Danehy: closing a school building could be illegal

WINSTED — With the Board of Selectmen discussing the formation of a committee to look into the feasibility of closing a school building, Superintendent of Schools Thomas Danehy sent the board a letter June 28 noting that closing a school building would be improper and potentially illegal.“The Board of Education requires the use of all existing buildings,” Danehy wrote. “The most significant reason is we need the space in order to create programs that will allow the return of out-of-district students into our school system. This will reduce out of district tuition and related transportation costs — our biggest and most volatile expenses, and one of the few remaining areas from which to create greater efficiencies and cost-saving measures.”The letter is co-signed by Board of Education Chairman Susan Hoffnagle along with members Richard Dutton, Christine Royer, Joseph Hanecak, Brian Shaughnessy and Mariellen Valyo. Members Carol Palomba and James Roberts did not sign the letter.Danehy noted the state has designated Winchester as one of Connecticut’s 30 underperforming Alliance Districts.“The Minimum Budget Requirement (MBR) cannot be reduced for an Alliance District,” Danehy wrote. “Therefore, closing a school would not reduce the town’s obligation to fund the MBR. So if some members of the Board of Selectmen want to close a school to lower the MBR, then that goal is not only unattainable, but also illegal.”Danehy wrote that the town would not see any savings in capital repairs if a school building was closed.“The town is responsible for capital repairs to the school buildings despite the fact that, other than advancing dollars for which it was ultimately reimbursed, it has not paid for any capital improvements in an exceedingly long time,” Danehy wrote. “Therefore, the savings to the town from having one less building can charitably only be considered theoretical savings.”Danehy added that if the town did close a school building it would still have to pay money for its upkeep. “The town’s budget would have to be stretched to provide for utilities, insurance and maintenance on the vacant building,” Danehy wrote. “One would hope that someone would mow the grass and keep the building from becoming an eyesore. The town could re-purpose the building, if it could find the dollars to renovate. It could sell or lease the building with perhaps more success than has been the case with other town owned properties. Perhaps someone already has development plans for Batcheller. It would be nice to know if those plans benefit the town or only certain individuals.”At the end of his letter, Danehy said investigating the closure of a school building is a distraction to the town.“As we look at the needs of the district, we are grateful to have adequate space to create new programs and to provide individualized attention to needy students,” Danehy wrote. “Continued diversion of time and energy defending the use of our school buildings benefits no one. We certainly cannot dictate that the selectmen not commence another review of an issue that our consultant and the community so recently analyzed in depth. We did want to go on record that we do not support a new study, particularly one focused solely on economics.”The debate over closing one of the school district’s three buildings started in November 2010 when the previous Board of Education discussed closing one of the district buildings following the school board’s decision to move the town’s seventh and eighth grades to Winsted’s semi-private high school, The Gilbert School.In April 2011 the school board decided to keep all three buildings open for the 2011-2012 school year.Selectman Kenneith Fracasso contends the school board promised to close a school building as part of its reconfiguration and has said this year that he will not vote to approve a budget until the Board of Education votes to close a building.Fracasso has said the closing of a school building would save the town money, while Mayor Maryann Welcome has strongly disagreed, saying there are too many associated costs to achieve a meaningful savings.

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