In an April 14 editorial, we questioned the silence of Norwich Mayor Deberey Hinchey as the City Council considered a budget proposal that, if enacted as recommended by the acting city manager, would be devastating to the city’s public school system.

On Wednesday, the Norwich public heard from the mayor. In a resolution placed on the agenda for Monday’s City Council meeting, Mayor Hinchey proposes boosting the education budget by about $1.7 million. That would increase education spending 2.5 percent above the current fiscal year, up from the 1 percent increase recommended by acting City Manager John Bilda.

The $74 million education budget would still be substantially less than the $75.8 million that the Board of Education says it needs to meet contractual obligations and maintain existing programs and class sizes. It will still require the school board to make some difficult choices. However, it is a vast improvement over the manager’s recommendation, which would have resulted in large-scale teacher layoffs and unmanageable class sizes.

We commend Mayor Hinchey for taking a stand that will not be politically popular with many taxpayers, but which is necessary if the city wants to avoid gutting its schools and driving more young families from the city.

To lessen the tax blow, the mayor proposes about $329,000 in reductions on the city side of the budget recommendations. The result would be a 2.31 mill increase in the citywide tax rate, about $276 annually for a home assessed at $125,000.

The council should follow the mayor’s lead.

It would also be good to see Mayor Hinchey take a more visible role in the standoff between Norwich Free Academy and the school board. Norwich does not have its own high school, using the privately endowed NFA as its designated school, along with seven other towns. NFA provides a quality education and its endowed status holds down costs. However, Norwich has no control over the tuition NFA charges for every student the city enrolls there. When NFA tuition goes up it often means that funding available for kindergarten through Grade 8 programs goes down.

The Norwich school board wants to speak with the trustees about negotiating a separate contract with NFA, one that recognizes Norwich as the host community, deserving of some special fiscal relief. The trustees, however, have taken the position that there should be one contract, governing all towns, and rejected one-on-one talks.

Refusing to talk is seldom a good policy. Mayor Hinchey should work to bring the two sides to the table.