Mayor defends vote to cut school budget

WINSTED — Last week’s decision by the Winchester Board of Selectmen to cut more than $1.5 million from Superintendent of Schools Blaise Salerno’s proposed budget sent a clear message to the Board of Education, namely that times are tough and reductions must be made. In a recent interview with The Winsted Journal, Mayor Candy Perez defended the cut and expressed hope that Salerno will find a way to make ends meet without firing teachers.

“We put $225,000 on the town side to ensure school repairs are done, so with a $300,000 increase on the school side, they really got $525,000 in my mind,� Perez said. “If you dive into the budget, the amount they need to keep teachers in the classroom is about that much. For me, the goal was to keep teachers in the classroom.�

With the recent Board of Selectmen cut, the 2010-11 proposed school budget stands at $21.3 million, which represents a $300,000 increase in the school budget line item.

Perez acknowledged she has direct experience with school budgets in her day job as principal at Northwestern Regional Middle School, but that the Winchester school board has to make its own decisions on school budget line items. “If I was looking at their budget, I would do some of the things that we have said to do,� she said. “Some of the stuff is duplication. We can’t continue to pay $188,000 for superintendents.�

Perez added that there are efficiencies that need to be addressed at the town’s semi-private high school, The Gilbert School, and the town’s public K-8 system. “The reality is both sides have to compromise,� she said. “We can have mutually assured constructive movement forward or mutually assured destruction.�

Perez and the Board of Selectmen were successful last month in calling for the formation of an education task force to help determine the future of the Winchester school system. Representatives of the Winchester Board of Education and The Gilbert School Corporation have agreed to serve on the committee, but those two parties are still in negotiations regarding how much money should go to Gilbert and whether or not the school will concede to budget reductions.

And while the next budget year has been a subject of some controversy, Perez said she has more immediate concerns about the current year, which saw the elimination of approximately $1.1 million in state funding to the Winchester school district. That funding shortage was alleviated by an influx of federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds, which were earmarked to bail out school districts for the 2009-10 and 2010-11 school years.

The funds, which were received directly by the school district, must be transferred to the town in order to balance the current budget. According to a “gentleman’s agreement� proposed by Salerno, the funds will be transferred to the town at the end of the fiscal year.

“He has to make sure we get that money back,� Perez said. “We cannot cover any additional funds for the Board of Education in our current financial state. I think the point is that for the past few years we have had the Board of Education running over and our fund balance is in a precarious state because the overages come out of there.�

Perez said Town Manager Wayne Dove and Finance Director Henry Centrella would be meeting with the town’s auditors this week to thoroughly review the budget and make sure this year is on course to end in the black. The next task will be to convince voters to pass a budget that still includes an increase of 0.64 mills.

Voters will still have their final say next month, as Winsted’s annual town budget meeting happens Monday, May 3, 7 p.m., at The Gilbert School. Residents will be able to make further cuts to line items in the budget, or not, and then send the budget to a town wide referendum. The date of the referendum  will be determined at the May 3 meeting.