Several things were clear from Tuesday night’s Board of Finance session—improved communication is needed with the Board of Education and finance members are now more attuned to Connecticut’s Freedom of Information Act.
The work session, held in tight quarters in one of Town Hall’s smallest meeting rooms because other rooms were booked, was called to make amends for holding an unnoticed discussion about the same subject following the board’s regular Feb. 4 session.
That discussion had started as an informal calendar-checking talk after the meeting adjourned but turned into a full-scale dialogue about the town’s biggest budget item.
The discussion was a violation of the Freedom of Information Act because it had not been noticed in advance and took place after the meeting was adjourned.
Members could have legally added the subject to their meeting agenda by a two-thirds vote but did not do so.
At Tuesday night’s meeting, Steve Ezzes, the Democratic chair of the board, said the breach was inadvertent and apologized to those in attendance.
Then it was into a more than one-hour discussion among the five members present (Democrat Shelly Kassen and Republican Charles Haberstroh were absent) about the education budget. No Board of Ed members attended.
Ezzes explained that his board had written to Sandra Urist, chair of the Board of Education, asking its members to hold off on approval of their budget pending additional talks with the Board of Finance.
Ignoring the request, Board of Education members approved their $75.1 million budget Monday night. Urist told that meeting they were under tight time restraints to get the finance plan to the funding bodies as required by the Town Charter.
Ezzes said he was concerned about the insurance budget line and said he felt it was over funded. He said he had expected the educators at their Monday meeting to cut their budget by between $800,000 and $1 million as a result.
Fellow Democrat Jeff Mayer said he regretted that members of both boards had not had a chance for more discussion prior to Monday’s action.
“It is important for boards to talk with each other and to work collaboratively,” he said. “If we don’t, we risk a train wreck.”
He added, “In seven years of scrutinizing the (education) budget, I’ve never been so in the dark this late in the game.”
But Kevin Connolly, also a Democrat, disagreed. “I dont feel we are in the dark at all,” he said. “It might be naүve for us to think we are going to have a warm and cuddly meeting (with the educators).”
He said he had seen the proposed education budget and the finance board must deal with it as it is presented.
Connolly said he, too, regretted there had not been more dialogue between the boards, and added, “There is an illusion of communication that’s all there is.”
Republican Gavin Anderson said he and other members were moved to look for additional tightening in the education and town budgets because an early projection presented to the board had called for about a 16 percent increase in taxes this year.
“The magnitude of that number caught everyone’s attention,” he said.
He stressed, however, that this was a very preliminary number and had since been reduced to “single digits.” But he said it was still very important to scrutinize the education budget from a financial perspective.
“We have less wiggle room in the reserves,” Anderson said. “We are going to be looking at this as purely financial. We shouldn֒t be looking at educational issues.”
He said one parent had called him to plead with him not to reduce the education budget.
The caller said such an action would not enable the educators to make good on their decision Monday night to restore school start times at two schools that had been changed this year to save money.
Anderson said it was the job of the Board of Finance to tell the Board of Education how much money it was being allocated and then let its members decide how to spend it.
“I’m not going to make decisions on school start times,” he said.
The Board of Finance begins its review of the town budget tonight and will meet with educators on the budget Feb. 25.
