NORWALK, Conn. Norwalk.DailyVoice.com accepts signed, original letters to the editor. Letters may be emailed to [email protected].
To the Editor,
A recent letter from a prominent Norwalk middle school principal criticized Superintendent Susan Marks and the Board of Education over the 2012-2013 school budget. As a member of the board, I felt some clarification was in order.
First, I agree with the principal that the cuts at our middle schools (indeed, at all our schools) are deeper than any of us desire. But the board and the superintendent cannot conjure money up out of thin air; we can only spend what is allocated to us. As that funding for this year is not sufficient to cover the increases for raises in salaries and higher benefit costs needed to maintain all staff positions, we have no choice but to reduce the number of those positions.
Several statements in the principal's letter give the impression that Norwalk's school principals were taken completely by surprise when Dr. Marks issued her formal budget reconciliation report on June 1. But many of the cuts spelled out in that report had been under discussion in open sessions of the board's finance committee for months before June 1, and were well publicized in the Daily Voice.
The principal goes on to say "When Dr. Marks did not produce a reconciliation document, Steve Colarossi, BOE Finance Chair, did so and received criticism. Someone had to get the reconciliation process moving." This statement gets the timing wrong. As noted, Dr. Marks issued her initial reconciliation report on June 1. After the Board of Estimate and Taxation voted on June 4 to provide additional funding to the schools, Dr. Marks then issued an updated reconciliation plan on June 5 that restored full-day kindergarten and made other restorations.
On June 11, that updated plan was the topic of discussion at a special Board of Education public hearing at City Hall, where the board listened to more than four hours of public comments on the plan. Mr. Colarossi then issued his own reconciliation proposal five days later, on June 16 (15 days after Dr. Marks' original reconciliation was released), labeling it an "alternate" budget to the one proposed by Dr. Marks.
The principal's letter next says ''That plan [Dr. Marks' reconciliation] was never discussed by the BOE at any time." But in fact, the board's finance committee met on June 12 and conducted an extensive discussion of Dr. Marks' proposed reconciliation. Practically all aspects of Dr. Marks' proposals were delved into at great length, with both Dr. Marks and Elio Longo (schools chief operating officer) responding to questions from the committee. This discussion is reflected in eight pages of minutes, which were distributed to the full board on June 21.
Finally, the principal's letter states "[Mr. Colarossi's alternate] plan was never discussed by the BOE at anytime. Instead, on June 21, the reconciliation was blindly passed (7-1) with less than 30 minutes of discussion." The actual vote to adopt Dr. Marks' proposed budget was 6-1. While board members such as myself had studied Mr. Colarossi's plan, it is important to note that Mr. Colarossi chose not to make a motion to adopt his plan at the meeting, which is why it was not discussed there. It was evident that the members found Dr. Marks' plan acceptable, and voted to approve it at the end of the discussion (in which almost every member present participated).
The board did not vote to adopt Dr. Marks' budget "blindly." We had been working on the budget for months, in discussions at board meetings, finance committee meetings and other venues. Board members had attended Common Council meetings (I had spoken in support of more school funding there) and Board of Estimate meetings as well. We had reviewed two different reconciliation plans proposed by Dr. Marks, and another proposed by Mr. Colarossi. At the June 21 meeting I spoke on the budget and the reasons I supported it (as painful as it was), and both Mr. Colarossi and I elicited extensive comments from Dr. Marks and Mr. Longo explaining the budget. There can be good faith disagreements with the judgments made by the board in approving Dr. Marks' budget, but there was nothing "blind" about the board's vote to do so.
At the June 21 meeting, Chairman Chiaramonte and I both stated that we would support amendments to the budget to restore more positions if additional funding is found. Today we remain hopeful that this will happen.
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