Milford PTAs to Speak Out on Budget Cuts
By Noelle Frampton, Connecticut Post, Bridgeport
Mar. 31–MILFORD — As the tug of war between taxes and education costs continues, advocates for the schools and those for tighter spending are ramping up their respective campaigns as the culmination of the 2008-09 budget season looms.
In the wake of a nearly $2.1 million cut in the Board of Education’s requested budget for the next fiscal year by the Board of Finance, Parent-Teacher Associations have been circulating a petition they’ll present to the Board of Aldermen. The aldermen are scheduled to hear public comment on the budget at 7 p.m. Wednesday in City Hall.
Education administrators said the cut would force them to reduce current services, and recently sent notices of to all 180 non-tenured district teachers that their jobs may not be renewed.
Edward Tamas, a longtime school board critic, believes education administrators are threatening to cut teachers to get parents to beg the aldermen for more money.
“The money that we’re paying out isn’t going to the kids,” Tamas said. “It’s going to an ever-enlarging school bureaucracy that’s bleeding the taxpayers of Milford dry.”
He sent a letter Friday to the Connecticut Post that suggests $1.6 million in cuts of nonteaching jobs such as counselors, administrators, psychologists and computer aides that would not increase class sizes.
He also takes issue with the district’s addition of 55 regular teachers and 22 special education teachers since 2002-03, while student enrollment has decreased by 84 in that time.
District administrators said Tamas doesn’t understand the importance of the positions he would cut.
“Anybody can go through the budget and say, ‘Here are some dollars, let’s cut that,’ ” said Deputy Supt. of Operations Philip Russell. “But you have to look at the implications.”
Russell added that enrollment declines typically don’t have an impact on one grade level enough to result in teacher reduction and the district is lean on administration compared to the state average.
Director of Pupil Personnel Services Susan Kelleher said special education costs have risen dramatically in recent years, due to increasing student needs and inclusion in regular classrooms.
John F. Kennedy School parent Susan Feher, who organized the petition drive, said she plans to meet today with PTA leaders to collect petitions and plan for Wednesday.
“It’s important because I know any type of cuts … below the current services are going to be detrimental,” she said. “Usually something like this is when you get a good crowd. We still have to be in the public eye … for the next month. We’re just trying to be the voice for our children.”
The Board of Education in January rejected a $492,000 package of cuts proposed by board member Jim Santa Barbara, D-5, that recommended sending five educators assigned to the Parsons Government Center back to classroom teaching.
Santa Barbara said Friday that his goal is to keep class sizes down and to keep teachers in classrooms. He declined to comment on his earlier suggestion.
“There’s no point to it, and it’s not going to help anything,” he said, making a distinction in the cut amounts. “I would hope that the aldermen would see that we can’t get by with a $2 million cut. Anything that even approached that would be devastating to the school system.”
Board of Aldermen Chairman Benjamin Blake said Friday that the board is “taking a wait-and-see approach” until it has heard public comment and, after that, the education administrators’ budget presentation.
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