Making Cents of the School Budget

The question of how to represent any further reduction in spending in the 2011-2012 school budget was the main topic Wednesday at the Finance Committee meeting.

The $40,983,469 working budget for 2011-2012 represents a 2.93 percent, or $1,166,064, increase. Maria Whalen, director of business and finance for the school district, said some omitted costs put the increase closer to 2.99 percent.

Committee chairman and Board of Education member Bill Morse said he hoped to look at where materials in the budget could be reduced by as much as 25 percent. However, Superintendent Nicholas Fischer warned about reducing the budget based on line items alone.

“I think it’s difficult to know by budget lines just what’s in them,” he said. “The intent can be very good, but the impact can be devastating.”

Fischer said approximately 75 cents of every dollar of the budget goes to support employees' salaries and benefits. He said that if a decision is made to reduce a budget, it will be up to individual schools to decide what positions or items may be cut.

The budget will be presented to the Board of Education, which will make a recommendation to the City Council for approval. The City Council will take an up or down vote on the entire budget, and a new budget must be crafted if it is rejected. Al Kinsall, president of the Board of Education, said the budget is consistent with increases in surrounding communities and feels the budget should be passed on as it stands. Louise Hanrahan, another Board of Education member, agreed and said the Finance Committee shouldn’t be making reductions on its own.

“We shouldn't be making those decisions for the teachers and principals,” she said.

Morse said he would like to give the City Council a budget with a 1.5 percent increase to show what the potential impact would be if costs were cut back to that level. Fischer said such a reduction would be across the board, and that it would be possible to identify the staffing equivalent of the drawdown but that individual schools would decide whether to actually cut staff or make reductions elsewhere. He said the average cost of a teacher’s annual salary and benefits is $84,000. The budget currently includes no layoffs or elimination of positions.

Whalen said some costs are projected rather than known, such as fuel, insurance, and workman’s compensation. She said that once these rates are set, the school budget could see as much as a 1 percent reduction.

Salaries and benefits represent 67.8 percent of the budget, and salaries have decreased $577,306 (2.58 percent) from last year while benefits have increased $325,923 (5.77 percent). The largest increase calls for $1,868,867 for contractual instruction of students, an increase of $625,797 (50.34 percent) from the 2010-2011 budget.

Several schools and departments have also requested a total of $1,373,910, not included in the preliminary budget, for new initiatives. The largest would hire four custodians at a cost of $248,960, with additional items including the purchase of surveillance cameras and projectors at , replacing the library carpet and auditorium curtains at the , and new staffers such as English as a second language teachers and social workers.

A will take place tonight at 6 p.m. at the middle school. The Finance Committee will next meet at 5 p.m. at the New London Public Schools central office on Feb. 28.