Three people will lose their jobs under budget cuts approved by the Board of Education Monday night.
The budget cuts eliminate more than seven positions from the district, but several of those are already vacant due to retirements, according to Superintendent MaryAnne Mascolo.
The board debated for two hours how to trim about $357,000 from its budget.
The district had initially requested $31.3 million for 2012 – 2013, but after three failed budget referendums — and the cuts that came after each — voters finally approved a $30.39 million budget.
While that’s still a 2 percent increase over current spending, school officials said it’s not enough to cover the needs of the district.
So something had to be cut.
And during the debate Monday, nothing was off the table.
Board members tossed around ways they might cut an administrator (the board decided it wasn’t feasible), how cost effective pay to participate might be (the board decided Seymour wouldn’t support the move) and whether specific positions, such as secretaries or a new technology specialist were something the district could do without.
In the end, the board decided to go with a proposal that would eliminate 7.65 positions from the district.
Several are vacant due to retirements, or because they were proposed positions that hadn’t been filled.
So the end result is three people getting laid off from positions.
The positions cut were:
- School Counselor
- School Nurse
- Elementary Teacher
- SRBI Teacher (provides extra help in certain subjects)
- 2 Language Arts Consultants
- Special Education Teacher
- Library/Media Specialist
- Math Coordinator at the Seymour High School.
The district also added a World Language Teacher at the high school, and increased the schedule of a school psychologist at the middle school.
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The board also decided to put off several maintenance projects to save money, and trim other budgets, such as the one for postage stamps, in order to fill in the gaps.
Board of Education chairman Yashu Putorti encouraged board members to bring up all the comments they had heard from voters during the budget season in an effort to evaluate all areas of the budget and address why they don’t want to cut certain line items.
“I want everything on the table,” Putorti said. “I want no elephants in the room when we’re finished. Everything is on the table and everything needs to be discussed.”
The biggest elephant: Whether the district should cut an administrator.
That’s what several members of the public had called for in explaining their repeated no votes at referendum.
But because the administrators would bump down less senior members of the unions —- and at their same salary — Putorti said the elimination of an administrator this year wouldn’t create enough cost savings to justify the move.
But Putorti said the Board of Education will work in the upcoming years to evaluate union contracts and every position to make sure there aren’t extra ones.
And, Putorti said, the Board of Education will work better to communicate with the public about its efforts — such as grant money some administrators bring into the district.
“We will start next year on a new road,” Putorti said.
Two board members — Saundra Gesek and Jay Hatfield — voted against the budget cuts because they disagreed with some of the places the budget was being cut.
