Selectmen in conflict over proposed budget

WINSTED — Disunity among town officials was pronounced this week, as members of the Board of Selectmen wrote conflicting letters to area newspapers regarding the proposed $30.7 million budget going to referendum May 28.Three Republicans, Ken Fracasso, Karen Beadle and Glenn Albanesius, have formed a coalition with one Democrat, Lisa Smith, in agreeing to cut more than $2.8 million from the Board of Education’s proposed budget, and the group is standing by its numbers.The four fiscal conservatives hold a majority over the three remaining Democrats, Mayor Candy Perez, George Closson and Mike Renzullo, who were opposed to the size of the cut to education. “Our commitment to education reflects the fundamental changes that have occurred and continue to take place within our school district,” the majority selectmen wrote this week in a letter to The Winsted Journal (see Page A6). “These include the shift of seventh and eighth grades to The Gilbert School, a step we are confident will both improve educational achievements and save the town money.”Despite that show of confidence, the reduction in funding to the schools has triggered the threat of a lawsuit from the Board of Education, which claims the 2011-12 school budget will be officially underfunded by $1.4 million, according to the state’s minimum budget requirement (MBR), determined annually by the state Legislature.Perez said in a letter Monday that the four “cross-partiers” on the Board of Selectmen had potentially backed the board into a legal corner with their one-vote majority, and that the group has been caucusing behind closed doors and attacking other members of the board.“The politically motivated, mean-spirited cut to education is precisely why an MBR is needed and why I will not just agree with Mr. Fracasso, Ms. Smith and the other ‘cross-partiers’ to ask our legislators to drastically change the MBR to the level they seek,” Perez wrote. “What I will to agree to is an independent analysis of the educational system that is long overdue.”But Republicans on the board say Winsted’s MBR should change with the reorganization of schools taking place this year, in which the seventh and eighth grades will move up to semi-private Gilbert, while the public K-through-8 system will be reduced to K-through-6.“Some reasonable people may differ over the budget, but there can be no disagreement about the MBR,” the Republican-led group wrote in its letter this week. “To be perfectly clear, there is no MBR for fiscal year 2011-12. None will come into effect unless the Legislature decrees it. We must work together with our legislators to ensure that any new MBR reflects the fundamental changes in our school system. The current MBR was designed for a K-through-12 district with almost 20 percent more students than we will have in 2011-12 — and at least one more school than we need. Other towns routinely lobby for changes to their MBR. Why shouldn’t Winsted seek redress for these major changes?”Perez acknowledged in an interview Tuesday she has been particularly disappointed with the breakdown of decorum on the Board of Selectmen. “I don’t see eye to eye with Ken [Fracasso],” Perez said. “He yells at me and threatens me and claims it’s all political. My opinion is everybody is mad at each other and people have gotten lost in that — being angry, instead of seeing a long-term vision.”Perez said she is hopeful that Winsted’s new town manager, Dale Martin, will be allowed to take a strong leadership position, which will take some of the decision-making burden off the Board of Selectmen. “I think if we give people a chance to lead, we’ll all be a lot better off,” she said.As far as the budget goes, Perez said there isn’t much anyone can do between now and May 28, when the town’s budget referendum will take place. “What happens from here on forward is going to be a very complex issue, and some people are way ahead of themselves,” she said. “We really have to wait and see what happens with the town budget and the state budget. The answers will come after that.”