Republicans: 'It Is A Fair Budget, It Is A Reasonable Budget'

Armed with a spreadsheet and document describing ways the schools could save money, four Republicans held a press conference Wednesday to make their pitch for why voters should support the budget.

"It is a fair budget, it is a reasonable budget," said Legislative Council Chairman Jeff Capeci, one of the four at the press conference held in Sandy Hook. "If our suggestions are taken, it will not impact educational services, and that's the message we're trying to get out."

Town officials are sending a $104 million budget request to a second referendum on Tuesday. The budget request is comprised of $37 million for the Board of Selectmen and $67 million for the Board of Education, and in total would increase property taxes by 2.4 percent.

The budget has proven to be particularly divisive among residents and officials. After the first referendum failed, education supporters renewed efforts to lobby for the restoration of some of the $2.5 million that had been removed from the original schools' request.

The Legislative Council voted against doing that, choosing instead to accept First Selectman Pat Llodra's recommendation to reduce the municipal budget by $503,000 and leave the education budget untouched.

In response, some education supporters, who said the cuts will lead to fewer teachers and larger class sizes, are advocating a "no" vote, saying the only way to restore education money will be for the second referendum to fail and the council to be pressured into budgeting more for schools.

Capeci, Board of Finance Chairman John Kortze, council vice-chairman Mary Ann Jacob and Board of Education member Kathy Fetchick said at the press conference that there were many ways to make up for the $2.5 million shortfall, which do not involve laying off teachers or measures that would affect classes.

"If you can come up with alternatives that are not staff, why would you take more?" Kortze said of efforts to get more education dollars. "Republicans believe we've got a good budget. Republicans believe this is working. There is a notion that there's a 'no-can-do' out there. We're 180 degrees. We can do this. We absolutely can do this."

Based on the Republicans' spreadsheet, the school district could find nearly $2 million in savings, such as $863,000 in insurance by using a quote from AON, a town consultant; $51,000 in fuel cost reductions; $479,000 if they assumed a higher rate of state grant reimbursements; and $180,000 through early retirement of 10 teachers.

Much of the other savings could come from other ideas, such as increasing pay-for-play sports fees and $100,000 in transportation costs if the education board were to accept some concessions from bus drivers as part of negotiations, according to the Republicans' calculations.

"We are suggesting a host of options that should be considered," Kortze said. "If you don't like one of them, we have some others. Surely there is some type of recipe here that the town can come up with."

While some school officials have said they are looking at laying off teachers and possibly eliminating a middle school cluster as way to bridge the shortfall rather than risk having the insurance savings and other state grant assumptions not materialize, Kortze and the others said their recommendations may offer a better way.

"Is it more risky to accept a lower insurance quote from AON or lay off a teacher?" Kortze asked. "What has a greater longer term impact? Is it a greater risk to accept savings by a contractor of the town, like the bus drivers, than risk losing a cluster? So it's a question of how to look at risk, and we believe if you get direction from the state, or you have an insurance quote that is reasonable...than those are good risks to take versus the alternative."

The divisions on the budget debate run deep, including among members of the education board.

Board member Bill Hart, a member of the Independent Party of Newtown who was not at the press conference and who advocates for a "no" vote, said the recommendations the Republicans have presented were not new, and that the board was already investigating them.

The education board has used some of the same calculations, such as savings in electricity, to carve out $1.3 million it has said can be removed without affecting teachers or classroom instruction, officials said. Members, however, appear to disagree on where the rest of the $2.5 million shortfall should come from, with some, such as Hart, saying the district has no choice but to lay off teachers, while others, such as Fetchick, saying there are alternatives.

Hart disputed several of the other numbers cited in the Republicans' spreadsheet, saying the estimates were too high in some cases, such as for insurance and early retirement, and wrong in others, such as for fuel costs.

"They are very inflated and very optimistic," he said. "When you get their math right, you still have to lay off teachers to get to the bottom line."

Republicans said they do not believe pouring more money into the education system will mean better schools. Fetchick said historically budgeting more money for the school system has not necessarily led to higher test scores.

"The last 10 years, our test scores have been flat, and 10 years ago, we had 13-percent increases in education, 8-percent increases in education," she said. "So just because you spend more money doesn't mean you're going to get a better education."

Capeci and Jacob, the two council Republicans, also said they do not see any scenario where they would support adding more money to the education budget should the referendum fail. They said one of the reasons they held the press conference was to better educate voters.

"The folks that are advocating for a 'no' vote for whatever reason don't see these possibilities as an option, and are concerned that 21 teachers are going to be laid off, and what we're saying is that we don't see that," Jacob said. "We don't believe that is a reality, and because we don't believe that is a reality, we don't believe that voting 'no' makes sense if you support education."

If the second referendum was defeated, Jacob said she would support cutting more from the town budget.

"Unfortunately that additional money would have to come out of the town side of the budget, which would, I think if it continued much further than it's already gone, would start damaging and angering people who use town services more than the Board of Education services," she said.

Republicans said they have worked hard on compromise – such as allowing the education budget to increase by 1-percent from the previous year and leaving it untouched when the first referendum failed.

"We did compromise," Jacob said. "To the people who would like money added to education, there is no compromise unless we give them what they want and their perception is that we're not compromising. What we're saying here today is we believe we are compromising and we believe that is the right compromise for the town."