Public hearing on '08 regional budget April 4 at high school

Taxpayers will get their last chance to ask questions about the proposed budget of the Region One school district at a public hearing on Wednesday, April 4, at Housatonic Valley Regional High School in Falls Village.

At a meeting earlier this month, the Region One Board of Education officially gave its stamp of approval to a $13.2-million proposed budget for next year. The 2007-08 spending package, which is a 4.97-percent increase over this year’s budget, will face further voter scrutiny at a region-wide referendum May 8.

The fiscal year begins July 1.

In order to keep the spending increase under 5 percent, the board had to cut programs. The principal reason cuts were necessary is the purchased services line of the Pupil Services Office, which is expected to increase by almost 80 percent as a result of the addition of a handful of disabled students whose needs cannot be met without placement to private institutions. Including transportation costs for those students, the purchased services line will rise to about $1.4 million.

Pupil Services and the Central Office, which serves all six of the regional towns, both made spending reductions deemed acceptable to the board.

Last month the board voted unanimously to scale back the family and consumer science program at the high school and cut funds from a host of smaller high school line items such as library books, computers and field trips. The savings was $80,418.

The proposed Region One budget, which includes Pupil Services, the Central Office and the high school, stands at $13,210,862, or a 4.97 percent increase over this year.

Before the recent rounds of cuts, the increase stood at 7.25 percent. The proposed high school budget is $7,764,755, or a 1.79 percent rise; Pupil Services ($4,456,427, a rise of 11.54 percent); and the Central Office ($859,681, a rise of 1.71 percent).

The Region One public hearing will be in the high school auditorium at 7 p.m. on April 4.