School Board Approves Adjustments To Budget

By Susan Coney

The Board of Education unanimously approved Superintendent Evan Pitkoff’s recommendations for adjustments to the 2005-2006 budget on Tuesday. With the need to reduce $400,000 from the school budget, Dr Pitkoff looked for direction and help from Director of Business Ronald Bienkowski.

Adjustments rather than cuts are helping to provide the necessary reductions. Mr Bienkowski wrote in a memorandum to the superintendent, “This has been an unusual year to manage due to the myriad of issues that we needed to deal with… Our overly conservative nature cautions us to move slowly when recovering from hardships and uncertainties. Although there were sacrifices and lost opportunities, we now have the ability to do some of the major items we put on hold, and end the fiscal year in the black.”

Some ways in which the school board is fine-tuning rather than cutting the budget include areas such as benefits/special education, vocational agricultural tuition, life insurance, staff turnover, and physical therapy. For instance, a special educational aide, leaving the Newtown area, will provide $13,200 in health benefit savings. The position will be filled but with a person not working the required hours needed to receive medical benefits.

Two fewer students participating in the vocational agricultural program will provide $14,500 in tuition savings. Renegotiations with TR Paul regarding life insurance netted a $10,000 savings. Making changes to how services are provided and/or reducing hours of therapy in student individual education plans result in physical therapy savings of $5,000.

Staff turnover is another area where the school system hopes to save $91,400, with higher salaried teachers retiring and some higher paid teachers who are resigning due to family relocations.

The item on the list for recommended adjustments causing the most concern for board members was putting the Early Intervention Program on hold, shaving $81,000 from the budget. This program is not in full force but was initially embraced by the board to help identify at-risk students, who are not at grade level. The program is designed to recognize and intervene to help young students who are struggling in school.

Board member Paul Mangiafico commented, “It pains me to see this on the list.” Dr Pitkoff responded by saying that it is a program that you see the pay back later in time. He continued to say that he did not want to abandon the program and that he would be working with Mike Regan, pupil personnel services director, to save the program. “I’m committed to doing this. This would be on the top of the list. We could look for alternative ways to fund it. We could focus on finding a grant,” Dr Pitkoff said.

A State Agency Placements/Excess Costs Grant adjustment shows that Newtown is slated to receive $99,500 in funds. Board Chairman Elaine McClure asked, “Neither the House or State Senate has adopted the Excess Cost Grant yet. How do we know we are going to get that?”

Mr Bienkowski answered saying, “It is highly likely the grant will exist. We will know by June 9.”

Dr Pitkoff also realized savings from school supplies, travel/mileage, and contracted services.

Hoping to find savings in the oil and diesel budget, Mr Bienkowski shared a memorandum with the board noting, “Oil purchases have been made on an as-needed basis and we will be within the overall amount budgeted. The average cost ended up being $1.47 per gallon. Through very aggressive building control management, the amount purchased and used will be less than the 389,000 [gallons] budgeted. In fact, looking at the last two years and going forward, we can now reduce our future budget requirements to 345,000 gallons.” (While Reed wasn’t using oil since January, the control systems were adjusted properly prior to the spill and estimates for what was likely were taken into account).

Transportation expenditures will not be what was previously anticipated for several reasons. Conference schedules have been combined, reducing the need for bus services. The three Probe/NAP program buses that ran daily were reduced to two on Fridays because the Probe program does not run on Fridays, but NAP does. This further reduced the costs for the bus and aides. Also certain tutoring bus runs were streamlined, some were eliminated, and the school system assisted a teacher to acquire the required license to drive students in the district-owned vehicle. Transportation cost savings total $22,377.

Toward the close of the budget discussions Dr Pitkoff stated that in the course of the school year there are all kinds of ups and downs, noting, “We presented a lean budget. There will always be areas that come up that are a surprise.”

All board members expressed a commitment to the Newtown voters to reduce the budget by $400,000. Member Tom Gissen stated, “The new reality is we have an obligation to reduce the budget. We need to have an accurate book and that’s all. We can always go back and add things if we have a surplus later on.”

After carefully reviewing each item listed on the superintendents recommendations for adjustments to the budget the board agreed to his proposal.