School Board Approves Budget Reduction Strategy

One part-time kindergarten teacher's job will be cut and a proposed new position of director of technology will be removed, but the school superintendent's strategy for reducing the proposed school budget by nearly $847,000 is expected to keep most other jobs intact.

Until late Tuesday morning, Avon school administrators were looking at $1,006,873 in reductions to the budget request, an increase from the $847,000 in cuts required by the Board of Finance because of Mala's recommendation of $64,630 to keep certain line items from falling short and another $95,243 in unanticipated tuition costs in the district for outplaced students.   

By 11 a.m., the situation began to look slightly more promising when Superintendent of Schools Gary Mala learned the school district’s and town’s insurance rate dropped from the expected 7.85 percent to 2.4 percent. This brought the new required reduction total to about $752,376 for the proposed $47.9 million Board of Education budget.

“It only speaks to the volatility of getting this information in time. The town actually benefits as well because I spoke to [Town Manager] Brandon [Robertson] today and they’re going to realize the savings, as well,” Mala told Patch during a break in the Board of Education meeting on Tuesday.

The board unanimously voted to adopt his entire budget reduction strategy if the voters approve Avon’s $74.5 million combined budget proposal. The proposal makes $254,972 in personnel line item reductions and $266,413 in non-personnel line item reductions, and off-sets operating expenses by $231,000.

Mala said that because the Avon Board of Education has a history of receiving less than requested, mandated reductions to budget proposals become more difficult. He said that while $752, 376 is still a big number, the slight decrease in the reduction requirement made deciding how to make the reductions a little easier.

Mala, who previously told Patch over a week ago that layoffs were a possibility, indicated that keeping teachers and staff members working is a priority. The district will lose a part-time Roaring Brook School kindergarten teacher ($26,295) because of decreases in enrollment and the requested director of technology, which would have cost $80,000, has been removed from the proposal.

“Gary Mala and the administration worked very hard to minimize the impact and I’m very happy with the way it turned out,” Peggy Roell, Board of Education chairperson, said. “I hope the community supports the budget and move on to next year.”

Assistant Superintendent Jody Goeler, who drafted the initial proposal as former interim superintendent, requested a nearly full-time language arts coordinator, but the new proposal reduces the language arts coordinator request to a half-time job, reducing that requested position cost by $21,774. The reduction strategy also calls for adding a half-time scientific research-based intervention for middle school and high school, Goeler said, which would help the reduction in the language arts coordinator position hours.

Currently Jodi Kryzanski is a part-time SRBI coordinator for kindergarten through sixth grade and a half-time reading consultant, as well. It has not been determined yet who will fill the half-time SRBI position, Goeler wrote in an e-mail, but if Kryzanski's responsibilities are expanded to full-time for the entire district, Avon will need to hire someone to fill the half-time reading consulant position, he said.

“As Gary would say, it’s an incremental step in the right direction. It isn’t obviously everything we want,” Goeler said, when asked if this alteration would adequately prepare the high school for the upcoming accreditation next year. “We’ve had to make incremental decisions to make those incremental steps in the right direction. With Gary Mala’s leadership, we did that. And I think the results speak for themselves.”

One of the school psychologist positions, which would cost Avon $33,904, will now be covered by an IDEA grant. Gary Franzi, director of finances for the district, had hoped to increase the hours of the accounts payable clerk and purchasing secretary in the office, but the budget strategy maintains the current services and does not increase the hours, Goeler explained, amounting to a $29,388 reduction for that request. The strategy also reduces a requested nearly full-time special education teacher to a half-time employee, which is a $28,000 reduction.

In the end, Mala described the budget process as an Oreo cookie, with the majority of the oreo, the cookies, representing the students, sandwiching all budget decisions as the ultimate priority.

When producing his budget reduction strategy, Mala said he focused on ensuring it would allow the district to establish virtual high school classes, increase counselors at the high school, incrementally increase health services and security at the high school, fund support for a cohesive curriculum from kindergarten through 12th grade, reduce dependence on federal stimulus money, increase staff members with scientific research-based intervention training and keep pay to participate fees at current levels.