Clash Over Education Spending on Horizon

Kate Daniello, a leader of a taxpayers' group in town known as "We the People," said Sunday that the group doesn't plan to mount a referendum challenge to the $251.5 million town budget approved Wednesday by the Representative Town Meeting.

But Daniello, whose group collected more than 1,100 signatures last spring in an unsuccessful effort to hold a referendum on this year's budget, said We the People is forming a political action committee and will force a referendum on the 2011-12 town budget if the Board of Education's budget in that year isn't a 0 percent increase.

"What we will be looking for next year is a drop to this year's level, so they get no increase at all," Daniello said. "The next time we go to referendum, we want to go all the way."

Daniello's comments come two days before the Board of Education is scheduled to discuss how to deal with a $3 million cut to its original $144.6 million budget that was made by First Selectman Ken Flatto and then confirmed by the Board of Selectmen and Board of Finance. The Representative Town Meeting isn't allowed to add money to a budget, but decided not to reduce the school board's budget any further.

The school board's budget in 2010-11 is $141.6 million, a 1.4 percent, or $2 million, increase over its current $139.6 million budget.

The school board's meeting is at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Osborn Hill School.

Board of Education Vice Chairman Pam Iacono, who serves as chairman of the school board's Finance, Budget and Community Relations Subcommittee, said the subcommittee is meeting this morning and will present recommendations to the school board Tuesday night on how to deal with the $3 million cut.

Iacono said it was too early to talk about whether a 0 percent increase was possible in the 2011-12 fiscal year because the school board hadn't done an operational audit of its budget and didn't know what the needs of the school district would be in that fiscal year. The school board approved $50,000 in its 2010-11 budget for the audit, but has resisted Flatto's plea that town officials have an oversight role on that audit.

"I don't know if we can do a 0 next year; maybe we can, maybe we can't. It's too early," Iacono said, adding that residents should allow the school board to do its audit and allow incoming Supt. of Schools David Title to assess the needs of the district.

Iacono said teachers and school administrators in bargaining units had accepted 0 percent salary increases in 2010-11, but that wouldn't be the case in the following year, when they will receive 2-percent raises under a contract approved last fall. "At a minimum, we're going to have those contractual obligations," she said. "My feeling is we need to do our homework before we start calling for zeros."

Daniello said the 0-percent raises accepted by teachers and administrators in bargaining units indicates to her that the school board's budget next fiscal year is fatter than it appears. "The teachers took no increase this year so it's more than $2 million they got this year on the backs of teachers," she said. "I was really impressed the teachers did that - it's always the little guy that pays up. We know the waste is at the administrative level, but those guys are tough to get at."

Daniello had little faith that the operational audit would turn up significant savings, saying that an effective audit would cost five times the amount approved by the Board of Education. She said the board ought to hire an audit company that was willing to work on a contingency basis; that would get a percentage of savings it found. But Daniello said she doubted the school board would agree to that, since the audit company would want some level of influence in implementing the savings that it found.

RTM members, before they met last Monday and Tuesday to review and vote on the 2010-11 town budget, said they had heard from a lot of parents who didn't want the Board of Education's budget next fiscal year cut any further.

James Millington, R-9, the RTM's Republican majority leader, announced early in last Monday's meeting that the GOP didn't plan to touch the Board of Education's budget for next fiscal year, and Cristin McCarthy Vahey, D-6, the RTM's Democratic minority leader, agreed.

Nearly all the people who turned out at the RTM's budget meetings last week stood when a member of the audience asked who didn't want the education budget cut any further. But Daniello said We the People's supporters are the elderly, who usually go to bed when night meetings take place, and New York City commuters, who get home from work around 8 p.m. and aren't inclined to follow a tough day in the city with a three-hour meeting.

The economic argument in favor of spending for education - that a good school system attracts residents to town and increases the price of homes - has a flip side, according to Daniello. She said people are less likely to move to towns that have a high tax rate. She also said high taxes force senior citizens out of town, making Fairfield less of a multi-generational town.

Daniello said she hopes the PAC formed by We the People will educate residents about the impact of taxes on the value of their homes. "If taxes go up, the value of your house goes down. You're paying for it twice - in what you pay for taxes and in the value of your house," she said.

Daniello said We the People still has signatures from the 1,100 people who signed a petition to have a budget referendum last spring and that list would serve as a base from which the taxpayers' group could grow.

"The younger parents are really difficult to convince," Daniello said. "I don't want to pit them against me. I hope I can educate them to have a greater understanding of what's at risk here."

Daniello said people recognize there is waste in the Board of Education's budget because no one is against an operational audit of that budget. "Everybody's for this. I just hope and pray it's done correctly, and $50,000 isn't going to do it," she said.

Town boards also approved $50,000 for an operational audit of the townside operating budget, which will be $86.1 million in 2010-11, a 5.7 percent increase over the current level of $81.5 million. But $2.1 million of the $4.6 million increase is due to retiree benefits, which includes payments into town employees' pension funds due to the declining stock market and town officials' decision to invest pension money with Bernie Madoff.

Retiree benefits, before this year, had always been included in the townside operating budget on budget documents. This year, retiree benefits was broken out as its own line item and the rise is 34 percent - from $6.2 million this year to $8.3 million in 2010-11. Without retiree benefits, the townside operating budget rises 3.3 percent, instead of 5.7 percent with the benefits.

Daniello said she thought Republicans did a good job in cutting $193,609 from the townside operating budget in 2010-11, but she was irked that no one on the RTM went through the Board of Education's budget line-by-line to question increases the way they did to town departments.

Annual debt service makes up the rest of the town budget, but it's decreasing by 10.3 percent in 2010-11 - from $26.6 million this year to $23.8 million next fiscal year - and it didn't get mentioned at the RTM meetings.

Holding a referendum isn't easy. To do so, organizers have to collect signatures endorsing a referendum from 5 percent of voters in town and submit them to the Town Clerk's office within 14 days of the RTM's vote to approve the budget. Fairfield has about 37,000 voters, so organizers would have to get signatures from about 1,850 voters in two weeks.