As President of the Board of Aldermen, I would like to see a speedy resolution of the budgetary dispute between the City of Ansonia and its Board of Education. The problem is that a resolution must be based on facts – not threats, intimidation and bullying tactics.
Here are the facts.
The Board of Aldermen allocated an additional $600,000 to the schools last year to make up for the anticipated loss of the Alliance District grant in the state budget. When the state budget was set months later, the Board of Education unexpectedly received $1.4 million in additional Alliance grant dollars and a Priority District grant in an amount over $400,000. That’s over $1.8 million in unanticipated state aid to the schools for 2017 – 2018. The Board of Aldermen therefore reduced the Board of Education’s 2017 – 2018 budget by $600,000 pursuant to a Public Act that allows a budgetary amendment based on unanticipated state aid.
Here is where it gets murky:
The Board of Education is now claiming that, despite the $1.8 million in additional grant funds, it needs the $600,000 restored in this year’s budget to address a shortfall. It also wants the funds restored for the purpose of permanently increasing the Board of Education’s budget by $600,000, raising the so-called “minimum budget requirement.” City officials have responded by repeatedly requesting more budgetary information to verify the shortfall and determine how the schools have been spending the funds, but to no avail. In fact, I sent a letter again requesting additional budgetary information last week.
In response, the Board of Education’s legal counsel informed me in a letter dated June 1, 2018 that “the BOA has no authority to order the Board [of Education] to provide anything in addition to the significant amount of financial information that the Board has already provided to you in fully fulfilling its statutory obligation to provide “an itemized estimate of the cost of maintenance of public schools for the ensuing year.
By “significant information already provided,” the BOE’s attorney apparently means an approximately 44 page budget summary that is simply insufficient to evaluate the credibility of claimed shortfall.
There is no denying that the Board of Education is making serious claims. However, I find it extremely troubling that our school leaders are unable to backup these claims with serious facts and documentation, preferring instead to use lawyers to make us feel intimidated about doing the right thing and requesting the necessary public documents that other BOE’s around the state share as a normal course of business with the city and taxpayers who fund them.
Ansonia’s elected leaders must spend taxpayer funds on facts, not emotions. We have to do what’s right for all taxpayers and ensure we are making decisions based on a thorough review of all the information. I therefore urge the Board of Education’s leadership to immediately share the public information that has been requested so that we can resolve this budgetary dispute for the good of all residents. If there is a deficit, the taxpayers have a right to know where that deficit is. Wouldn’t it be a lot easier and more cost effective to share information with the taxpayers? As Aldermen we have to ask ourselves “Don’t we have a right to that??
Lorie Vaccaro
The writer is President of the Ansonia Board of Aldermen.
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