Tolland Board of Education Approves Superintendent's Budget

At a meeting Wednesday night, the approved the superintendent's proposed 2011-12 operating budget of $36.02 million, which is a 6.53 percent increase over the current year.

Last year, the Board of Education had a 1 percent budget increase. The year before that, they had a zero increase.

Board member Judith Grabowicz said that the town could not be compared to other communities in terms of budget. “Other communities didn’t have a zero and one percent budget increase in back to back years,” she said.

“Their reality is that they might be spending $1,000 to $2,000 per student,” said Grabowicz. “Our resources now are different.” 

Opening the budget portion of the agenda, Superintendent William D. Guzman presented eight pages of responses to some of the questions that board members posed after his initial presentation of the budget. Five of those pages addressed the programs and classes that are no longer offered at Tolland schools from previous years. 

“It’s impractical to think that we’re going to be able to bring back all of those positions,” Guzman said.

Grabowicz said that she could not support reinstating funds for athletics proposed in the new budget, while shortchanging the academics. “I can’t continue to ignore that we’re not adding positions at the high school,” she said. “We’ve decimated the program at the middle school.”

was arguably the hardest hit by cuts in teaching positions and programs. “Last year, we lost four world languages at the middle school,” said Guzman.

He said that Principal Walt Willett has been working with the fiscal constraints and seems to have found a workable solution with two world language teachers working under a seventh-period schedule. “The idea of bringing back four world language teachers with that new schedule is not necessary,” said Guzman. He wondered, however, at what point would the district be able to offer languages other than French and Spanish, like Chinese and Japanese. 

“We’re looking at online programs, so that is an opportunity at a low-cost methodology to exposing students to more coursework at the high school,” Guzman said. 

Chairperson Robert Pagoni said that the cuts and changes to the system at the middle school in the last year are the worst he has seen in his eight years on the board. Addressing Principal Willett, he said, “When you came in, you thought…’we have the program, we have the staff.’ We have trashed your system, and that’s an absolute shame.”

He criticized those in the community who have not taken the time to get engaged and show up for meetings that address school budgets to have a voice in keeping critical programs and faculty. 

The last board meeting that addressed changing February vacation, for example, was packed with concerned parents. However, school faculty and staff primarily made up the sparse audience at last night’s meeting. “We have people who come out worried about their vacations, but they don’t come out when it comes to the budget process,” Grabowicz said. 

“The voters who decided not to fund these programs trashed it,” she clarified. “Walt [Willett] is bending over backwards to make sure our students get the same quality of education.”

“[By cutting all these programs and staff], we’re just going to get too far behind,” said Pagoni. “It’s going to start to show on the CMTs and SATs.” As a result, he said, it would affect where Tolland students would be able to get into college.

“Unfortunately, even if we can recover the program, we can’t recover the student,” said Board member Steve Clark. “Once that student moves on [to the next grade], they’re never going to get that opportunity again.”

“Those opportunities are lost. Period,” said Pagoni. 

With the demographics of the town changing, Grabowicz said, “I am hoping that other board members will support these changes.”

“We haven’t been funding book replacements and program materials, in addition to cutting staff positions. I don’t want to eliminate anything,” she said.

She said that she was in favor of a one percent reduction of the budget at most, banking on cost reductions coming in the form of changes in medical insurance premiums, which contribute more than $1 million of $2.2 million budget increase.

Pagoni asked if there was any cost associated with sending Steven May, a paid consultant the town uses for health insurance purposes, out to bid another time. Guzman said that a new insurance company would hesitate to offer the district a bulk rate after it has switched insurance providers three times in the past five years.

“We’re damaging our credibility every time we change,” said board member Karen Bresciano.

Grabowicz suggested leaving the athletic programs as they are for the current year, while reinstating several math, reading and paraprofessional positions. The desire and need for other programs previously offered, like the Right of Passage Experience, or ROPE, program, were also discussed at length among board members.

The superintendent suggested that discussions about where to potentially re-appropriate funds could be held further along in the budget process when it knows what the actual figures will be.

The Board agreed to adopt the superintendent's proposed budget as is, 7-1. Clark opposed it.

“We put together a budget. Our job is to provide what we think is a sound, hopefully great, education for the students of Tolland,” said Vice Chairperson Dr. Gayle Block.

Block said she supported the superintendent’s budget, yet recognized that the Board would have more of these types of conversations after the budget passes through to the town council, the town manager and ultimately to the town citizens. 

“Then we’ll have the numbers we have to work with,” said Guzman.