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NORWALK, Conn. – No midnight oil was burned as Norwalk's Board of Education voted last week to lay off more than 70 employees of the Norwalk School District, a fact that was met with consternation, not relief.
"An hour of discussion on $10 million in cuts," said West Rocks Middle School Principal Lynne Moore. "Pathetic. We have never, ever had a reconciliation with an hour only of discussion."
"This was a hatchet job," said Aaron Hull, the father of two young girls.
Republican Steven Colarossi was the only board member to question the reconciliation plan presented by Superintendent Susan Marks. He was also the only one to vote against it in a meeting that lasted a little more than an hour.
"When we elect board members, don't we expect them to look out for us?" Moore asked. "They are the voice. They're not the voice of the superintendent. They are the voice for the kids. ... All across the board we have politicians playing with kids' lives and didn't even respond to data."
Cuts in the budget include 10 elementary school assistant principals, two middle school assistant principals, four aides at Columbus Magnet School, 12 elementary school library aides, two middle school library aides, 25 elementary school teachers, four middle school teachers, two high school teachers, one planetarium teacher, one special education teacher, one Norwalk High School shop teacher, one school to career teacher, five Briggs High School teachers, six literacy specialists and one school psychologist – a total of 77 positions.
"I think that the budget reconciliation that they voted on tonight is absolutely reprehensible," said Bruce Mellion, president of the Norwalk Federation of Teachers. "There was many places in here where they could have had reductions, millions of dollars with far less impact on students. ... I also think it's unfortunate that this process that's going on all year long is basically done in a half-hour, a rubber stamp of Dr. Marks' version with little discussion."
Moore had pointed comments for Mayor Richard Moccia and Fred Wilms, chairman of the Board of Estimate and Taxation. "Moccia's having a field day. He's enjoying the power trip, and so is Wilms," she said.
Moccia did not respond to a request for comment. Wilms said he would not respond to personal attacks.
Moore said politicians are ignoring the fact that school board requests have been cut for years. Jack Chiaramonte, school board chairman, has also complained about constant cuts.
"Eventually, you've been slicing away at the Board of Ed for years," he said. "You're trimming away all the fat. Now we're at the point where we're getting meat and bone, because we don't have enough money to keep the status quo."
Chiaramonte, who is running for the 25th District Senate seat, stressed that the state's educational cost sharing formula is to blame
"The real problem here is we're not being funded accordingly by the state," he said. "We're only being funded at 7 percent. All the other districts in our DRG (District Reference Group) are being funded at 29 percent. We're losing $28 million because the people in Hartford feel we're rich. If I had what Danbury has – Danbury has 600 students less than us, they get $15 million more than we do. We get 10, they get 25. ...Would we even be here arguing? No, we wouldn't. Basically, the people in Hartford are not treating us right."
Moore said Norwalk's process is backward, as the cap is set and then the Board of Education begins holding hearings to determine what the needs are.
"It's such a flawed process," she said. "... To me, it's like the joke. It's 'the chicken.' 'This is what we're going to do and we'll see what you can do about it, if anything.' Think of last year, we had that whole Norwalk High auditorium packed with people. Did it matter? No. Did it matter when the cap was being set this year? That's the premise upon which they're working."
At Tuesday's Board of Education meeting she said she had heard the board had four votes lined up to support Marks' reconciliation plan. On Thursday she said, "It was a done deal. ... This was just pathetic."
Comments (20)
Jack is an idiot. I hope no one ever votes for him again. He needs to take some blame...Stamford gets less ECS funding than we do and they manage just fine. Norwalk's problem is money management...I can see one major problem right here, incorrect numbers. We're still talking about balancing a $10 million deficit when, and correct me if I'm wrong, there's an extra $1.8 million from the Special Education line item being overbudget and an extra $1.8 million from unemployment costs that we will occur with the budget that was passed. The city is lending $4 million, 1.8 of which can be repaid next year so this year's deficit is actually closer to $12 million but they balnaced to a $10 million deficit...So going into 2013-2014 there's going to be a $2 million deficit because for another year the BOE and Marks are not balancing to the proper budget, the $1.8 (or 1.3 apparently now) that will have to be repaid to city from this year's deficit, the $1.8 because special education will once again be overbudget and there will once again not be any reserves to cover it with, so now we are talking about ending the 2012-2013 with a $5 million deficit. And are you telling me this Board doesn't see that. Why would you think that doing the same thing is going to produce different results?
This is sad. It'll take about 3 years for crime to start spiking, so I totally plan on moving out of Norwalk within the next 3 years especially since I'm planning on starting a family soon. I might buy some income property before I go once the property values start to tank and hire someone to manage it so I don't have to come back often though...High crime rates, sky high taxes (because someone will have the bright idea that that is the solution but no one worth any real money will pay the taxes to live in a city with a poor school system and low property values), poor school system, unfinished construction projects as far as the eye can see, and companies leaving the city by the drones is where Norwalk is headed. Sounds like Norwalk will be the next Bridgeport very soon...
@Jane D
Bon voyage! We don't need citizens such as yourself who constantly attack the Police simply for doing their job, and who immediately jump to the conclusion that regardless of the facts, the Police are wrong. Norwalk will be better off without you.
Something tells me though that you're just trying to score political points with your comment. Just like all your other comments, this one seems completely divorced from reality. If things are truly as bad as you say in Norwalk, why are you considering purchasing property here? Everybody knows that real estate is a long-term investment.
Do write and let us know how your new location reacts to your kooky theory that crime is caused by Police, rather than criminals.
Not to live in. I would buy property in Brigdeport too but not to live.
I'm pretty sure once things start going to crap I can get a few properties foreclosed or on tax lien.
Pay $10,000 in taxes, get a house and sell it for $80,000. That's the way you do it in Bridgeport and soon you will be able to do the same thing in Norwalk.
I misspoke, you can already do it here...http://my.norwalkct.org/etaxsale/
What are you talking about? Norwalk, Westport, and many other CT cities have had tax sales for YEARS, that's nothing new and it doesn't indicate anything. Nice try though.
As for buying a house by paying a $10,000 tax bill, and flipping it quickly for $80,000, that's one of those things that sounds like free money but it often isn't. Properties go to tax sales because the owners have fallen on hard times financially. That's rarely something that happens overnight, generally you have to go a minimum of several years without paying taxes to make it into a tax sale, especially for an $80,000 property. If owners aren't paying taxes, they've probably gone years without doing basic maintenance either. That means properties that go to tax sales are in very poor shape - except you can't inspect the interiors beforehand because they're private property. You might get something for $10,000 that you then have to put a new roof on, with leaky windows, and possibly even some environmental issues. By the time you fix all the issues, you've spent more than $80,000.
Lastly, after the tax auction, if the property is in good shape and the owners don't want to lose it at the bargain price, they scrape together the money to pay the taxes and so the sale doesn't even go through. The owners have something like six months to do this, after the sale. So in that case you get your money back with some interest, but no "bargain" property. It sounds like once again you are just saying things without knowing what you're talking about.
Can anyone say recall election of the BOE and the mayor
Tim
I have to assume that you don't know much about how the City government is set up. The Mayor has nothing to do with how the BOE is run. While he is on the BOE, he's there for as an ex-officio. He doesn't get to vote unless there is a tie.
Obviously, you don't like the Mayor. You seem to think he can just wave his hand and the 4.4 million shortfall will disappear. Remember, he can offer the resolution but he has to get the BET and the Finance Director to go along with it. And with all due respect to those gentlemen, that can be a hard sell. Then it has to be passed by the Council. He offered a resolution to help out, but the Democrats wanted to change all the terms to their liking.
You try to have a recall, but who are you going to put up against all the members of the BOE and the mayor? I'd really like to see that slate. Also, recall elections cost a bundle. Sounds like you would rather see the money that the City is offering to offset the shortfall go to a recall that won't really get you much at all because at the end of the day, you'd still have the shortfall, taxes would be higher and you'd have a BOE that may not know what they were doing. But, hey, you're entitled to your opinion.
The ADVOCATE has a story today about a $25 million grant the Stamford school system got from GE to help eliminate achievement gap. Our BOE needs to gdet a better grant application person.
The Grants Specialist was cut last year! Central Office is a skeleton crew, we need to stop cutting and start supporting our schools!
Since before my daughter was born in 2000 I was worried if Norwalk was the best place for her. In the end after meeting all of the wonderful teachers and staff at Brookside I decided to go ahead and give it a shot and I have not been that disappointed. My daughter is one of the many AT students here and everytime I talked to the teacher and expressed she was a little bored or what have you they made sure to take a stand and help her with extra work. That is where the wonderful library at the school came in. Mrs. Madden makes that place full of adventure and knowledge. She can always help your child pick a book that makes reading fun for them. We are suppose to show our kids how to love to read but we are taking away the key points to them. Alot of parents now adays do not have time to go to the public library because either the hours suck or they are working.
Heres a question if Amercar & other major companies can take a pay cut why can't the teachers. I do not believe their pay should be frozen because they still have there own families and mortages to take care of as well. At one of the BoE meetings Bruce asked why they haven't spoken to him I guess with everything I have read he is the president of the Union. But Bruce what have you tried to do to help this except do the he said this, she said that thing. At the end of the day Bruce, BoE, and Moccia the ones you are hurting are the children who are the future. Do you really want to be that town that has a bad rep once again! I have been so nervous regarding these cuts because I own a small business in Norwalk and right now that barely pays for itself. How am I going to pay for private schools? Why am I looking at homeschooling even though I know that would not be a good fit for my kids or me. Can you see a high school and/or middle school without security? Can we say its going to turn to thug central and all the work we have put into the town will be for nothing.
So that being said why aren't there any fundraising programs going on to try to help this! Well let me give you a few ideas on how I think we could come up with a little money to help the schools.
1) Charge people to see the wonderful fireworks the town puts up. I would say block the road to where Marvin is and charge people like $10 a car load or something. I highly doubt people would mind and you can make a butt load!
2) Stop installing the street cameras! Use that money to help the schools we haven't had them before we don't need them now!
3) See if teachers who make over $75,000 will take some sort of pay cut! If not tell them to go to another district or something..
4) Suggest teachers of a certain age take their retirement. There are atleast a few per school. Then you can hire the newer teachers who really want to be there and are not there because they make so much.
5) Security is a must in the schools! Why not see what each person does and how they are beneficial to the school and if they are not then we don't need them.
6) I don't see a reason for an atheltic director & secertary when you have 4 gym teachers. What the hell does the director do? And why do they need 4 gym teachers when most schools have 1 or 2.
7) As for the Librains which I love dearly I would say to do a progress report on them and see how they work for the school. And I'm sorry to say this but for the middle school the kids barely use the library why can't that be one of the security guards responsibility? But the kids in elementary and the high schools need them!!!!!!!!!
8) Cut back on city spending!
9) There is no reason at all that Dr.Marks should be making 200,000 + a year WTF. She is not even prepared at meetings and she has no clue what the hell she is doing. For a person who is suppose to be in charge of our schools shes the worst. How can you go to meeting not prepared when you scheduled the meeting? How can you tell us plans you have for the middle school that would not be able to take place for years to come? And this meeting was about what our children would be doing in middle school not what their children will be doing. I understand she came from a small town well honey you with the big fishes now so you better learn to swim.
I will be at the meeting tomorrow night. We need to protect our children because NO ONE ELSE WILL!!!!!!!! The sad thing is it takes a village to raise a child but we no longer have a village we have a dump where elected officals rather pack their pockets with our tax dollars then save our future.
Well, at least the NFT didn't make any concessions. You go, Bruce!
Hey, knock it off Paige! Taxpayers should just shut up and pay more, otherwise we are anti-children. Teachers Union members, on the other hand, should never even CONSIDER accepting the same compensation level next year that they received this year, even if doing so will massively improve our schools. But that does *not* make the Teachers Union anti-children. The only people who are anti-children are us regular Norwalkers who are already paying $160+ million per year for schools. I know you think this is unreasonable, since all you're asking is that our elected officials make a deal on our behalf that's exactly the same as what we're paying now. I'm sorry for that, but sometimes the world is unfair.
I love this quote from Bruce Mellion: "There was [sic] many places in here where they could have had reductions, millions of dollars with far less impact on students."
Setting aside the poor grammar, he's right. There was a HUGE opportunity to have reductions with far less impact on students, but it was missed completely, because Mr. Mellion refuses to allow his membership to vote on postponing next year's raise. For Mr. Mellion to stand up and blast the school board for a problem that he himself could solve, but won't, takes some serious chutzpah. The house is on fire and he's standing in front of it with a fire hose, but he won't turn it on. Apparently he feels it's unfair that he should have to use a tiny fraction of his own water put out the fire. This despite the fact that he has more "water" than any other firefighter in the state, with the exception of Greenwich. So instead Mr. Mellion stands in front of the house bellowing that someone else should come and put out the fire, otherwise some children might get burned. Hypocrisy at its finest.
Iwitherspoon
How did mismanagement by the BOE get to be the teacher's union problem ? You, and Chiaramonte, are suggesting that the teachers should subsidize what is now being called sloppy bookkeeping. There has been NO AUDIT and moccia has avoided dreaded finger pointing, but the teachers should volunteer to break their contract to help cover up someone else's mistakes. The only apparent rationale seems to be they should because they can. That same logic would apply to the special tax remedy discussed by Hamilton. A special tax would raise the money and the taxpayers should pay because they can. RIDICULOUS !
First, the real reason for the so-called shortfall should be identified and those responsible identified and held accountable. This will require an independent forensic audit covering several years in which every employee and every vendor would be verified. We might be surprised to find checks were going to no-existent vendors, or teachers. It would not be the first time in Norwalk that public funds were systematically stolen and moccia's opposition to a forensic audit will come back to haunt him.
You, moccia, and Chiaramonte seem more interested in breaking the union than in fixing the real problem.
Old Timer - What are you talking about? The audit was approved last night at the BET meeting. The BET and Finance will be working on determining the scope of the audit and what kind of information they want the auditors to bring back.
Mr. Longo has already produced lengthy, detailed reports on the financial issues, but he's the C.O.O. of the District and has a lot of other duties, also. There were several questions about how the money was used (i.e. whether the draw downs were transfers for textbooks, fuel, paper, etc.) which Mr. Longo simply did not know since it would mean going back and locating every single transfer over the past couple of years. Remember, he's only been here since September.
The audit's going to cost the District and the City more money and the value of the results will be questionable. It's already been documented that there is a shortfall. Is it going to be anymore enlightening to know that the shortfall was cause by transferring some funds to cover plowing or fuel costs the winter before last? Or to buy more copy paper for the classroom, or heating oil? Mr. Longo has already said that he has no evidence that there was impropriety in the books, just poor planning.
@Old Timer
I'm not surprised that as an ex-Union officer you see it that way. But City government ALREADY reached into taxpayers pockets once with a tax hike in a difficult economy. It's simply not acceptable to do the same again.
You're right that the Union has a contract, so the Union can't be forced to do anything with regards to a wage freeze. But by the same token, the City can't be forced to spend endless sums on schools, beyond the $160+ million already being spent. The school system is a government entity that exists to provide children with a quality education at the lowest possible cost. It's not a guaranteed full-employment program for teachers.
So if the teachers won't accept a wage freeze, the BoE will hire as many teachers as it can with the money it has, which means a lot of teachers will lose their jobs. I guess that means the Union cares more about pay raises for Union members than about the quality of Norwalk schools.
At a public meeting earlier this month, a Brookside Elementary School teacher said that if he and all his colleagues were allowed to vote, they would support postponing the upcoming raise to save jobs for their friends and colleagues and give children better schools. If that's the case, why won't the Union leadership at least allow a vote on the issue? Why must the Union proceed in such an undemocratic manner? What's the harm in allowing the membership to decide for themselves?
Nobody is talking about breaking the Union. But in refusing to consider a wage freeze, it sure does look like the Union leadership is breaking the school system. Taxpayers will remember this.
No, that means the City is not willing, or able, to pay and seeks to shift the blame to the union.
Where do you get your numbers. ? Next year's proposed budget was 165,419,100' but the amount they got was almost ten million less. This year the proposed budget was 159,353,241 and they got 154,801,489 about 4,551,752 less. Either the city believed there was a lot of fat, or expected the schools would make up the difference with bake sales. Notice how close the shortfall matches the amount cut from Dr Marks request.
We pay Dr Marks a lot of money and then don't accept her numbers. Why not let her go and let Jack Chiaramonte set the budget ? The way we do it now is not working and we are talking about LENDING the schools money we want paid back. Does moccia know of a lot of waste or thievery, or is he trying to get Dr Marks to quit ? Has any other city agency ever been LOANED money for operations and been required to pay it back ?
Without a complete operations audit, which is not planned, we will never know what is going on with school budgets, or why a full operations or forensic audit is being so strongly resisted. At all cost, we must avoid dreaded FINGER POINTING.