Retirements, Reallocation of Funds Help School Board Avoid Layoffs

Southington schools will operate with 14 fewer teachers and 10 fewer paraprofessionals during the 2012-13 school year, but a number of late retirements and resignations has allowed the school district to reallocate funds without requiring any staff layoffs.

The on Thursday evening reallocated funds for the 2012-13 budget, cutting $215,000 from their original proposal of $82.65 million. The cuts involved a combination of savings found from retirements and reductions in textbook costs.

“I’m proud to say that the reallocation plan we have developed does not include any further reductions of impact to staffing,” Southington Schools Business Manager Sherri-Lin DiNello said Thursday night. “There was an added benefit realized in the savings from turnover, and these savings were above and beyond anything we anticipated.”

In January, Board of Education membersbut made the decision in an effort to present a fair and balanced budget that also considered the taxpayers needs.

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The change will include the elimination of 14 teacher positions, all retirements or resignations, reducing the number of teachers from 565 to 551, Board of Education Chairman Brian Goralski said.

The reduction is not one the board wanted, but is something that they can work with, he said.

When the Board of Education first presented their budget, there were concerns that a lack of retirements could leave some without a job and further budget reductions threatened to force greater staffing decreases.

“It needs to be said that as we proposed a reduction in workforce, the staff stayed positive, united and did not waiver in their efforts to help educate our students,” Goralski said. “It goes to show their dedication and the leadership of the whole administrative cabinet. No one was laid off and we are proud of that.”

Under the reallocation approved unanimously by the Board of Education Thursday night, the district found almost $102,000 in savings from teacher salaries and over $78,000 in paraprofessional salaries. There was also a $10,000 reduction each in principal salaries and custodial services, $8,000 in savings from water and sewer bills and $5,000 in savings from both printing expenses and computer maintenance.

Although the schools saw an increase in tuitions for special education students, most of these increases were offset using a reduction in textbooks, DiNello said.

Board member Terry Lombari said with the reallocation behind them, the next focus is to look closely at class size and shuffle the remaining staff appropriately.

“Step two will now be to get the class sizes where we want them to be across the district and we will start working on that now,” Lombardi said.

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