In an effort to reduce their 2011 – 2012 budget, the Oxford School Board is considering switching about nine full-time clerical workers in the district to part-time, officials said Wednesday.
Oxford voters rejected the town and school budgets at a May 17 referendum.
The town’s Finance Board then trimmed the school budget by $420,000.
A second referendum on the $25.9 million school budget is scheduled for June 7.
On Wednesday night, a school board subcommittee held a workshop to figure out how to squeeze $420,000 from their spending plan.
The full Oxford Board of Education will meet 8 p.m. Thursday (June 2) to further discuss and possibly act on the recommendations of its subcommittee.
Switching the nine clerical workers from full-time to part-time would save some $125,000. Those workers would lose benefits, officials said.
It was not something the members of the subcommittee took lightly.
“If we don’t do what we need to do with the clerical, we’d have to cut teaching positions,” said Rose McKinnon, chairwoman of the Board of Education.
The Oxford subcommittee also discussed instituting a so-called “pay-to-play” policy for sports, band and theater at Oxford High School. Such programs are becoming increasingly popular as education costs skyrocket.
Officials talked about a $75 fee per activity — but a cap of $300 on a family.
“Pay-to-play” could generate some $43,000 in revenue for the school district.
Some towns charge much more than $75 per activity.
“This isn’t unreasonable. This is a very reasonable charge,” McKinnon said.
Identical Issue In Derby
Several school board members asked the Valley Indy not to report the information about the clerical workers because they said the information was preliminary and that the workers had not been informed.
School board members also declined to share a document detailing the areas of adjustment with the Valley Indy after the meeting.
Meanwhile, the Derby School Board Wednesday held an almost identical workshop about its 2011 – 2012 budget.
The Derby school superintendent talked openly about his recommendations, which also included making several full-time teaching positions part-time. Derby is considering laying off a teacher and a paraprofessional.
The Derby superintendent gave a copy of his proposal after the meeting to both the Valley Indy and the New Haven Register.
Seymour, where it took three attempts to get a school budget approved, is struggling with the same issues as Oxford.
