Each of Groton's schools to help absorb midyear cuts
Groton — Superintendent Michael Graner said Friday he plans to absorb about $247,000 in midyear education cuts by reducing the budgets of Groton’s individual schools and the Buildings and Grounds Department.
Graner has discussed the plan with members of the Groton Board of Education, but the board has not voted on it yet. The board votes on Jan. 23. Board members also meet jointly with the Town Council and members of Representative Town Meeting on Tuesday.
The midyear cut to Groton's state education aid is almost 1 percent and the highest dollar amount cut in the region. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced the cuts to the two municipal grant programs — local capital improvement grants and Education Cost Sharing grants — at the end of December.
Site budgets for Groton's 10 schools provide everything from field trips to supplies for classroom libraries. They vary based on grade level and size of the school, and principals determine how money is spent based on what staff believe students need. A school that enrolls mainly students from military families may spend the money differently than one with a magnet theme, for example.
The board has few other options when looking for cuts in the middle of the year, Chairwoman Kim Watson said.
“You can’t cut anything from special education or transportation. I mean, we have fixed costs that you really can’t cut. So, unfortunately, what happens is the kids suffer because we are needing to not spend money that are directly related to our kids,” she said.
About half of the $247,000 would come from school site budgets and half would come from the Buildings and Grounds Department.
Graner directed principals in August not to spend 25 percent of their site budgets in case of an emergency.
“My experience is if you don’t have some fallback plan (and) some emergency happens, you end up cutting sort of what’s left in an unplanned way. Frequently textbooks, for example, get cut,” Graner said. “So what we’re doing here is we’re cutting everything from furniture and other equipment we were hoping to buy ... So the principals literally over the last four days have been combing through their budgets.”
Christine Dauphinais, principal of Catherine Kolnaski Magnet School, said she trimmed from 14 different areas to come up with almost $9,000 rather than cutting one big item.
"Sometimes that one big item really hurts," she said.
The school already has spent half of its field trip account, and she didn't want children with field trips planned in the spring to have those canceled. So instead, she trimmed from areas including library materials, health materials, physical education equipment and supplies in science, art, music and computers.
Graner and the school board also are expected to speak Tuesday to the Town Council and RTM about the budget for the coming fiscal year.
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