Town must find money to meet Region One assessment

FALLS VILLAGE — The question of how to come up with between $340,000 and $360,000 to cover an increase in the town’s regional education assessment is the primary issue for voters to consider at a public hearing Monday, April 25, 7 p.m. at the Lee H. Kellogg School.Going into this year’s budget deliberations, the Board of Finance discussed several ideas for making up the difference caused by a spike in the number of students going from Kellogg to Housatonic Valley Regional High School. No clear consensus emerged, although the options are limited: Raising property taxes, cutting the municipal and Kellogg budgets, and drawing from the town’s reserve funds.The question then becomes how much to get from each source.The town Board of Education presented a $1,737,584 spending proposal for the Kellogg school to the finance board in March. That is down $51,135 from the current budget, a decrease of 2.9 percent. The school board is also factoring in about $40,000 in unspent funds from the current year, to bring the total savings to around $91,000.In March the Board of Finance asked the school board for another $12,000 in savings. The school board did not comply. Another factor is the unexpended funds Region One returns to the towns each year. Falls Village will receive $14,213. In theory, that money could be applied to the school board’s spending proposal as a savings.Finally, at the Board of Finance meeting April 11, the board voted to include in the April 25 presentation of the school budget a draft recommendation for a $24,000 reduction in Kellogg’s proposed appropriation.At that meeting finance board member Lou Timolat emphasized that the Board of Finance has two functions: to approve or disapprove purposes for spending, and to recommend appropriations. For the Lee H. Kellogg School appropriation, the finance board can recommend a total bottom line amount but not specify items to add or cut.The draft recommendation is just that — a draft. It will help make clear the difficult choices the town’s voters must make.Finance board member George Elling, who brought up the $24,000 figure, said April 11 that his analysis of Kellogg’s expenditures led him to believe that additional reductions in the Board of Education spending plan would be necessary.At the same time, though, he said, “I don’t want the Board of Education to make changes so drastic that it would hurt us down the road.”And Timolat urged members to meet with Kellogg Principal Maria Bulson to get a firsthand idea of what additional cuts would mean to the school.On April 11, Elling said he believed the Region One increase would be closer to $340,000 than $360,000 (which is borne out by Region One’s own numbers). He then sketched out a scenario in which the town would draw down the general fund to the tune of about $217,000; add a half a mill increase to the property tax rate for an additional $95,000; and get about $30,000 in net savings from the Board of Education, for a total of roughly $342,000 — enough to cover the Region One assessment.Voters will likely hear this scenario, or something similar, at the public hearing.Towns in Region One have two education budgets. One is for the regional school expenses; one is for the town’s own elementary school (Lee H. Kellogg, in this case).The town is charged a fee by the school district based on the number of students enrolled at Housatonic Valley Regional High School in October of the previous fiscal year. This year’s assessment is based on the number of students at the high school in October 2010; that number was unexpectedly high.The 2011-12 Region One tuition assessment for Falls Village is $1,361,216, up 10.2 percent or $336,943. The Region One budget is voted on in a separate district-wide referendum, held this year on Tuesday, May 3.On the municipal side, the Board of Selectmen came in with a flat spending proposal — no increases — for the second straight year. The total, $1,542,790, is exactly the same as this year’s budget appropriation.Town officials, elected and unelected, have agreed to forgo pay raises. Hours for an administrative assistant for the selectmen have been cut back, from six hours per week to three and a half.First Selectman Pat Mechare said savings were realized by more realistic planning for Highway Department overtime. In previous years the town had planned for 200 hours of Highway Department overtime, but in looking at records from the last five years discovered the number of actual hours was closer to 90. So the spending plan includes 125 hours of overtime, which covers the recent historical average and allows enough leeway to cover contingencies. That action took $8,668 off the bottom line.But grants to nonprofit organizations remain in the selectmen’s spending plan. Mechare said organizations — including the Northwest Visiting Nurse Association ($10,027), the Housatonic Youth Service  Bureau ($3,585) and Community Mental Health Affiliates ($4,500) provide needed services that are not covered otherwise.Mechare noted during a March presentation to the finance board that the grants have not increased in recent budgets. “I think these investments are well worth the cost.”The Board of Finance did ask for — and get —a $5,000 cut in one line — “Town Farm Property,” in the Recreation Commission line. The money was slated for creating and maintaining hiking trails on the property by the town swimming pool.Although the discussions around the municipal spending plan were not as complicated as those concerning the Board of Education’s plan, there was concern on the part of finance board co-chairman John Allyn that the Highway Department would get behind on road repairs, however.