West Hartford Board of Education Votes to Allocate $300K Cut by Town Council

In adopting its budget on April 25, the West Hartford Town Council reduced the education budget by $300,000, and the Board of Education voted Tuesday on where those cuts would be made.

By Ronni Newton

The West Hartford Board of Education voted unanimously Tuesday night on how the $300,000 cut to its budget made by the Town Council will be allocated.

The reductions will be made to line items for library media salaries ($60,032), pupil transportation ($75,084), heating ($42,313), and electricity ($122,571).

The education budget for 2017-2018 is now $159,857,754.

“When the Town Council adopted their budget they cut $300,000 further from the Board of Education budget. We tried to find a way to do this to keep it as far away from the students as possible,” Superintendent Tom Moore told the Board.

Director of Finance and Planning Chip Ward said that when the Board of Education adopted a $160.16 million budget on April 5, certain assumptions were made. Although the Board had approved a $65,000 cut by eliminating the library media services department supervisor, he said, the assumption was made that the person would then become a teacher. Instead she decided to retire and the entire supervisor’s salary can now be eliminated, allowing for a $60,000 savings, Ward said.

The pupil transportation reduction was accomplished by renegotiation of the contract with Specialty Transportation, the provider for out-of-district transportation, Ward said. The company agreed to a two-year rate freeze and smaller increases in outlying years. The contract has been extended for another five years at substantially lower cost, Ward said.

The balance of the total $300,000 cut was made through a reduction to the contribution to the utility services fund. “Looking at current trends I think we’re going to be okay,” Ward said.

Approximately a quarter of the reduction was to the estimate for heating costs while the rest is allocated to electricity. The reduction is to the contribution to the fund, which is what is used to pay the actual utility bills.

The balance in the fund rises and falls as bills are paid, and Ward said that looking at the pattern of expenditures for the year, heating rates and costs have been coming down. Investments that have been made in efficiency will result in further cost decreases, he said.

“I feel comfortable that we can make these reductions and not run into a problem in the utilities service fund,” Ward said,

“We’re living life closer to the bone,” Moore said, and not planning for surpluses.

When the Board of Education adopted a $160.16 million budget on April 5, that was an increase of 4.48 percent or $6.87 million from the previous year’s budget.

That budget then became part of the overall $285.4 million town budget, which was approved April 25, and included the $300,000 reduction in education spending. While the Town Council has the authority to cut education spending as a line item, the Board of Education determines where in its budget those cuts are made.

Regarding a new budget proposed by Gov. Dannel Malloy Monday, which would gut state aid to West Hartford by an estimated $28-$29 million in comparison to last year’s allocations, while giving more money to Hartford, Ward called it “just a philosophical statement” the governor was making to indicate that he will not let Hartford go bankrupt.

The town’s budget has been set and if “there is a reduction in revenue to the town, then there’s a reduction in revenue. Who knows what they’re going to do,” Ward said.

Moore said that about 90 percent of towns have passed their budgets and legislators have said that they will not support the governor’s budget. “It’s difficult to understand how they could go back and throw the state into another round of fiscal chaos,” he said.