready for an event’ and I have to say You can’t have paper.’ It may happen,” Izzo said. I’m being honest with you.”

The school board’s new adopted budget totaled $18,615,217.

These are all tough decisions. We’ve lost six or seven teachers through the years,” school board chairman Jim Gildea said. Our class sizes have increased through the years. We’re cutting back on maintenance and on cleaning. We’re hoping we’ll get concessions (from the union) and the state will accept our plan. None of this is easy, but this is a roadmap for now and we’ll have to assess where we are as we move along.”

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