BOE Approves Staff Cuts, Pay-to-Play Athletics Fee, to Bridge Budget Gap
- Philip Thibodeau
- 13 hours ago
- 3 min read
The Board of Education met this past Thursday evening to decide which personnel and services would be cut from the district’s budget in order to accommodate a $1.6 million reduction recently approved by Town Council. The Board voted - with just one modification - to approve a set of reductions drawn up by Superintendent Steve Madancy and presented at the reallocation meeting by Director of Business & Finance Jennifer Mellitt. (A complete recording of the meeting can be found here.)
The lion’s share of the reduction – just over $1.5 million – would come from the elimination, either through layoffs or retirements, of 22 existing teaching and staff positions, as well as four new lines that the Board had sought to add. All told, ten paraeducators, nine teachers, three math and literacy specialists, two custodial staff, and 1.5 administrative assistant lines would be eliminated from the budget plan that originally passed. Currently the district has 1,189 staff, which means that the cut would amount to about a 2% reduction in all personnel.
A bit more than $100,000 in savings would also accrue from the cancellation of certain educational software subscriptions, and the trimming of PSAT testing supplies. A $63,307 line item for student Chromebook insurance would also be cut.
Another portion of the budget gap will be made up through the imposition of a new fee for students who participate in sports. According to Madancy, the fee would be $125 per sport per season for high school athletes, with a cap of $500 for a family. For middle school competitors, the fee would be $50 per season, with a $200 family cap. Several neighboring towns already have a ‘pay-to-play’ fee in place to cover the costs of transportation to and from athletic events. The Superintendent said that students who qualify for free and reduced lunch will be exempt from the charge.
The main change the Board made to the Superintendent’s proposed plan was to keep the number of Special Education administrators at four, rather than reduce it to three. Several members of the Board drew a line in the sand when the proposal was floated, saying that while all the cuts were hard to accept, this one would go too far, putting the work of the Special Education department at great risk.
“The administrators are so overwhelmed with PPT’s and case loads that I cannot accept that cut,” said Board member Terri Carmody. Her colleagues Sean Carson and Cecil Whitehead argued at length that the line should be restored. Various Board members also cited the crisis which the Special Education department experienced during the years of the COVID pandemic, and ongoing efforts to recover from it, as a reason why the position should be kept in place.
After a back-and-forth with Madancy and Mellitt, the Board fixed on the allocation for substitute teachers as an area where a commensurate cut could be made that would allow the fourth Special Ed coordinator to remain while still meeting the $1.6 million targeted reduction.
A final trim to the budget of $833,934 that the Board voted to approve was in effect an accounting maneuver, one that should not affect the staffing or operations of the District in any meaningful way.
In May, the State Legislature passed a bill that would direct millions in additional Educational Cost Sharing (ECS) funds to municipalities across the state, with Southington due to receive $833,934. In its final budget, the Town Council voted to reduce the school system’s budget by that same amount, thus in effect converting the ECS payment into a general budget subsidy designed to reduce the burden on local taxpayers. The District now plans to take this sum out of its self-insurance fund, and replenish it once the check from the state arrives.
