Region One budget hearing is set for April 2

FALLS VILLAGE — The Region One Board of Education voted Thursday, March 20, to present a $15,150,377 budget proposal to a public hearing Wednesday, April 2, 6 p.m. at Housatonic Valley Regional High School.The budget proposal for 2014-15 has an increase of 4.92 percent, or $709,805, over the 2013-14 budget.There were four “yes” votes — from Phil Hart (Cornwall), Ned Gow (North Canaan), Jennifer Weigel (Salisbury) and Chairman Andrea Downs (Falls Village).Jonathan Moore of Kent voted “no.”There was no Sharon representative at the meeting. Marilyn Yerks resigned from the board last week, and the alternate, Michele Pastre, had another commitment.Downs said she had spoken with Pastre to get her opinion on where the budget process was going.If the proposed budget passes a referendum vote in May, two of the six towns in Region One would see a reduction in their assessment, and four would have an increase.Cornwall’s assessment would be $1,444,420 (down $41,302) and Salisbury’s would be $3,049,778 (down $140,433).Sharon’s cost would jump $332,436 to $2,494,632. North Canaan’s assessment would rise $320,503 to $4,500,576. Kent would have to absorb an increase of $143,208 for a total of $2,465,786, and Falls Village’s assessment would rise $95,401 to $1,195,184.The regional board has worked on the budget proposal since January, and an informal consensus has emerged — that if the overall increase in the budget proposal could be kept under 5 percent, then the proposal would be politically viable and a repeat of last year’s seven referendum votes could be avoided.The Region One budget has three component parts — the high school, Pupil Services (which includes special education) and the Regional Schools Services Center (RSSC).To get to the 5 percent or less mark, the regional board agreed to some but not all of the requests for staffing and technology at the high school, and deferred some building maintenance requests.The RSSC budget proposal was consistently down about $16,000 (about 1.5 percent) in the various iterations of the budget proposal.The big change was in Pupil Services, where Director Carl Gross decided that a retiring teacher could be replaced by existing staff and not a newly hired person.“It was a matter not of sharpening our pencil, but of casting a wide net,” Gross told the board.In the same spirit, Region One Business Manager Sam Herrick read off a list of 14 items from the budget proposal that added up to an additional $6,645 in savings.During a discussion of technology requests, Moore noted that the board has spent considerable sums in recent years on technology, and wondered aloud if the money was well-spent.“I’m personally not convinced that teachers should be making these decisions,” Moore said.“I disagree,” said Weigel.There are still some questions. When information technology staffer Jonathan Warren left earlier in the school year, he was replaced in the short-term by a consultant — and Herrick said that arrangement cannot continue indefinitely.In the current proposal, the budgeted amount for the IT position is $55,000. Herrick said a job posting with that salary attracted three applicants.All three were interviewed, and the candidate who was offered the job turned it down because the salary is too low.Herrick said one option might be to ask the teachers union if they are willing to reopen their contract to include the IT position.