West Hartford School Superintendent Looking For Input

The Superintendent is making an appeal to the community for ideas on where to make reductions and savings in the education budget. Let's hope he is sincere in his efforts, especially since past suggestions in budget hearings have been ignored or pooh-poohed.

The School Superintendent, David P. Sklarz, is initiating an "electronic suggestion box" on the district's website and asking residents to e-mail their fiscal ideas to budget@whps.org.

The article states:

The retiring schools chief promises to read every message as he prepares a 2009-10 budget that caps any spending increase at 3.5 percent, a directive the school board issued earlier this month.

The current education budget is $123.3 million, a 4.5 percent increase from the previous fiscal year, and it is heavily filled with staff salaries and benefits that cost the district more each year because of contractual obligations.

Just to make the 3.5 percent target, Sklarz told the board Tuesday night, $2 million in regular services will have to be cut.

The most vulnerable costs are outside the classroom, Sklarz said, such as custodial, maintenance and security staffing. But he added that pupil services employees and department supervisors also "bear scrutiny," and he said charging students for parking or after-school activities, such as intramural sports, is one way the district will consider raising revenue.

What's certain, Sklarz said, is that "there will be fewer people working in West Hartford schools" next fiscal year.

On Feb. 3, Sklarz plans to give the school board a glimpse of how the education budget would look at increases of 3.5, 2.5, 1.5 and zero percent — and the eliminated programs and staff that each option would require. He will formally submit his proposed spending plan to the board in March.

One thing is for certain, with talk of a new superintendent coming in at a higher salary than the current guy, and a new teachers contract which raised salaries and required one less working day, that does not sound much like a desire to cut expenses. Talk is that the new Superintendent's salary will be $200,000 plus benefits. Why isn't the Superintendent calling for salary and benefit decreases across the board? Why isn't the Superintendent demanding zero budgets from his principals?

It also looks like the school district wants to make up its appetite for increased spending on the backs of students and their families by charging them more in fees. Heaven forbid they fire a few highly paid administrators or make reductions in their salaries. How many assistant to the assistants do we need? Why aren't any of those administrators teaching classes? How many teachers are listed as teachers but do not teach? Why do we need multiple assistant principals? We are paying for social workers and therapists and specialists on staff too. Those services could and should be private referrals. Can the public see a complete roster of staff and their salaries for each school?

We have 16 schools in the district.

West Hartford is served by eleven elementary schools, three middle schools, and two high schools. The school population at the beginning of the academic year was approximately 10,000 students. In addition to those sixteen school sites, WHPS also operates the Continuing and Summer Education programs, the Early Learning Center at Whiting Lane, the REACH alternative high school, the STRIVE off-campus program, and the HANOC (Hillcrest Area Neighborhood Outreach Center) After-School Homework Center.

It's about time that Dr. Sklarz do some real analysis of the programs we are paying for to see if they are paying off. Based on test score trends it doesn't look like it. Even if we are listed "in the wrong District Reference Group", we still have been declining in our scores over the years. That is a concern as we spend more on salaries and benefits and less on materials and programs that actually work and produce results.

Maybe we ought to be looking at ways to cut our school population too. Suppose we didn't take in so many kids from Project Choice. We are losing money on that transaction since it costs a lot more than $2500 to educate each student. How about we offer some early graduation programs so kids can graduate in 3 years of high school instead of 4? How about we offer $7-10,000 to a family to be used towards a private school tuition for one child and set a limit of the number of families who can participate? Less kids in our school system might be a good thing, and ultimately lowers class sizes.

A 3.5% increase in the school budget is uacceptable in this economy. We also cannot expect to give up other town services like library hours or firehouses to pay for the excesses of Dr. Sklarz's empire.

Here is one suggestion: Now that your teachers union have so graciously forced us to take their contract increases - you fire the number of teachers and administrators that it takes to make up for that budget increase. Union head Dave Dippolino should be the first to get the ax.

Please don't expect kids and families to shell out more in band uniforms and parking fees to cover the Union's greediness.



Want your voice to be heard? Want to hear what our Town leaders have to say? Come to the Tax and Budget Forum on January 28th at the Town Hall Auditorium at 7:00 PM.

UPDATE: Due to the expected inclement weather, the tax and Budget Forum has been postponed until Wednesday, February 4th. Same time same place.