New Britain Republican Town Committee Cites Over budget By The Board Of Education!

New Britain Town Committee Cites Over budget By The Board Of Eductaion!

Education Increases:

There has been a great deal of press lately over the state of the budget that the Mayor has proposed for education. Members of the central administration and the Board of Education are threatening that hundreds of teachers may need to be laid off in order to close the budget gap. While it is impossible to know the true figures, the central office does not even provide the Board of Education with a detailed accounting of their finances, we can glean just how much potential waste exists in the school budget.
• The self insurance fund was funded in 2009-2010 at roughly $10 million. The request for 2010-2011 is over $14 million, an increase of $4 million.
• Library books was funded at a level of $9200 in 2009-2010. The request for 2010-2011 was $19,200, over twice as much.
• Requests for Data Processing funding increased from $171,500 to $208,625, an increase of just under $40,000.
• Fuel and Oil requests increased from $600,800 to $654,535, an increase of over $50,000.
The worst part about these increases is that there is no way for the Board of Education, the Board of Finance and Taxation, the Mayor, or the Common Council to know whether or not these budget amounts are justified or whether or not these increases are justified. That is because the central administration keeps a tight lid on their records to avoid oversight and scrutiny.
When every other department goes before the Board of Finance and Taxation the Board can see their past expenditures, how much they spent each year on a line item for the past five years. The Board can also pull up exact records of how much has been spent year to date from any account, what the money has been spent on, and what the outstanding balances are on any open purchase orders.
By refusing to provide accurate and timely information the central administration for the school district is in short asking for blind trust from the tax payers and from the Common Council. Considering the level of oversight that every other department must go through it is alarming that over half of the municipal budget goes to the Board of Education with little to no oversight. It is easy to provide lip service to the value of education. It takes much more political willpower to actually take a stand for accountability and demand a fair display of how the central administration is spending the millions of dollars they already receive.
Until there is an open process by which the Board of Education and the central administration of the school system demonstrate a real need for the massive increases in funding they request it is the duty of the Common Council to remain skeptical. The Common Council should demand transparency before they consider returning any funding to the education budget.