By James Lomuscio
Velma Heller, a former educator, school booster, and deputy moderator of Westport’s Representative Town Meeting (RTM), tonight made a motion, uttering words she never believed she would say—to reduce the finance board approved 2015-16 school operating budget by $300,000.
The reason: the school board had requested it, showing due diligence as it presented a leaner $111,171,756 operating budget hammered out at the Board of Education’s Monday night meeting. At that meeting, school officials found reductions in special educations costs for out-of-district placements
The end result was a school board slam dunk as the RTM unanimously approved the modified operating budget—a 1.8 percent increase over the current year and the lowest increase in five years—making next year’s total education budget $123,582,074, including the school system’s debt service and aid to private and parochial schools.
The RTM then unanimously passed the whole town budget—including the a $78.9 million municipal budget approved Monday night—of $202,505,295.
The school board’s original budget, which represented a 2.08 percent increase, already had unanimous support from the RTM’s Education and Finance Committees.
But school officials seemed intent on cutting more.
“Our administrators had seen a favorable variance in our special ed costs for out-of-district placements,” Michael Gordon, school board chairman, stated in an email earlier today. “They felt sufficiently confident that this was a trend and were comfortable recommending to the board that we cut $300,000 from our ‘15-16 request.
“So tonight we are going to the RTM with a budget that is even leaner than before and yet still on the cutting edge academically,” he added.
Gordon was not present at the meeting due to an awards ceremony his company was attending. Jeannie Smith, school board vice chair, made the presentation and then played two video presentations of Gordon, one of him talking to the Board of Finance, a presentation that was the same except for the $300,000 cut.
On video, Gordon expressed the same budget philosophy he has espoused since the process began at the began in January, “fiscally conservative and academically very forward leaning.”
