Norwich — To see that the City Council’s proposed budget approved Monday includes only a 2 percent school budget increase was “disheartening,” one school board member said Tuesday. And threatened court action to force higher funding would not come in time to prevent possible cuts.

Superintendent Abby Dolliver warned that state law requires the board to enact a balanced budget by the end of June. If the City Council on June 11 approves the proposed 2 percent increase to $77.7 million, the total would be $5.3 million short of the school board’s requested $83 million budget.

Dolliver said she had no answers. If she asked each principal to cut three teachers from each school and “squish” students into larger classes or combine grades in one classroom, it would save only about $1 million.

“Even if we throw things into the air and eliminate people, we could never, ever, ever, ever eliminate enough people to run our schools in order to meet what they gave for our budget. The city has to come up with it. ... We would never pay bills. We could not pay tuition. We would not have appropriate places for our students and it would be havoc,” she said.

Dolliver said the city also will be asked to cover this year’s projected $2 million deficit, caused mostly by skyrocketing special education tuition and transportation costs.

School board member Dennis Slopak said the school board would “have a case” in court because the City Council did not make a reasonable effort to fund the school budget as needed. Slopak, a Republican, blasted the Republican-controlled council for insisting on tax cuts at the expense of children’s education.

“It’s absolutely obscene,” Slopak said, “and it’s my party that’s doing it and I can’t stand it.”

But any lawsuit could take years in the court system, others said, and Dolliver again asked the board to consider how it would make $5 million in cuts if necessary.

“One thing I want to take off the table right now is laying off teachers,” Slopak said. “I’m not ever going to vote to take more teachers out of these classrooms.”

Slopak said he talked to one first-year Norwich teacher who is “scared to death” she won’t be able to continue working in the city. “We have good people,” Slopak said, “and we just can’t lose them.”

The school board also discussed future ways to improve the financial picture. School Business Administrator Athena Nagel said she has tried to get Norwich to create a rainy day fund to retain surplus funds at the end of a fiscal year. She said if the board had that fund now, it could have covered this year’s deficit. She said it won't help for next year because there won't be a surplus but could help in the future.

The school board also voted unanimously Tuesday to negotiate with the Norwich Free Academy for a new designated high school contract. The current five-year contract expires at the end of the 2019-20 school year and calls for either party to notify the other two years prior to the expiration date if they wish to negotiate new terms.

Norwich receives a $200 per student discount on all tuition rates at NFA to cover host-town costs such as emergency services. For the 2018-19 school year, Norwich will pay $12,562 per student for 1,261 students attending NFA, a total of $15.8 million. Five special education programs at NFA range in tuition from $27,673 to $67,976, but Norwich also is responsible for specialized support services, such as nurses or speech pathologists. Those costs total about $2 million and often are cited by Norwich school officials as a point of contention.

“Norwich Free Academy reserves any commentary until we are in receipt of official correspondence from the Norwich Public Schools Board of Education,” NFA spokesman Geoff Serra said in a written statement Tuesday evening.

c.bessette@theday.com