BOE Budget Brief
February 6, 2010 by John Rook
The Board of Education failed to approve a final budget proposal to send along to the Town Manager Thursday night after nearly two hours of discussion did not garner an agreement.
The Board was considering a recommendation by the Finance Committee for a decrease of $650,000 to Superintendent of Schools Dr. Greg Florio's recommended budget, which calls for a 3.86 percent increase over last year's spending and an overall operating budget of $61.7 million. However, after a long debate, only one member of the Board, Chairman Gerry Brittingham, voted in favor of the measure, which failed 6-1.
Though the majority of the Board voted against the motion, their reasons differed greatly.
Board members Stephen Mrowka and Peter Massey both explained, in great detail, their belief that a $650,000 decrease to Florio's proposal would seriously hamper the Cheshire school system going forward, while members Anthony Perugini, Sandra Pavano, and Alan Sobol seemed to be concerned that not enough money had been taken out of the budget.
Sobol, for one, suggested that he was unhappy with the entire “budget process” and had hoped the Board and school administrators would come up with “new ideas” to try and combat difficult economic times.
However, Mrowka suggested that he wanted to see the Board “be aggressive” for a change and that he could not support the budget because it could adversely affect class sizes, a statement that elicited loud applause from many in the audience.
With no budget approved on Thursday, the Board debated whether Florio's proposal would be automatically sent to Town Manager Michael Milone or if further action was required, the same question the Board faced last year before finally deciding to cut the superintendent's proposal by $1.1 million.
After a similar recess and discussion on the issue last Thursday, the Board announced that it would hold a special meeting on Monday to try and hash out an agreement.
The special budget meeting on Feb. 8 is scheduled to be held at 7:30 p.m. at Dodd Middle School. However, since it was unknown at the time of the meeting whether a space at Dodd would be available, the meeting could be relocated before Monday night.
The full story on this meeting, and the special meeting of the Board of Education Monday night, will be printed in next week's Cheshire Herald.