By James Lomuscio
By a vote of 28 to 3, Westport’s Representative Town Meeting (RTM) tonight approved the Board of Education’s $104.2 million operating budget and more than $13 million for debt service and aid to private schools, a total of $117.38 million for 2013-14 school year.
Board of Education Chair Elaine Whitney presents the school budget tonight to the Representative Town Meeting. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com
The legislative body then finalized the overall budget, including the $75.6 million municipal budget approved Monday night, at $193.7 million by a vote of 30 with 1 abstention. The total was up 2.44 percent over the current year.
The school board’s budget approval drew a round of applause from parents and school supporters in the Town Hall auditorium, but it was not as smooth an approval as some had hoped.
Prior to the vote, RTM member Don Bergman, who voted against the budget along with Cathy Talmadge and Cornelia Olsen, gave the Board of Education a drubbing with a long list of grievances, each one beginning with the words “I am concerned.”
He faulted the school board for its operating budget being a 3.95 percent increase over the current year. Bergman also said that the town’s school budgets “will regularly exceed inflation” because teachers’ salaries will, and that the board “has made no headway in terms of step increases.”
“I am concerned that the Board of Education is unduly deferential to the Superintendent of Schools (Elliott Landon),” Bergman said.
With mentioning Landon’s name, Bergman also criticized a “top down management style with a lack of transparency.”
“The schools are quick to follow trends that are costly,” Bergman said, citing Singapore math.
“My intent is not to damage but to improve,” he added.
Talmadge, too, took a swipe at the school board. Despite the dozens of school boosters in the audience, she called the Board of Education “obtuse about looking for opportunities” for energy efficiencies.
At the request of RTM member Velma Heller, who heads the body’s education committee, Landon responded that the school system has changed all its light bulbs from incandescent to LEDs, installed lights that go off when people leave the classroom and has dual fuel diesel and gas offering the ability to switch to to the fuel at a lower cost.
RTM member Richard Lowenstein had asked prior to the meeting an accounting of the money the schools generate from facilities rentals, money he said could go to offsetting the budget. At tonight’s meeting, Lowenstein learned from Landon that the rentals would net $20,000.
“It sounds like a pittance, but think of how many laptops and the software it will buy,” Lowenstein said. “I’m hopeful we are on the cusp of a change in a small area…I think you should review your rental fees annually.”
At the meeting’s close, RTM Moderator Eileen Flug offered a “shout out” to Nancy Harris, the schools assistant superintendent of business, who will retire June 30. Flug noted that this was Harris’s 13th budget, and Harris received a round of applause.
