Board Of Education Passes A Budget
The Marlborough Board of Education has approved a budget for the 2009/2010 year.
The budget totaling $6,996,117.00 was passed unanimously.
Dr Sal Menzo announced he received a letter of resignation from a teacher on 5/18/09. By replacing the experienced teacher with a new teacher the BOE expects to save $20,600 a year. Additionally by cutting teacher supplies from $300 to $200 per year or from $10,000 to $5,000 total for the school and by cutting the library budget from $5,000 to $2,500 the BOE closed the gap to the BOF budget.
$20,600 (retirement savings) + $2,500 (library) + $5,000 (supplies) + $20,000 (additional money from the BOF) = $48,100.
With the teacher retirement the BOE only had to find an additional $7,500 in cuts from the budget rejected by the town vote on May 11th.
During public comment BOF Chairperson Catherine Gaudinski reminded the BOE that next year’s the budget process would be even more difficult. The BOF Chairperson in response to a voter’s email question ran the numbers as to what the budget increase would be for the next year if no spending changed, in other words the only new spending would be for the increased debt service.
If all else stays the same, the tax increase will be 5.75 to 7.25% for the 2010 budget vote.
It should be also noted the money to repair the roads after the sewers have been installed has not been authorized, the additional $1.6 Million will be voted on June 1st along with the total town budget.
The timing of the resignation of the experienced teacher was VERY FORTUITOUS. Had the BOE known about it only 7 days ago they could have told the town that they were encouraging people to vote down the entire town budget over a $7,500 cut to the BOE’s budget. OOOOOH the humanity!
What makes you think they weren’t aware of the teacher’s resignation plans prior to the 5/11 vote? Timing is every thing …
That’s my point…..of course they knew! Par for the course!
Good morning…..I cannot help reflecting on how fortunate the BOE was with this retirement. A “senior” teacher never discussed the fact that she (I will assume it is a woman as most teachers at MES are female) would retire prior to the date of the actual meeting to set the BOE’s budget. Maybe she became disillusioned with the way the BOE has mislead the public and made a snap decision ON A MONDAY to retire.
If only she discussed it with the BOE a week ago then the BOE could have supported the town budget since apparently they only needed $20K to make their numbers work and the savings from the retirement is $20K on the barrel head. I hope this luck follows Dr. Menzo to Wallingford.
Wouldn’t it be nice if your household budget worked out this way with surprise money popping up just as you are writing out your monthly bills? But it never seems to happen to me!