Still no line-item budget

WINSTED — With less than two weeks away from the annual budget referendum, at the Board of Selectmen’s meeting on Monday, May 18, Town Manager Dale Martin said that the town has not received a proposed line-item budget from the Winchester School District.

The proposed fiscal budget for 2015-2016 has been set at $32,830,720. Last June, residents at a budget referendum passed a budget for $32,515,357.

The budget, if passed, will be a $315,363 increase from the previous fiscal year and a .79 increase to the town’s current rate of 31.91 mills, setting the mill rate to 32.70 mills.

As part of the proposed fiscal 2015-2016 budget, the school district’s budget is proposed to be $19,958,149 for school district operations.

The school district’s proposed budget is set at the state mandated Minimum Budget Requirement (MBR) for school year 2015-2016.

“The only concern that I have with the budget is that we are now less than two weeks away from the referendum and we have yet to see a Superintendent’s budget from the school district,” Martin said to the selectmen. “The last budget we received from [Superintendent of Schools Anne Watson] indicated a budget of approximately $1.3 million over what the Board of Selectmen had moved forward to referendum. So I think it is disappointing that we have not seen a revised budget from the superintendent to see how that money is going to be spent.”

The proposed budget for the school district is set at the state mandated MBR.

“I am still looking forward to hearing from the superintendent before the budget referendum,” Martin said. “I will notify the community how the [school district’s budget] will be spent. In regard to [this year’s budget], my analysis shows that the school district’s budget this year is approximately $21.2 million. Based upon analysis of all the checks produced on the payroll with the town, it appears that the district has spent approximately $18.9 million of that $21.2 million.”

Martin said the $21.2 million in this year’s school district budget includes the town’s financial allocation and state grants paid to the district.

“The Board of Education has indicated that they will come in at or close to their budget,” he said. “We still have $2.3 million for at least one payment to The Gilbert School and for payroll for the rest of the year.”

During the citizen’s comments portion of the meeting, both residents Art Melycher and Joseph Forster called for residents to reject the budget due to the lack of information from the school district about how the proposed budget will be spent.

“The public should refuse the budget if the school district refuses to give a line-item budget and tell us where the money goes,” Forster said. “It’s not fair [to the public], and I would like people to write letters, call the school board, call the mayor and call the town manager and tell them you’re not going to vote for this until they put a line-item budget in effect so we can at least see where the money is going, because they refuse to tell us.”

Melycher said he agrees with Forster.

“The selectmen and the taxpayers need a workable budget from the Board of Education,” Melycher said. “They presented a budget a couple of weeks back by [former Interim Business Manager Hugo Pinzon]. I talked with Hugo. Anne went in at 9 a.m. and she said, ‘Get a budget together for tonight’s meeting.’ That’s why the proposed budget is so inflated. There was no input from any principals, director of pupil services or the superintendent herself. How can a superintendent not put a budget together?”

Watson did not return calls for comment.