Town looks at ways to cut budgets

FALLS VILLAGE — The Board of Finance began the process of facing an unpleasant financial reality during its regular monthly meeting Monday, Nov. 8.

The problem facing the town is the increase in high school tuition. Falls Village sent 53 students to Housatonic Valley Regional High School this year, up from 36.

The cost: an increase in the town’s high school tuition tab of $337,616, or 47.8 percent. The increase in tuition from the 2010-11 school year to the 2011-12 school year is from $706,189 to $1,043,805, according to projections compiled by Region One Business Manager Sam Herrick.

Spikes in tuition due to increased enrollment are not unusual — North Canaan was on the receiving end in the last budget cycle. First Selectman Pat Mechare, reporting to the Board of Finance, said, “We got hit harder than anybody. We’re just going to have to grin and bear it.�

Mechare said the town’s Board of Education is looking for a specific recommendation on spending from the finance board, and read a letter from Suzanne Chinatti (a Board of Finance alternate who could not attend the meeting) advocating a close examination of the municipal budget for savings; expanding the town’s commercial tax base; and taking steps to attract more tuition students at the Lee H. Kellogg School (LHK), as alternatives to cutting the LHK budget.

Mechare, while not disagreeing with the letter’s points, said “most of what she suggests is long-term.�

She said the town’s municipal budget has been “pretty austere.�

“There are ways we can reduce it, but they won’t be popular,� she said, adding that she didn’t anticipate significant savings “without dramatically disturbing services.�

Finance board Co-chairman George Elling distributed a handout about the increased enrollment which gave four broad alternatives: to raise the mill rate to cover the entire increase; to raise the mill rate to cover half the increase while lowering the Kellogg budget by half the increase; to cut the Kellogg budget to cover the entire increase; and to pay for the increase by decreasing the unreserved general fund — the money the town sets aside — from 19 percent of budgeted appropriations to 11.9 percent for 2011-12, combined with mill rate increases and or cuts at Kellogg.

Board member Kent Allyn pointed out that enrollment projection numbers can and do change, and noted that the Kellogg budget has increased every year of the last 10 save one year with a zero percent increase.

“Asking for a zero increase or less is not unreasonable,� Allyn said.

And John Allyn said he opposed cutting on the municipal side.