Norwich — The Norwich Free Academy Board of Trustees has agreed to double the host city per-student discount for Norwich students to $200 for police and fire coverage as part of an effort to persuade the Norwich Board of Education to sign a new five-year contract with the academy.

The amount of the discount hasn't changed in decades.

If applied to the 2015-16 budget, with an estimated 1,600 Norwich students attending NFA, the host town discount would total $320,000 instead of $160,000.

To date, only Norwich and Sprague have not signed the proposed uniform contract sent to all eight partner schools that have NFA as their designated high school. The current contract expires June 30 and the new contract takes effect July 1.

Sprague officials have said they are waiting for state budget estimates to be finalized before signing any contracts.

But Norwich school officials say they have substantive issues to discuss with NFA officials before signing the contract. They said Norwich should have a different contract, as the largest partner district and host city.

The two parties have been at an impasse for a few months. Recently, Mayor Deberey Hinchey and Acting City Manager John Bilda intervened and held a private meeting with NFA trustees Chairman Theodore Phillips.

Phillips relayed the offer — approved by the NFA board of trustees unanimously, following an executive session April 21 — to the city leaders, who then took it to public school officials.

“I think it’s a fair stipend,” Phillips said Friday. “I think it’s an olive branch that should be accepted. The ball is in their court at this point.” He said he has not heard back on the offer.

Board of Education Chairwoman Yvette Jacaruso and Superintendent of Schools Abby Dolliver said they learned of the discount from city leaders. NFA and Norwich school officials have not met in recent months to discuss the contract.

Jacaruso said the board will discuss the NFA contract and the offered discount increase in executive session at its June 9 meeting.

“We’re glad that they’re giving us that additional $100, but we still don’t have it in writing,” Jacaruso said.

Dolliver said there are other items in the contract Norwich officials would like to discuss with NFA as well.

Norwich has received the $100 per student tuition discount for both regular education and special education for decades. Retired Board of Education Chairwoman Anna Alfiero said that figure was in place in 1983 when she was first elected and has never changed.

Phillips said the additional $160,000 would not be charged to the other seven partner towns. Instead, the NFA trustees would approach the privately funded NFA Foundation to make up the difference.

The foundation, headed by Glenn Carberry — also a trustee member, who made the motion to increase the host city discount, according to minutes from that meeting — already has agreed to contribute $1.2 million to offset tuition for all eight partner school districts in the 2015-16 school year. NFA tuition will increase by 2.5 percent next year.

The NFA board of trustees Governance Committee also is expected to meet in the near future to talk about the contract impasse with Norwich and possibly make recommendations to the full board on how to proceed if Norwich remains unsigned at the start of the new fiscal year.

“I’ll be happy if the NFA Trustees and Norwich Board of Education can reach some agreement, because both institutions are very important to the city,” Hinchey said. “I hope they can work together.”

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