The Town Council last week approved a budget for next fiscal year of about $175 million, an approximately 5% increase over current spending.
The figure includes a Board of Education operating budget of about $91.5 million, up about 3.7% year-over-year.
During a meeting held April 2, members of the legislative body in a divided vote made reductions to the Board of Ed ($250,000) and New Canaan Library ($107,000) spending requests for fiscal year 2025.
In proposing the Board of Ed cut, Councilman Rita Bettino said that she was wary about adding fixed costs in the form of 13 staff positions to the district following a town-wide revaluation that could see significant increases in taxes for some, depending on the mill rate.
While the positions that the district is adding “don’t add up to $1 million necessarily, they are ongoing costs and they don’t go away and they just get built upon, going further,” Bettino said at the meeting, held in Town Hall and via videoconference.
She added, “I’m just uncomfortable adding any more ongoing expenses than I believe are necessary. It’s not just the salaries. It’s how you budget. It’s the benefits—even though it isn’t budgeted, benefits are involved. And insurance is involved. And while we would love to do everything and I would love to do everything —it all sounds really great—I think we need to make some hard decisions. I think we need to prioritize and I think we need to consider what we prioritize this year, in a reval year, and think about what we maybe want to postpone to next year. I know we’re a rich town, we’re a generous town. But I don’t’ think that means we need to just pay for absolutely everything that we would like to do. I think we need to prioritize, especially this year.”
The Town Council took an informal “straw poll” on the proposed cut to the school budget during the 1 hour, 36 minute meeting. Those voting in favor included Bettino, Chair Mike Mauro, Vice Chair/Secretary Cristina A. Ross and Councilmen Luke Kaufman, Maria Naughton, Kimberly Norton and Penny Young. (It’s a non-local election year. Town Council members whose seats are up for election in 2025 are Kaufman, Young, Bettino and Norton, as well as Butterworth and Ormond.)
Those voting against it in the straw poll were Vice Chair Hilary Ormond and Councilmen Tom Butterworth and Eric Thunem. Councilman Janet Fonss was not in attendance. Ormond also voted against the overall budget in protest of the cuts.
Regarding the Board of Ed reduction, Ormond noted that “it will not have a substantial or even small impact on the mill rate.”
“I think that we — or I — fully trust the superintendent to be staffing appropriately,” Ormond said. “I think I said last meeting and I’ll reiterate, it’s never been harder to be a school teacher or administrator, and I think the support that we can show is more symbolic than any cut that we could make that will not seriously impact, or even impact, the mill rate for our residents. I also have a child in our public school system for the first year and I’ve been simply amazed having come out of a private school, what is available to our kids. I think we are so lucky to have a district where we don’t have a lot of attrition.”
Thunem described the $250,000 reduction as “a symbolic action” and suggested that the elected body make a similar reduction across-the-board for departments seeking similar or higher increases in salaries so that it’s “a fair and equally applied symbolic action.”
Young noted that “every year we have this discussion about what’s an OK increase in the Board of Education budget.”
“And typically the Board of Ed budgets come in higher percentage-wise than a lot of our departments,” Young continued. “And it kind of doesn’t sit well with a lot of the departments. Is the Board of Education sacred that we can’t have a reasonable discussion about their decisions and how they spend their money? This is a tough budget year, but all years are tough. So we can’t just say it’s this year. But I just think coming in with a number of new faculty that they’re coming in with is really extraordinary when enrollment has not really increased that much.”
The reduction in the library budget brought down the organization’s funding request from 8% to 4%. In proposing the cut, Naughton called for the library to charge “nominal amounts” for some programming.
Zonis pushed back on the proposal, saying the increase in foot traffic at the library, and waitlist for some programming “spoke to great demand for programs, and it’s obviously serving the community.”
Butterworth noted that the new library is “overrun” with new activity and people. The organization raised some $30 million for the project, and the town contributed $10 million.
“We basically made a statement to donors that ‘This is what you are contributing to—you are contributing to a free library.’ Now the Town Council is sitting here and saying, ‘We don’t really mean that.’ ”
Ross proposed a full $149,600 reduction to the library budget, saying that’s the cost of running its fundraising programs and calling for the organization to pay for those costs out of what it raises. (Only Ross herself and Norton— proponents of preserving the 1913 library building in situ, rather than moving it all of 115 feet, when that discussion was underway in town—appeared to vote in favor of the larger cut.)
Those voting in favor of the $107,000 library budget reduction in a straw poll included Bettino, Kaufman, Naughton, Norton, Ross and Thunem. It wasn’t clear from the meeting how Young voted on the second straw poll—she attended via Zoom. Ormond, Butterworth and Zonis did not vote in favor of the reduction.
The town issued a press release after the meeting. It made no mention of the reductions. In it, Mauro said, ““As with last year, the Town continues to address the challenges of acute inflationary pressure and ever-increasing costs for items such as labor, energy, materials and healthcare. “Underscoring the challenge in restraining the tax burden to residents within these unfavorable atmospherics is the revaluation year we find ourselves in. Nevertheless, Town Council worked with the leadership teams from the Town’s departments in scrutinizing the operating and capital budgets to ensure that the standard of excellence expected by town residents will continue to be provided at the best value possible. Although a tax hike is not desirable, the Town’s process focused on minimizing the overall burden while still providing the Town’s departments with the resources they need to continue to outperform our peers. After months of intensive analysis, we have achieved that goal.”
It is interesting how some elected officials see education and reading as the areas to target for symbolic budget cuts.
If I remember right we had some general agreement at the BOE debate last Fall that looking at bussing costs was a good area to see if we can gain some efficiencies and save costs. Still see a lot of very partially used busses moving around town. Perhaps adding 2-5 minutes to each bus schedule in order to save some money would be a good use of time to address cost issues at the BOE.
It’s pretty disappointing to see an anti-library, anti-education agenda play out in our town. We should be better than this.
There is nothing wrong in questioning a budget. It’s not anti-anything. It’s good financial practice. Our BoE budget is about two-thirds of our town budget and deserves to be questioned.
Having put 3 kids through the system, I’ve seen good teachers, bad teachers, indifferent teachers, online (Youtube) teachers, attentive teachers, etc. All the bad teachers are still around. We are footing their paychecks so questioning a budget is the least we can do.
There are a lot of non-teaching positions that the BoE keeps hiring for from nurses to counselors to mental health psychologists to name a few. While they might add value, it does come at a significant and recurring price. Last year NC schools combined had 10 counselors, 11 psychologists, and 7 nurses or 8 if you count their supervisor as well. Are we a mental institution?
C’mon Laura, there is enough fodder here for one of your comedic write-ups! I love them by the way.
Those staffing numbers quoted are spread out amongst 3 elementary schools, 1 middle school (largest in the state) and 1 High School. 5 buildings serving several thousand students. A mental institution?? What an unfortunate statement. Our students spend the majority of their hours of the day, and days of the week, in our schools. In a developed country such as ours, in a lauded school district such as ours (and ostensibly raising the next generation’s best and brightest) we cannot neglect their mental health, especially when we subject them to regular active shooter drills during school hours. Our district does not have nearly enough mental health professionals for the amount of students it serves. Such disappointing comments that make a mockery of the very real mental health challenges our children are facing. I won’t even try to justify the nurse positions because that would mean giving in to the absurd. I hope any district staffers reading this know not all New Canaanites feel this way.