When Tom Hamilton, Norwalk's Finance Director, made his official operating budget recommendation for the 2007-08 fiscal year, more than a few folks noticed it would require roughly a 5.5% tax increase (after the final phase-in of the last revaluation was factored in), despite a proposed $5 million cut in the Board of Education's budget request. Predictably, members of both the Board of Estimate and the Common Council suggested the tax hike should be less than 5%.
At the time, I believed it would be possible for the Council and the BET to come up with an operating budget that reduced the 5.5% tax increase, plus restored funding to our school system. Adjustments would have to be made on the revenue side.
Which would not be risky: The city is anticipating additional revenues from the governor's educational initiative as well as from the real estate conveyance tax. Also, Hamilton's budget proposal projected a healthy $24 million undesignated fund balance (rainy day fund) by the end of the fiscal year, even after deducting the cost of the next revaluation. The $24 million amounts to about 9% of total expenditures, well above the minimum benchmark used by fiscal monitors and rating agencies.
But the Council made an irresponsible decision: It did not even discuss possible adjustments in the revenue column; instead, it arbitrarily adopted a spending cap that was $2 million below Hamilton's. The Council also recommended that the BOE's budget increase should not exceed 3.8%, the region's cost of living, even though about 5% of the Board's increase was due to contractually mandated salaries and benefits. The Council's spending cap – which I believe should be raised at least to the level recommended by Hamilton – put the BET in a bind; it now has very little room to maneuver.
The Council's budget decisions made lots of people angry, particularly parents of public school children. (I've also discussed the Council's action with residents concerned about flooding. They recognize that the lower spending cap could make it difficult for the BET to adequately address the city's drainage problems.) But I was also disturbed by the response of Sal Corda, Norwalk's superintendent of schools. Speaking before the Council on the evening it adopted the spending cap, he delineated myriad cuts in the school system that would have to be made if the BOE budget increase was limited to 3.8%.
Corda first spoke of $2.1 million worth of cuts that he and his staff had identified soon after Hamilton's recommendation was made public. Then he listed another $4 million in cuts that were identified that day because the Council's Finance Committee had reduced Hamilton's budget by $2 million the previous evening.
Corda's presentation bothered me for several reasons. The BOE never discussed the initial $2.1 million reduction, even though Hamilton's budget proposal had been public for a number of weeks. I, too, was at that Council meeting and was surprised when Corda presented it. Regarding the additional $4 million in cuts, while I appreciate the limited time frame, I was never fully informed as to what the superintendent was going to do that evening.
More specifically, I was not aware that Corda's long list of cuts excluded central office personnel. This, of course, immediately became the salient issue in the budget debate. Instead of discussing the needs of the school system, most of the discussion and headlines have focused on where the cuts should and should not be made. I would never have endorsed such an approach.
Corda has stood firm in his refusal to include central office personnel in his list of possible cuts. On several occasions he said that when he came to Norwalk the central office was depleted, barely functioning. True, but he appears to be unaware of the long struggle waged by the BOE to introduce literacy specialists (reading/writing teachers) into our elementary schools. Why are they on the superintendent's cut list? Are they less important than medium-level central office personnel?
Having a difference of opinion with the superintendent can be healthy. It keeps everyone on his or her toes. But the absence of communication between the BOE and the superintendent on these potential budget cuts is definitely not healthy. I do not agree with the manner in which the superintendent unilaterally and very publicly adjusted the BOE's budget request. And I will not approve a budget reconciliation document that excludes all central office personnel while making deep cuts among staff working with children inside of our schools.
Norwalk needs to get its budget act together. First, the Common Council played fast-and-loose with the Finance Director's proposal (which, by the way, implicitly had the blessing of the Mayor). Then, the superintendent of schools ignored the BOE and announced a series of cuts so one-sided that people could only scratch their heads and wonder.
The Council needs to exercise some common sense and raise the spending cap so that the BET and the BOE can make some reasonable decisions.
Bruce Kimmel
