Mascolo: Cuts Would Devastate Schools

By Kate Ramunni, Connecticut Post, Bridgeport

Mar. 12–SEYMOUR — – If the Board of Education has to cut $1.3 million from its proposed $30 million 2008-09 budget, it will decimate the school system, Supt. of Schools MaryAnne Mascolo told about 50 parents Tuesday at a workshop on the spending plan at Seymour Middle School.

“There is no way we can cut $1.3 million without devastating the district,” she said. “This isn’t a scare tactic — this is part of our job.”

The school board recently met with the Board of Finance to go over the proposal, which included a $1.7 million increase over the current budget. Later that night, after the school board had left, the finance board decided it would start its discussion of the budget assuming only a $300,000 increase.

That isn’t enough to even cover the projected increase in health insurance premiums, Mascolo said, let alone the contractual salary increases and increases in oil and electricity the district will face next year.

Asst. Supt. of Finance Rick Belden prepared a revised budget that cut just over a million dollars from the budget. That revision cuts out eight existing teaching positions and several programs, including middle school and high school freshmen sports, all extracurricular clubs and programs at all of the district’s schools and the machinist/tool and technology education programs at Seymour High School.

School board members aren’t happy with those reductions, Mascolo said, even though they’re less than what the finance board may require if it sticks with the $300,000 increase.

“They can’t live with these cuts is what they told me,” Mascolo said of the school board. “They are too deep.”

The parents at Tuesday’s meeting agreed, asking Mascolo if there are ways to save money by cutting administrative salaries.

The district is not top-heavy with administrators, despite what some people claim, Mascolo said. There are only principals at the elementary schools and an assistant principal at the high school was already cut when Oxford students began to leave for that town’s new high school, she said. And in the last four years, more than 16 certified personnel have been cut as the Oxford students began to leave, she said.

Some were upset that there were no administrators or school board members at last week’s Board of Finance workshop in the school budget. They weren’t asked to attend, both Mascolo and board member Jeanne Loda said, and felt they had little to add to what was presented to the finance board only a few nights earlier.

The school board is scheduled to meet tonight at 7 p.m. at Seymour High School to discuss possible cuts to the budget.

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