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CROMWELL — The Board of Education recently approved the superintendent's proposed $36.4 million budget for the 2023-24 academic year, which carries a 6.94 percent increase over the current $34 million spending package.
A number of factors contributed to the increase, according to Superintendent of Schools Enza Macri’s presentation, most notably a $1.4 million increase in staff salaries, a hike of 45.3 percent in employee benefits, special education costs, transportation, and inflation, which has caused utility bills to increase dramatically.
Administrative salaries account for a 16 percent increase in spending — and that’s without an assistant superintendent on staff, which is the case in other municipalities Cromwell’s size, Macri said.
She originally asked the board for $37.4 million, a 9.93 percent increase, which would eliminate the need to cut jobs.
A number of individuals concerned about the possible loss of educators in the district, most notably paraprofessionals, spoke out during the Feb. 7 Board of Education meeting.
She and her team have been working "relentlessly" on the budget, which places “students first,” she told those at the meeting.
The budget increase is slightly less than inflation, which stands at 7.1 percent, the superintendent said. School administrators across Connecticut are asking for similar hikes in spending, she contended, including those in East Lyme, South Windsor, Southington and Hamden.
Macri made it clear that she is focused on retaining employees through attrition, changing workers’ positions, rewriting job descriptions and other measures. "I'm trying to think of people's livelihoods,” she noted.
She also spoke about a concern held by many about more children being added to classrooms.
"I gave you hypotheticals so that no one would feel exactly what you're feeling today, and, unfortunately, the trust is just not there,” Macri said. “People are afraid, and I understand that they're afraid, however, I have no intention of increasing class size at all.”
However, Macri added, she is going to reexamine classes with eight to 10 students, something that surprised her once she began looking into the matter.
A letter signed by some 40 educators that was submitted to the board said that "cutting teaching positions and dispersing 2 to 3 more children into classrooms would have an extreme impact on all children in our district."
That is especially important, they wrote, at the K-3 level, "where children are learning the foundational skills that will influence the trajectory for the rest of their education."
Another factor is that Cromwell doesn't receive a lot of funding from other sources besides the town. “We hit our grant cliff every (year),” Macri noted.
The town does receive $5.1 million in Education Cost Sharing money from the state, but, since it isn’t among the 33 state-designated Alliance Districts, or lower performing districts, as Middletown is, such funds aren’t available.
"This is the best I could do without a crystal ball,” Macri said of the budget.
School districts across the nation have been focusing on the need for services that became all the more important during the pandemic. "We need to increase our student achievement and their mental health and well-being,” Macri explained.
Among the $1 million in cuts made by the Board of Education to Macri’s original request were to teaching and stipend salaries, textbooks, support staff salaries, benefits, advertising and printing and instructional equipment.
One special education teacher asked how Macri would decide on "repositioning" paraprofessionals. There are some paraeducators who don’t work one-on-one with students or those who need special education support, she replied. “That does not mean that the para will lose their job, they will just be doing something different/reassigned."
During public session, Heidi Venetianer, the mother of a child with special needs and educator, spoke about the importance of paras. “I can assure you that the job of paraprofessional is not a frivolous position that can just be tossed to the side," she said.
"I could name at least seven children in the district in various schools in a variety of grade levels who would not know what to do what to do with themselves if there were an active fire or active shooter situation,” Venetianer added.
Some special ed students have difficulty performing everyday tasks, she said. “There are children who don't have the necessary executive functioning skills to prepare their materials for lessons at hand, children who have language delays or difficulty with receptive language skills, who through no fault of their own, cannot understand directions given or the content of a lesson,” Venetianer said.
Linda Demetriades is president of the AFSCME Local 1302-280 union, which serves paras, nurses, nurse coordinators, teachers and others.
She called paraeducators the “backbone of the district,” who support students with an individualized education program, their behavior, academics, emotional well-being and much more.
“We toilet, feed and provide a safe environment for these students,” Demetriades said. “This isn’t the time to take away paraprofessionals or eliminate classroom teachers or increase class size. [The loss of] three paraeducators would “directly impact our most vulnerable population,” she added.
Macri’s proposal will be presented to the Board of Finance in late March / early April at a date to be determined. If members do not fully fund the proposed budget, she explained she would be faced with reassessing cuts and making adjustments to the overall spending package.
For information, visit cromwell.k12.ct.us.
860.777.1027
