NORWICH – Despite protestations by faculty that the district’s proposed budget reductions already cut too deep, Norwich’s Board of Education sent the administration back to the drawing board last week, tasked with identifying another $440,000 in potential cuts.
According to Superintendent Gerard O’Sullivan, over $2 million has already been struck from the first run of the 2010-2011 budget, including some $940,000 in additional cuts since the district’s school board last saw it two weeks ago. But that will still leave Norwich taxpayers with a 7.4 percent tax levy increase, the administrator said. And that’s not something school board members are happy with.
“I want to see what ... a 3 percent tax levy (increase) looks like,” said Board President Bob Patterson, who explained that the current figure was higher than he’d like to present to the community.
As O’Sullivan outlined the cuts being proposed, he reiterated the board’s goal for the budget development process, which he said was to gain “community support of a budget that maintains core instructional integrity and is fiscally responsible.”
Those most current version of the budget, he explained, reflected a .91 percent reduction in spending over the prior year. According to the administrator, the total budget figure is already below the contingency level, which is what the district would be held to if the budget was defeated by voters in May.
“These are just options for the board to consider,” O’Sullivan reminded the board, as he reviewed the latest proposed cuts which focused on athletics, extracurriculars and staffing.
In athletics, the superintendent is proposing the elimination of two sports – cross country and fall cheerleading. In all other sports, the number of teams will be limited to one varsity, one junior varsity and one modified team. O’Sullivan has also suggested reducing the number of paid coaching positions for spring track, as well as for football.
According to the administrator, these reductions combined with other athletic equipment and supply cuts will save the district roughly $90,800.
Stipends for a number of extracurricular positions will also be cut, he explained, which will save the district another $19,800. In the high school, those reductions will affect the jazz ensemble, pep club, SADD, Archive, French and Spanish clubs, the Natoli Committee and art club.
More than $40,000 remains in the current budget for extracurricular positions across the district. Positions that will continue to be supported include Student Council, class advisorships, marching band, Honor Society, US First and the spring musical at the high school; student council and the musical in the Middle School; art and friendship clubs at the elementary level; and Odyssey of the Mind.
Other areas which the superintendent has identified for cuts include reducing money spent on professional development, district mailings, summer guidance counselor work, technology purchases, transportation expenses associated with field trips and extra runs, and “whacking” expenditures on equipment and supplies.
It is not these proposed cuts, however, but a number of reductions among the district’s professional staff which have drawn the most opposition, particularly from the Norwich Educators Organization, the labor union which represents Norwich teachers. The standing-room-only crowd at Wednesday’s meeting was filled with union members – many wearing purple NEO T-shirts – there to support their brethren who have found their jobs on the line.
In total, O’Sullivan has proposed cutting more than a dozen full-time teaching positions across the district. On the K-6 level, two classroom teachers, a library media specialist and a school social worker are slated to be let go. The cuts are even more pervasive at the 6 - 12 level, where a remedial reading teacher, science teacher, guidance counselor, business teacher, English teacher, Math teachers, art teacher, foreign language teacher and library media specialist have all been informed their positions may be eliminated.
