Schools

Board Of Education Votes To Accept 2014 New London School Budget

The Board of Education unanimously voted Thursday to approve a 2014 fiscal year budget allocated to the New London Public Schools by the City Council.

The $40,414,666 budget is a 1.5 percent increase from the 2013 fiscal year budget. A petition effort to challenge the school budget, along with the municipal budget and tax rate, was recently certified, and the Council will decide Monday whether to modify it or send it to referendum.

The Board of Education requested a $40,814,666 budget for the 2014 fiscal year, a 2.5 percent increase and $979,263 above the 2013 funding level. The request included contractual salary increases, higher energy and transportation costs, and $400,000 to be allocated toward reducing elementary school class sizes and improving the middle school guidance office.

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Mayor Daryl Finizio passed on the recommendation to the City Council, which approved a $40,414,666 budget. The $400,000 reduction was part of the Council’s efforts to replenish municipal funds that were cut in Finizio’s budget proposal.

The 2014 fiscal year budget follows five years with no increase in local funding for the district. Dr. Steven Adamowski, a state-appointed special master for the district, said this is the longest span of flat-funding of a school district in Connecticut.

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Councilor Adam Sprecace, in proposing an alternate budget, said he did not think that the school budget included enough detail and recommended reducing it by another $397,261 so that the increase would only honor the agreed-upon salary increases.

Some speakers at Thursday’s meeting also said they were concerned with the level of detail in the budget. Dan McSparran said he had received inconsistent answers to his questions on the budget from Adamowski and Superintendent Nicholas Fischer and that he considered some spending to be frivolous.

“There should not be another penny allocated to the school district until they provide with transparency, to the public, a detailed budget on where the money goes,” said McSparran.

Mongi Dhaouadi, a member of New London Parent Advocates, said he had spoken to members of the petitioning group about the school budget.

“Their objection to the budget is not based on the amount but it’s based on the transparency,” he said.

Mayor Daryl Finizio said he though the current budget “barely” meets the contractual obligations to the district. He said he hopes the Council will make some nominal reductions to the appropriations ordinance rather than send the budget out to referendum. 

Finizio said speakers at a public hearing on the budget were largely opposed to further cuts, and that the petition effort was slower to reach the required number of signatures and gathered fewer signatures than the challenge to the 2013 budget.

"The message that we’re hearing in these public hearings is, “You’ve cut too much,’” he said. “The message that we’re hearing from parents is, ‘You need to invest in the public school system.’”

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