Citing the recent budget hearing held at the New Britain High school were several hundred parents and teachers out to express their concern over the Mayor's proposed budget.
With the school officials threatening a possible elimination of over two hundred positions citing that the parents would have better spent their time with their attending the Board of Education meeting to state their concerns.
Since little information was made available by the school Board's Superintendant's request for the $131,000,000 new annual budget which included a $13,000,000 increase which was far too much for the city to bear. The commission decided on a three million cut to the request.
The Administration still hasn't provided our commission a full budget detail report and is so protective of their budget activities that even board members are not given these documents during budget deliberation by its membership.
We should find and reduce waste, spending the wasted money where it matters------on our children.
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3 comments:
To clarify, the Board of Education requested a $13 million dollar increase to the Board of Education budget over last year. The Board of Finance recommended a roughly $3.4 million increase over last year's budget. So the net result is that the Board of Finance and Taxation recommended budget was $10 million less than what was requested by the Board of Education, not a $3 million cut. My apologies if that was not clear in my original letter to the editor.
Full letter to the editor from Mr. Mercier can be viewed at: http://newbritainherald.com/articles/2010/05/20/opinion/doc4bf5829ff1502454537959.prt
As a fellow commissioner on the board of finance, I first wish to commend commissioner Mercier for his attention to detail regarding the education budget. Mr. Mercier is a teacher himself in another district, a new parent and a homeowner/taxpayer in New Britain.
It would be especially beneficial if there was more transparency with the board of education and the administration that oversees that budget. It is not helpful to the budget process to simply threaten large layoffs without proper oversight. There are many areas where monies can be saved this year and in years to come. This would provide a benefit to our teachers and the students we serve.
Sally Eigenraam
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