Board of Education to Hold Special Meeting to Finalize Budget

The school board will hold a special meeting later this month, in addition to the one regularly scheduled for June 22, to discuss how to amend its budget to meet the $34.66 million bottom line approved by voters earlier this month.

By waiting until nearly the last day of the fiscal year, school administrators will have a better idea exactly how much was spent and on what during the current fiscal year, Superintendent of Schools William Guzman said.

“The more time we have to finalize this year’s budget numbers, the better off we’ll be able to meet next year’s budget numbers,” he said.

The approved $34.66 million school budget for 2011-12 is $1.36 million less than what the board originally approved in February, although it is 2.53 percent more than the current fiscal year’s budget. This is because of reductions made by the Town Council before and after a series of town wide votes on the school revenue and expenditure package.

The board members will receive the proposed budget changes on June 21, discuss and make changes on June 22 and approve it during the special meeting scheduled for the following week.

If Wednesday’s meeting is any indication of the controversy surrounding the budget, the board has a time-consuming and difficult job in front of it. During public session, Tolland Intermediate School art teacher Sue Bezzina addressed the board with a visual aid representing Tolland school system teaching positions that have been eliminated in recent years.

Holding a horizontal blue rope with four gray vertical ropes attached, Bezzina used the beads attached to the vertical ropes to represent the lost teaching positions in each school. While the three grade schools were shown to have lost multiple positions, Bezzina said the high school had only lost one position in the last year. She suggested if future teaching positions are cut that the board “spread things out a little bit more.”

Bezzina told the board that at the middle school, where students are being prepped for high school, children are not getting the instruction they need, particularly when it comes to technology. She said some students don’t have desks on which to take exams.

“There has got to be a way to restructure the staff… just look at this, it’s not equal. Look things over and look at the real needs and fill the real holes,” she said.

Board of Education Chairman Robert Pagoni acknowledged the difficulty of the board’s decision and said the members consider seriously the consequences of the board’s decisions.

“We don’t make our decisions here in a vacuum,” he said. “It’s not an arbitrary process.”

Several board members repeated a phrase they’ve used for weeks to describe what could be eliminated from the budget: “everything is on the table.”

This includes funding for a contract with the New England School Development Council to provide strategic planning for Tolland schools. According to the proposal briefly discussed on Wednesday, NESDEC has worked with more than 400 communities in New England and would take survey of the school system and provide a strategic plan to maintain excellent educational opportunities and to identify areas of improvement.

While the original proposal listed a cost of $11,696 for NESDEC’s services, the board approved a ceiling of $14,000 in case of unexpected expenses. However, whether the contract is ever signed will depend on which budgetary decisions are made at the end of the month.