Winchester School District Proposed budget sent to state

WINSTED —  The proposed school district budget for fiscal 2015-2016 was sent to the state on Friday, July 10, by Board of Education Chairman Susan Hoffnagle.

At a budget referendum in May, as part of the town’s total municipal budget, residents approved the school district’s proposed budget for fiscal 2015-2016 of $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.

At a budget hearing held in the spring before the budget referendum, Superintendent of Schools Anne Watson submitted a school district budget of $23,000,000.

While the budget was approved by voters, the Board of Education had not formally approved a line item budget before the referendum vote.

On June 30, as part of the state’s fiscal 2015-2016 budget, the General Assembly passed a bill that included heavy state oversight on the school district.

As part of the oversight a state receiver will be appointed to act as the chief executive officer of the district.

At a special meeting at Town Hall on June 30, the board discussed but did not come to an agreement on a fiscal 2014-2015 budget.

At a special meeting on July 7, Board Chairman Susan Hoffnagle read a letter from Kelly Donnelly, director of communications for the state’s Department of Education, who advised the board to hold off on action on any actions that can be made with the receiver’s approval.

The board proceeded to discuss and vote on recommending a proposed fiscal 2015-2016 budget.

In a cover letter written by Hoffnagle sent to Donnelly, Hoffnagle wrote that the proposed budget is $1,373,158 over the MBR appropriation.

“[T]his shortfall appears simply as a line item ‘special items,’” Hoffnagle wrote in her cover letter. “This allowed [Interim Finance Director Nancy O’Dea-Wyrick] to include accurate numbers without many of the draconian cuts that were debated.”

In her cover letter, Hoffnagle calls attention to several line items. 

The first is the salary for Superintendent Anne Watson.

While Watson’s salary is $159,000, the proposed budget shows that Watson requested a $3,000 salary increase.

Hoffnagle also calls attention to the business manager’s line item that shows in fiscal 2014-2015 the salary was for $83,197.

Superintendent Watson proposed the salary for fiscal 2015-2016 to be $128,000.

The last item that Hoffnagle calls attention to is a proposal to hire a new director of pupil services, but Hoffnagle refers to the director as “a new special education hire to create and supervise new programs at The Gilbert School.”

The line item is listed as being approved by the board in the fiscal 2014-2015 budget and is part of the fiscal 2015-2016 budget — and is listed at $108,034.

However, Watson proposed the salary to be $245,000.

“The board has not agreed to the superintendent’s or business manager’s salary increase,” Hoffnagle wrote. “Although the special education new hire is desirable, with the huge budget deficit my sense is the board would not approve that additional hire at this level or salary.”

Hoffnagle wrote that, in attempting to balance the budget, the Finance Committee of the board debated five ideas, including returning both the school district’s seventh and eighth grades to Pearson Middle School instead of sending both classes to The Gilbert School.

The district started sending seventh and eighth graders to Gilbert during the 2011-2012 school year.

“Retaining those classes would likely result in a higher tuition payment for the ninth through 12th grades, thereby making cost savings speculative,” Hoffnagle wrote. “In addition, community support for retaining those classes at Gilbert is extremely high.”

Hoffnagle wrote that the committee debated and rejected the idea of closing a school.

“The cost savings appear small and crowding would prevent space for special education services, would require rental space for central office and would likely displace the Family Resource Center and Head Start,” Hoffnagle wrote.

The school’s central offices, along with the Family Resource Center and Head Start programs, all operate out of Batcheller Elementary School.

“In addition, all three schools are in extremely poor shape and a critical building failure such as loss of a boiler would leave the district without options. All boilers are well beyond their useful life.”

The third option the committee discussed but did not approve was eliminating Superintendent Watson’s request for $265,000 for ESS (Extended School Services).

“[A] contracted service providing behavioral and clinical services at Gilbert would save $265,000, but such service might stem the flow of students from Gilbert into expensive out-of-district placements,” Hoffnagle wrote.

Hoffnagle wrote that the fourth option the committee considered is to increase the student load across all grade levels for each teacher in the district.

“In some instances this would result in totally unacceptable class sizes,” Hoffnagle wrote. “In sixth grade, this would result in converting to teaching in the elementary school model instead of having the current subject based teachers.”

Finally, Hoffnagle cited the idea of eliminating a school principal position.

“In the past, we have had two principals share responsibility for a third school,” Hoffnagle wrote. “By moving second grade to Hinsdale the workload of Batcheller School would reduce and the presence of the Superintendent and Central Office could provide emergency supervision. The superintendent opposes this stating that the State Department of Education insists on a principal for all schools within an Alliance District.”

Batcheller School Principal Holly Martin’s contract was not renewed by the district in April.

At the last special meeting, at the recommendation of the state, the board did not take any action on hiring a replacement for Martin.

“Rather than implementing any of these draconian cuts, the board forwards the draft budget to the receiver without recommendation,” Hoffnagle wrote at the end of her cover sheet.

In the budget draft itself, personnel expenses went down slightly from fiscal 2014-2015, from $10,231,017 to $10,116,960.

Under nonpersonnel expenses, professional technical services went up by $494,755, from $480,490 allocated in fiscal 2014-2015 to $975,245 proposed for fiscal 2015-2016.

Special education out-of- district tuition went up $691,896, from $1,901,284 allocated in fiscal 2014-2015 to $2,593,180 proposed for fiscal 2015-2016.

Gilbert School tuition went up by $96,594, from $6,888,597 to $6,985,191.

The line item “all other purchased services” went up $269,449, with $721,154 allocated in fiscal 2014-2015 to $990,603 proposed for fiscal 2015-2016.