Board of Selectmen Minutes - January 31, 2007

Present: First Selectman Woody Bliss; Selectman W. Glenn Major; Selectman Richard Miller; Town Administrator Tom Landry; Administrative Assistant Judy DeVito; Dr. Lynne Pierson; Dr. Jo-Ann Keating; Ellen Uzenoff; Members of the Board of Education; Members of the Administration, Members of the Public, and the press.

Board of Selectmen review Board of Education Budget: Dr. Lynne Pierson Superintendent of Schools said that the proposed budget was approved unanimously by the Board of Education at its regular meeting that was held on January 16, 2007.

She said the development of this budget document was guided by the Board of Education goal which said that we were to review and improve the budget development process. It was guided by the efforts and vast experience of our new Director of Finance and Operations, Dr. Jo-Ann Keating.

Dr. Keating said the document was broken down into eight different categories. The first three talk about the operating budget and what is in it. The last five are supplementary schedules for the budget that provide additional information that help decision makers make better decisions.

Dr. Pierson said they started using the New England School Development Council (NESDC) as a consultant several years ago. Their enrollment projects are about as accurate as an organization that does school enrollment projections. They track those in terms of comparing what is projected to the number of students that are actually counted on October 1^st of each year. NESDC reminds them that enrollment projections are most accurate for about one or two years. When you go ten years you can have projections but the reliability of those projections is less likely to be what it is year to year. This year the projection that came in were significantly different from previous projections in that it showed some peaks in certain grade levels and some dips in other grade levels. The biggest concern was in kindergarten. It is projected based on birth rates. It is more difficult to ascertain how many youngsters will enroll as a result of families moving into the district from the time the youngster is born until the youngster is eligible for kindergarten.

What they did this year was send out to members of the community a post card asking for more information. They are collecting and monitoring that data on a regular basis. The NESDC projections indicate that there will be a reduction of negative 61 students at Hurlbutt for next year. The Intermediate School will have 17 more students, the Middle school is expecting 21 fewer students and the High School is expecting an additional 17 students. The overall projected enrollment for the 2007-2008 school year is 2,527 students which is a minus 48 students. They need to watch closely the kindergarten enrollment because if in fact we loss that many kindergarteners that will have a long range impact in the district.

The total staffing for both certified and non-certified for 2006-07 is 371.95 and 2007-08 is 371.50 a slight reduction of -.45. Staffing is approximately 60% of the total budget and when you include fringe benefits it is slightly under 80% of a school budget. Dr. Pierson said that is very common in most school districts whether they are in Connecticut or any State in the Union.

The budget request is for $42,240,058 which is 5.46% greater than fiscal year 2007 budget. Of the 5.46% budget 1.21% is specific to health benefits. Dr. Pierson said that she believed the budget was educationally sound but is also fiscally responsible.

Mr. Bliss asked if the enrollment on page 5 included PK and special education both in and out placed. Dr. Pierson said it did not. Mrs. Rosenbaum said because NESDC is unable to project pre school enrollment because the pre school program is primarily for special needs students. They go with what exist and what they know based on the data they receive from the state system from birth to three. This year they have 27 pre school students who are special ed, 7 who receive speech and 17 that are called typical peers who participate on a 2 days per week ½ day basis. They have 24 out placed students this year and they are projecting 25 for next year.

Mr. Miller said he thought the cost in High School would be greater than any other school and the budget did not show that. Dr. Keating said that it really depended on the composition, longevity and demographics for the teaching staff.

Mr. Bliss said he thought there was a need to re-slice the dollars by school to include the total cost. Mr. Major said he had lost sight of the overall administrative cost. The numbers of things in the categories were so big that he could not figure out which part was growing and which part was not and why it was growing.

Mr. Major said assuming that their numbers are right where does that put us in the 2011-2012 school year. Mr. Major said that he would argue that the budget increase is 7.6% because that is what it is per pupil. He said that he sees a continued growth despite the fact that we are servicing that many fewer students.

Dr. Keating said the school board hired a consultant last year who completed an extensive study of the transportation system in Weston and made recommendations to improve the system. One of the recommendations was to assume the responsibility of routing in house rather than having Laidlaw route the buses. In order to do that we would have to purchase a routing software package. A person would have to develop the database which is labor intensive. Dr. Keating said it takes a good seven to eight months to implement the system. This person would be full time for the first year and the transportation committee would revisit the value of that position.

Dr. Pierson said they clearly expect by doing their own routing both in district as well as working to improve the expenses associated with out of district and other special runs that they will see a cost savings over time that will be worth having. She said at the same time they can improve the services to students and families.

Mr. Miller asked if they would be eliminating contracts for maintaining the computers and what would be the cost savings. Dr. Pierson said that position was included in this years budget and do not expect that position to go away. They are in the process of commissioning a technology review that is going to look at how we deal with technology throughout.

Mr. Bliss said that that the Board of Selectmen had intended to make a recommendation tomorrow night but they would not be ready for that. They could push that back roughly a week and still get their recommendations.

Mr. Bliss asked what they thought the increase would be in the budget next year. Dr. Pierson said she could not answer that tonight. Her suggestion would be that the elected officials, the Board members, Board of Finance sit down and have a discussion and agree upon a methodology and agree upon some assumptions so that everyone knows what to expect, when to expect it, how it is going to come, when it is going to come and there is no disappointment in terms of long range forecast.

Mr. Bliss said in 2003 the Town switched from a self insured to a fully paid premium plan and asked the employees to participate more heavily in things like higher co pays and higher deductibles. The health insurance is creeping up each year. A couple of years ago it was 27% of the BoE salary cost now it is up to 31.9% of the BoE salary cost. He said are we doing everything that we need to be doing there. He said the BoE should strongly consider whether they should be asking the employees to participate more in the program and whether self insured is the way to go still or whether we should go to a full premium plan.

Dr. Keating said they were before to Board of Finance to establish a general services fund for their health program. They wanted to establish stability for these claims that are high level claims. Mr. Miller said you are comparing apples and oranges when you compare the Town to the Board of Education.