Nine jobs — including six teaching positions — along with boys basketball, soccer and cheerleading at the middle and high schools could be eliminated under a 2011 – 2012 budget under consideration by the Derby school board.
The school board is scheduled to vote on its budget tonight (Tuesday, March 1) at a meeting starting at 6:30 p.m. at Derby Middle School.
The budget will then go to the members of Derby Board of Apportionment and Taxation, who are scheduled to review the school budget April 5 and April 7.
The budget, depending on how much money allocated by the tax board, will then return to the school board for final adoption.
The school board has been reviewing Superintendent Stephen Tracy’s budget since Feb. 3. The bottom line has changed slightly since then.
Even though the budget calls for layoffs, the proposed, $18.6 million spending plan is a $1.23 million — or 6.94 percent— increase over the current budget. About $950,000 of the increase goes to what Tracy called non-discretionary items, such as wages and benefits dictated by contracts. Click here for more information on the spending increase.
Click here for a PDF of the school board’s Feb. 3 meeting, where the budget was unveiled.
In addition to the layoffs and the losses in the athletic department, school officials are also considering eliminating all-day kindergarten.
At a school board meeting Monday, Chantal Gerckens, a mother of three and part-time school employee, said eliminating all-day kindergarten would be a disservice to Derby’s children — and burden families where both parents work.
Gerckens was one of just two members of the public who attended the meeting.
During Monday’s meeting, school board members seemed frustrated trying to find ways to reduce the amount of money they will be asking from the city.
Board member Christine Robinson asked whether they could cut the maintenance budget for the school custodians in half. She also suggested asking the city’s Department of Public Works if they could lend a hand with sanding and salting when it snows as a way for the schools to save money.
“I’m not ready to take anything from these kids,” Robinson said.
School board vice-chairman Andrew Mancini asked whether the school district’s central office really needed a human resources director at $54,000 annually. He suggested perhaps the duties of that position could be distributed among other central office workers.
Business manager Pamela Mangini said it would be “extremely problematic” to try to re-assign those duties to other people.
Mancini also questioned whether an art teacher’s position at one the elementary schools could be eliminated as a way to save money.
In all, school board members threw out some 25 ideas as to how to skim their request, including stopping the practice of sending report cards to parents through the mail.
The administrators will be reviewing the impact of those requests Tuesday and report back at tonight’s meeting.
The school district is also offering an early retirement incentive this year. So far eight veteran teachers have said they want to participate.
The idea is to replace those teachers with less experienced teachers, who do not make as much money.
However, the district really won’t start seeing a savings on that until a few years down the road.
In addition, the nine layoffs proposed earlier this month are still on the table even with the incentive program, Tracy said.
