Newsletter Volume 3 • Number 27
Finance board Republicans put blinders on to come up with a plan divorced from reality
In a break from historic practice, Republicans on the Board of Estimate and Taxation (BET) have developed budgetary “guidelines” for the town in secret, without consulting managers, reviewing strategic plans, or even holding a budget committee vote.
Case in point, Greenwich schools. Parents, administrators, and Board of Education (BOE) members expressed concern that the BET Republicans’ guidelines came in almost $5 million lower than the schools’ plans, which were developed long before the guidelines were released. Tellingly, even the school board’s budget committee chair, Republican Cody Kittle, wasn’t consulted.
Administrators pointed out that the Republican guideline figure isn’t even sufficient to maintain the schools’ current level of service, considering contractually-obligated growth in teachers’ wages, transportation and special education.
Instead, the BET asked for a report on “consolidation of services.” “So what that is code for is efficiencies to close a school,” said Democratic board member Laura Kostin. “They’re dancing around it because it’s highly, highly unpopular, given that we have a neighborhood schools model for our town.”
Forget improvements in curriculum and services
While cuts could come from material changes in curriculum or other services, “the only way we would really be able to meet (the guidelines),” said BOE chair Karen Hirsh, “is the reduction of 40-some-odd educators, which would have a severe impact on areas across the district.” Kittle suggested the department could hire teachers with less than five-years experience who don’t have masters’ degrees, but dismissed that as a bad idea.
This is what happens when numbers are plucked out of nowhere by a finance board uninterested in fiscally responsible planning. If the BET’s majority Republicans want to serve our community, they should communicate with the public, work with the experts developing budgets, and use numbers based on needs and priorities, contractual requirements, and mandated expenditures. But don’t hold your breath. Taking recent history as a guide, they are certain to push for cuts to meet the guidelines, regardless of how random they are.
Have your say Thursday
The Board of Education will finalize their budget proposal at a meeting at 7:00 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 12. Members of the public can attend virtually and sign up to speak no later than noon.
What we’re reading
Camillo’s double standard on Freedom of Information Law
The violation of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) rules is at the center of First Selectman Fred Camillo’s legal complaint against the Board of Education. Yet his administration has violated these same rules for his own pet project, the Havemeyer Building, according to a recent opinion piece by RTM member Lucy von Brachel.
As von Brachel explained, “earlier this year, Camillo appointed a committee whose mission, as he described it, is to solicit, review, and recommend proposals for the commercial use of the Havemeyer Building, possibly the town’s most valuable asset and current home to the BOE administration.” Only, the BOE had been excluded from any discussions about Camillo’s venture.
“What’s happened since then is hard to know,” von Brachel continued, “because the RFP Committee has been meeting secretly and, therefore, illegally. Under FOIA, they need to notice meetings with agendas, and produce minutes that the public has access to. They have done none of that. Furthermore, there is no list of committee members anywhere on the Town website.
“It is clearly problematic for a town committee to act without the public’s knowledge, without keeping any records, without any oversight, and without a drop of public input.”
Even a FOIA request filed in August by von Brachel was ignored. The law says governments must respond in a timely manner, but more than a month later, after receiving no response, von Brachel filed a complaint, and subsequently received a letter from the town’s outside counsel denying wrongdoing.
Von Brachel bemoans the irony and hypocrisy of our First Selectman asking the Freedom of Information Commission to reverse the BOE’s actions, while willfully ignoring a FOIA request himself, and incessantly decrying the fact that the BOE hired an attorney, even though he is using taxpayer dollars for outside counsel to fight von Brachel’s FOIA request.
| Volume 3, Number 27 • December 11, 2024 |
| Paid for by the Greenwich Democratic Town Committee. |
| Greenwich Democratic Town Committee P.O. Box 126 Greenwich, CT 06836 |