Round two -- BOF meeting tonight

Took a few days for some deep breaths and to get re-acquainted with my family, hope everyone enjoyed the beautiful weekend!

Want people to know that I personally don’t think those who worked to get out the vote and to pass this should be overly disappointed with the results. The turnout was nearly double what it was last year. Last year’s budget passed by 263 votes with 2527 votes cast, or a 10.4% margin. This year’s budget failed by 465 votes with 4989 total votes cast, or a 9.3% margin.

Thus in one of the worst recessions most can recall, following a re-evaluation year, after passing a major bond issue, and facing the re-adjustment of our dependence on the fund balance and a potential 6.9% tax increase the budget failed by a margin of less than 10%, meaning that if 250 votes had gone “yes” instead of “no” -- 5% or 1 in 20 of the voters -- it would have passed.

I think Lisa Fiala’s and Marti Carlson’s comments that this was not a vote against education are very on target. In fact, the wide margins on the school infrastructure issues and the town bond issue that failed suggest support for education, particularly for insfrastructure.

Unfortunately, due to the fact that the budget is predominantly education the cuts will be primarily on the education side. It is my hope that given that the vote was actually relatively close that cuts decided on tonight (on this round) will not be severe as they might have been if the budget had failed miserably.

Following the BOF determination of an amount what actually gets cut on the education side will depend on what happens with negotiations between the teachers union and the BOE regarding wage concessions. While decisions will rest with the local unions, it is important to understand that the local union is under significant pressure from the state as no other teacher’s union in CT has agreed to significant wage concessions. For any amount that cannot be agreed to in salary concessions cuts will be at the discretion of the BOE with input from the superintendent.

It should also be understood that PACT has not been opposed to addressing salary issues on the education side, but felt that if possible, given the compensation of Guilford teachers relative to comparable communities (please also see below) this should have been delayed until contracts were renegotiated this summer.

The BOF will meet tonight (Monday the 27th) at 7.30pm in the Community Center and will likely decide and vote on the amount to be cut. There will be the opportunity for public comment. I encourage people who feel strongly to attend and comment and feel some of us need to be there to counter any who feel the budget should be cut further. Please let me know if you are able to attend. If you do decide to comment I would only urge you to stay positive and avoid comments that could be polarizing.

Additionally, the BOE will be meeting tonight (Monday the 27th) at Adams at 7.30, with a facilities subcommittee meeting at 6.30. Budget issues will be discussed. I will plan to attend the BOF meeting so if anyone would like to attend the BOE meeting and file a report please let me know.

It is my hope that much of the work we have done in getting people engaged and understanding the issues will allow us to pass the next budget once cuts are made. We will still likely be facing a tax increase, and we need to do what we can to help the budget passes this time.

The next budget referendum is tentatively scheduled for May 19th. I have not heard what the polling locations will be. Over the next couple of weeks PACT will be working to tune up our database and will likely do some targeted phone banking. We will have a meeting within the next week or two, if you are interested in helping and can/or cannot attend a meeting (or have particularly good or bad times) please let me know.

I encourage people to keep an eye on letters to the paper and to try to balance any negative letters or those who would like to see the budget fail again.

I also want to let people know that in my letter to the Courier last week I stated that Madison’s per pupil expenditures are lower than reported due to benefits being on the town side. This was based on discussions with what I believed to be a very reliable source in a leadership position, however it has been brought to my attention that while Madison reports its teacher benefits on the budget slightly differently, the per pupil expenditures do include benefits. I wrote the letter on the day the Courier came out in order to get it in the next week and am guilty of not doing due diligence on the numbers. I am continuing to look into this and will issue an appropriate retraction, but wanted to apologize to PACT, the community, and Linda Cloutier for not checking on this appropriately before sending the letter.

Thanks,
Chris