Mr. Vaccaro has a short memory!
Mr. Vaccaro conveniently forgets why the Board of Education has been forced to assert its autonomy from Ansonia City hall and the Mayor’s office!
As President of the Board of Alderman in 2017 I oversaw the 2017 – 2018 budget process. Alderman Stowe and the Finance Committee did an excellent job of painstakingly interviewing all city departments to come up with a well balanced and fair budget.
I attended these meetings often filling in for the occasional absent committee member. Neither Mr. Vaccaro or the Mayor attended these meetings. After this exhaustive process of six months the 2017 – 2018 budget was finally put together.
When voted on by the full Board of Aldermen the vote was 12 to 1 with all Republican Aldermen voting for the budget!
The budget that they voted for included $31,860,000 dollars for the Board of Education. $31,860,000 was established as the Minimum Budget Requirement (MBR) for that year as described by Connecticut State Law!
During the budget process there was no discussion of a loan or any other remittance that needed to be paid back to the City! There was no signed agreement, no verbal promise made to the city by the Board of Education!
The term “Loan” is a fiction created by the Mayors office to justify the January 2018 vote by the Board of Alderman to rescind $600,000 from the Board of Education half way
through the school year!
The reason for my solitary no vote against taking the $600,000 back was based on my knowledge that the vote was a violation of Connecticut State law!
The State Law regarding the MBR is absolute and the Mayor’s office is determined to find that out at great legal expense to the Ansonia Taxpayer!
In addition to the Illegal reduction of the Board of Education’s budget Mr. Vaccaro’s Mayor has been on a non-stop campaign of speaking despairingly of the Board of Education and the Superintendent of Schools, including his comments on WPLR!
When all of the above is taken into consideration it is little wonder why the Board of Education must defend themselves from an antagonistic City Hall.
The same City Hall that strangely enough just two weeks after the illegal vote to reduce the Board of Education budget by $600,000 announced they had $441,000 to jump start the Wakelee Avenue Street paving project. Strange coincidence!
The writer represents the city’s Second Ward on the Ansonia Board of Aldermen.
Editor’s Note: I inserted the incorrect hyperlink to this story from our front page Wednesday morning. It was online for about 2 hours before I realized the mistake. I apologize. It was not intentional. — Eugene Driscoll.
