School Board's Budget Ready For Town Council's Perusal

The Board of Education has its 2011-12 budget and is ready to send it to the Town Council.

The school board’s proposed budget for next year comes in at $30,011,041 - a $600,000 increase from the 2010-11 budget.

At the board’s monthly meeting Thursday night, Director of Business and Personnel Donald Winnicki said he had some good news and some bad news for board members.

He said the good news was Anthem’s health care renewal rate dropped from 10.3 to 3.2 percent.

“As far as we know, that’s where it will stay,” Winnicki said.

After the meeting, Winnicki said he originally forecasted the renewal rate in January to be an increase of 13 percent. The falloff from the February figure of 10.3 to the 3.2 percent renewal rate shaved 0.95 percent off the entire 2011-12 budget’s bottom line, he said.  

Winnicki attributed the drop to the town being an “experience-rated group”.

The bad news Winnicki promised to relay to the board was about new figures on repairs for the high school roof. Apparently, previous evaluations on the square footage that needed repairs due to were inaccurate.

“We asked for more firmer numbers, which came in today,” Winnicki said after the meeting.

He said the prior capital request – which are separate from the BOE’s budget and meant for individual projects, such as repairs to infrastructure – of $485,000 needs to be bumped up to $592,000. The $592,000 would repair the leaky high school’s roof above the gym and in the area of the long hallway between the gym and diamond.

The school board and Superintendent Scott Schoonmaker were unanimous in support of the expense.

“We’ve had to cancel athletic events, there’s been damage to the floor, [and] the insulation is saturated,” Schoonmaker said. He said if it is not fixed soon, it will only manifest itself further.

Chairwoman Marcey Onofrio said it is “embarrassing” to have families sitting in the bleachers in front of barrels catching water from the ceiling. She said the board plans to seek federal funding to help cover the cost of repairs.

The leaks are due, in part, to the prodigious amount of snow that’s graced the region this winter. Winnicki said the town has a snow removal budget of $6,000 and, to date, the town has spent $41,000 on snow clearing services. There is a repair budget, however, that can pick up the bill, he said.

“I believe there’s over $40,000 in there right now,” Winnicki said, “so hopefully that’s where it will come from.”