Late additions to ed budget

By Patrick L. SullivanSALISBURY — The Board of Education presented to the Board of Finance on Thursday, April 14, a proposed budget that includes $59,119 in last-minute additions.The school board met in a special meeting before the finance board to deal with a series of unexpected developments:• A glitch in a computer program resulted in underbudgeting for fuel oil — by 5,000 gallons.• A faculty member opted to take part in the health insurance plan.• Diesel fuel had to be budgeted at $4 per gallon instead of $3.• Hours for support staff had to be adjusted.The result is a bottom line of $4,802,422, an increase of $172,262, or 3.81 percent. With the Region One assessment of $2,991,037 (down $31,644 or 1.05 percent), the total proposed education spending is $7,793,459 — an increase of 1.89 percent ($144,618).“This is what we need to educate the children,” said Board of Education Chairman Roger Rawlings.Board of Finance Chairman Bill Willis expressed some disappointment, saying the hope had been for the Salisbury Central School budget to come in at around a 2 percent increase.Willis sketched out the town’s financial situation — revenues from things like conveyance taxes and building permits are down about $230,000, and the grand list is down about 5 percent during this revaluation year.Whatever recovery from the 2008 economic meltdown exists, it hasn’t had much effect on Salisbury. “We’ve gone through this for two years. But it [the recovery] is not catching up with us,” Willis said.Carl Williams said the increases were “in my mind, explainable. Everybody in this room knows about fuel prices.”On Tuesday, April 12, the Board of Selectmen presented their budget to the finance board. Proposed municipal spending for 2011-12 is $4,948,508, up $54,691 or 1.1 percent. (See story, this page.)The Board of Finance voted to present the selectmen’s budget proposal and the school board’s budget proposal (the latter with reservations) to public hearing, scheduled for Monday, April 25, 7:30 p.m. at Town Hall. At the public hearing the question of class sizes will likely arise. At a March 29 Board of Education meeting, a large group of parents and faculty expressed their strong opinion that a 22-teacher faculty was necessary. Most of the parents had children who will be in the second grade next year, and were distressed at the idea that the class — projected to be 36 students — would be divided into two sections of 18, rather than the three sections an additional teacher would allow.Prior to the March 28 meeting the board had been working with a budget draft that had 21 teachers and a bottom line increase of 1.57 percent (that was the March 22 version, which included the inaccurate estimate of fuel needs and did not include the additional health insurance policy).