Supt. of Schools' Proposed $148.5M Budget Faces Little Challenge From Board of Ed

Supt. of Schools David G. Title's recommended $148.5 million Board of Education budget for 2011-12 didn't face a significant challenge from school board members Tuesday night.

But First Selectman Ken Flatto, who spoke after school board members discussed Title's proposed budget for about two hours, wasn't as accommodating.

"You know this is not going to be an easy process," Flatto said to Title and eight elected and volunteer school board members in a second-floor conference room in the Education Center, 501 Kings Highway East. "The number appears to be higher than 80 to 90 percent of every Fairfield County district. Most districts are lower."

Flatto suggested that the Board of Education prepare per-capita comparisons with other school districts for town boards that will vote on the proposed 2011-12 education budget, which rises 4.9 percent, or $6.9 million, from this year's budget of $141.6 million. "Try to cull that information and explain where we stand in that regard," Flatto said.

Flatto said non-certified staffing, as it compares with other school districts, needs to be presented to the three town boards that will vote on the Board of Education's proposed budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. "This is going to be a difficult budget. Make no mistake about it," he said.

Pam Iacono, vice chairman of the Board of Education, didn't let Flatto's comments go unchallenged. Iacono said teachers in many school districts accepted 0 percent salary increases in 2011-12, which Fairfield's teachers had accepted this fiscal year. "That's why they came in lower than ours," she said.

This year's Board of Education budget had risen 1.4 percent from the 2009-10 budget, though that was after the Board of Selectmen cut $3 million from it and the town's Board of Finance left the cut in place.

Title, in response to a question from school board member Tim Kery, said from 4 percent to 4.5 percent of the overall 4.9 percent increase was fixed and there was nothing the board could do about it. The fixed costs include contractual salary increases for Board of Education employees, rising health insurance costs, increased pension fund contributions, higher special education costs and a total of six new hires that Title said are needed for additional enrollment at the middle school and high school levels.

"You're somewhere between 4 and 4 and-a-half before you take out the pencil," Title said, adding later in the evening that salaries and benefits for Board of Education employees account for 78 percent of the proposed budget.

The 4.9 percent increase drops to 4.54 percent when the state's Education Cost Sharing grant is factored in. That grant is going to the town this year instead of to the Board of Education, Title said. "4.54 percent is what the town would need to fund," he said.

Two school board members - Catherine Albin and Sue Dow - expressed concern over Title's proposal to save $500,000 by pushing the start time to 7:30 a.m. at both Fairfield Ludlowe High School and Fairfield Warde High School. The savings are achieved because the district won't need as many school buses if bus drivers can do more than one route.

"It's really in our interest to have as many three-tiered buses as possible," Title said, referring to a school bus that does elementary, middle and high school runs. "That's the Holy Grail. If we're able to do more runs with each bus, we can reduce the total number of buses."

Albin said the issue of enabling high school students to get enough sleep was an emotional one in town, and she wanted Title to be prepared to respond to parents' concerns about pushing the high school start time to 7:30 a.m. She said board members heard several years ago that the ideal start time for high school was 9 a.m.

Ludlowe High now starts at 7:40 a.m., while Warde High now starts at 7:50 a.m.

Title said moving the start time to 7:30 a.m. would cut early dismissals for athletics by 50 percent, not to mention save the district $500,000 by having to run fewer buses. "You can argue that sleeping an extra 10 minutes, an extra 20 minutes is helpful, but there are advantages, operationally, to it," he said of a 7:30 a.m. high school start time. "Had the savings come back and it was $20,000, I would not stick my neck out."

"I know it's a huge issue, but I felt obligated to cost it out," Title added. "If the board chooses not to do it and wants to put $500,000 back in, that's your call. In the context of the budget, it's looking for ways to save money to keep our program going."

Dow said she wouldn't support moving the start time at the high schools to 7:30 a.m. "Kids need the sleep, even if it is 10 minutes or 20 minutes," she said.

School officials saved $209,388 in disability insurance - from $318,888 this year to $109,500 in 2011-12 - by going to a different vendor, Title said. "The bids are all substantially lower than what we have now. There's no change in coverage, we're just going to change the vendor," he said.

Title said he didn't address everything he wanted to address in the proposed budget. He said the purchase of Smart Boards aren't included in his proposed budget even though an inequity exists among schools with the technology. "We know there is an inequity there. We just couldn't remedy it. We just don't have the funds to remedy all the inequities," he said. "My real, overall goal here was to preserve our excellent instructional program...keep our class sizes and programs in place. The net staff increase is six. The enrollment increase is 80."

"A lot of this budget is to preserve what we have, which is really good," Title said.

Title said Tom Cullen, the school district's director of operations, had requested four times as many maintenance projects than appeared in the proposed budget. A funding request of $250,000 to renovate bathrooms at Dwight School - rejected in each of the past two years by town boards - wasn't even put forward this year because bathrooms at Jennings School were found to be in more dire need of repairs, Cullen said.

Cullen said $810,000 worth of "Priority One" maintenance projects hadn't been included in Title's proposed budget.

Title said he saved about $100,000 by opening up more pre-school slots at the Early Childhood Center and at Burr Elementary, which he said might also reduce McKinley School's racial imbalance if pre-schoolers stayed at Burr for elementary school. The savings actually come from having parents pay tuition on a sliding scale, though low-income parents still will not have to pay.

Iacono received assurance from Title that Fairfield would continue to offer full-day and extended-day kindergarten and that the program would be blended if enough children did not enroll to have two separate programs.

The Board of Education is scheduled to discuss Title's proposed budget again at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the Education Center, 501 Kings Highway East. Title's "brown bag lunch" with parents, which was cancelled Tuesday due to inclement weather, was rescheduled to noon Friday in the Education Center.

The Board of Education is scheduled to vote on Title's proposed budget at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Education Center, and it will then head to Flatto, who will adjust it and incorporate it into his overall recommended town budget for 2011-12. Flatto's overall proposed town budget, scheduled to be unveiled by Flatto in in early February, will face votes by the Board of Selectmen, Board of Finance and Representative Town Meeting.