Freeze Tag Plea

Sarah Marsland, a former student at the John B. Sliney Elementary School, wrote a letter to the Representative Town Meeting (RTM) this week to explain the metaphor of freeze tag. It was her effort to save her former physical education teacher’s job.

Her mother, Kate Marsland, an educator herself, read her daughter’s letter at the RTM’s annual budget meeting Tuesday night. Sarah is now a fifth-grader.

In freeze tag, the letter explained, whoever is ​“it” runs around and tags people. Then the tagged person must freeze. This, Sarah wrote, is what has happened to Marco Imperati and other teachers — they got tagged with layoff notices. ​“So, please unfreeze Mr. Imperati,” a teacher who ​“helped kids believe in ourselves.”

“I have confidence,” Sarah concluded, ​“that the all-powerful grown-ups will make the right decision about this.”

It turned out the grown-ups to whom Sarah addressed the letter were not as all-powerful as she thought. They didn’t have the power to un-freeze her favorite teacher. The group that does? The school board.

A crowd of about 150 parents, teachers and students who came to Canoe Brook Senior Center Tuesday night learned that as well. They were part of a concerted campaign to get the RTM to reallocate town department funds to the education budget. It didn’t happen; nor could it. When all was said and done, the RTM increased the education’s operating budget over last year’s, making no cuts to its operating budget beyond the $325,000 eliminated in March by the Board of Finance. It did agree to cut an additional $74,000 cut from the BOE’s capital budget.

In a four-hour meeting that went past midnight, the RTM adopted a $93.6 million town budget. Mindful of the taxpayers, who in this town fund roughly 96 percent of the school budget, the RTM managed to lower the proposed new mill rate to 24.33, an increase of 0.76 over last year. By a vote of 17 to 9, with all Democrats voting for the budget and all Republicans voting against, the RTM ultimately cut more from the town budget than the school budget.

RTM members said they wanted to reduce the mill rate as much as possible. Depending upon where one lives, taxes will rise next year by $84 a year if you live in a condo at Jefferson Woods to $1,041 if you live on Blackstone Avenue. Those in between will likely face a couple of hundred dollars in tax increases.

Next Monday, May 16, at 8:15 a.m. the Board of Finance will formally meet at Branford High School to enact the mill rate and explain to students how the town runs. The board may also deal with any fall-out from the state budget crisis. 

The effort to redirect funds from the town to education coffers was led by Frank Carrano, the chair of the Board of Education, and other board members. Early in the day they sought to move the RTM meeting to the Walsh Intermediate School because of an anticipated high audience turnout. But moving the budget meeting to the school board’s turf did not sit well with the RTM, which must file public notices of its meeting place. Instead a simulcast of the meeting was piped into a second room at the senior center. 

RTM Moderator Scott Thayer and Sandra Reiners, the chair of the RTM’s Ways and Means Committee, explained to the standing-room-only crowd that the final budget hearing of the RTM was not the place for their energy. 

“It should be noted that the RTM has no role in how the operating budget of the Board of Education is spent, in regard to programs, staffing or pretty much anything else,” Thayer said. ​“The Board of Education is a state agency and the RTM turns over to them a certain amount of money and they determine how it will be spent. It may not be terribly appropriate if you want to speak on matters of personnel because the RTM has no role. However, if anyone does wish to speak, I would ask you to spend one minute.”

Reiners said:“I know every member of the RTM received fervent emails and pleas. I want to acknowledge that we have received an outpouring of concern and an outpouring of sentiment, some of which truly do not belong in front of this body. Many relate to taking additional money from an undesignated fund balance and increasing the budget by a million dollars. It is not within the power of the RTM to increase the budget beyond what the Board of Finance has. It is not within our powers. I just wanted to set that straight if you chose to address that issue.”

The first parent to speak, Nancy Kendrick, told the audience that she had sent one of those emails. ​“While you can’t increase the budget, you do have the right to reallocate among departments. Is that correct?” she asked. Told it was, she went on: ​“As I wrote in my email, I am here to ask you to do that, that you give some money back to the Board of Education. We are talking about losing about 20 teachers, our best resource,” she said. ​“I would like to know where shared sacrifice is; not one other department came in with cuts, she said of the town side.” 

However, the Board of Education is not a town department. It creates its own budget and decides its own cuts and is governed by state law. The RTM funds the school system, but how it allocates its funding is up to the Board of Education and the superintendent. School Superintendent Hamlet Hernandez said the number of teacher positions expected to be let go at the end of the year is roughly 8.9 (calculated as full-time equivalents), plus non-certified staff. It is not 20 teachers. Hernandez and the Board of Education decided to cut the teachers instead of cutting other programs or seeking concessions from teachers. 

For about an hour, the RTM listened to array of students, parents and teachers, all of whom thought they had a shot at getting additional funds to keep what turns out to be their music and physical education teachers on the payroll. 

Jack Nelson, 12, a sixth-grade student at Walsh Intermediate School, made a plea not to cut the music program at Walsh. Keith Traver, a music teacher at Walsh facing dismissal, has had a legion of supporters come to his aid, including Jack. Jack’s appearance was reminiscent of the speech given by another student, Griffin Sandler, two years ago at abudget meeting. 

“We did ​‘The Music Man’ at Walsh,” Jack said. ​“It was an amazing work.” Echoing his dad, Kyle, who spoke earlier, Jack told the group: ​“Class size is already an issue. People will be crammed. I come to you today to ask you not to cut the music department and possibly pull back some more money for the music department. ​“Then, smiling, he walked to the front of the room and handed Thayer a petition of 259 signatures to keep the music program intact. (See photo at the top of the story.)

Kyle Nelson, the vice-president of the Walsh PTA and a former Republican RTM member, told the RTM: ​“Before you pass the vote on this budget or the municipal operating budget, I want you to essentially level of the playing field.” The Board of Finance had cut the Board of Education by 325,000, he said. He said only $165,000 had been cut from the town’s side. This turned out to be untrue. When all was said and done the RTM had cut the town’s budget by $308,000. 

Nelson renewed a plea he had made at earlier meetings for ​“shared sacrifice” between town departments and the school system. In the end, it turned out the school system was the winner in the shared sacrifice argument. The Board of Education’s $49.545 million budget, after the RTM’s capital reductions, made up 53 percent of the overall town budget, the town side was at 47 percent. Town salaries were in the 3.20 percent increase range whereas teachers received a 4.8 percent increase in salaries, for the 2011-12 school year. This does not include hefty funding for so-called ​“step” increases.

Reiners made another point about the school side of the budget. ​“I find it very interesting that the Board of Education’s budget is 53 percent of the town’s budget this year. The town is 47 percent. It is the same ratio as one year ago. I want to put this in perspective.”

David Gruendel, the head of the Branford Education Association, the teachers union, spoke to the RTM as a parent. He did not identify himself as the head of the union and made no statements about the controversial teachers contract. In the past, he has noted that a majority of the RTM did approve the three-year contract. The Democrats were in the majority then and now. 

He praised the students who spoke before the RTM. He was proud of them, he said. ​“They were informed and well-spoken…” As a teacher in the system, he said he was so pleased to see ​“what our students do in our buildings from productions to athletics to community service, to volunteering, you help us make that possible.”

One by one the students, parents and teachers made their way to the microphone. Board chair Carrano spoke about not making any more cuts. Hernandez chose not to speak, but did sit through the whole meeting. 

Last year, when the BOE received additional federal funding, the budget process was calm and orderly. The absence of confrontation last year led to a better relationship between the board, the RTM and the town’s top officials, they said. Trust and scare tactics have been an issue in the past.

That issue is back again. 

Indeed, the relationship between one Republican member of the RTM and the parents took an angry turn when Michael Nardella, who has two children in the school system, decided to tell the parents off. He berated them for waiting for the annual budget night’s final meeting to make their needs known. 

“It is so great to see so many people in the audience. There are usually five or ten, and if you guys would come to the meetings and run for office and be involved, you can gladly impact this process… But if you are going to come here on budget night and tell us that we don’t know what we are doing, then we don’t know what we are doing,” he said, his voice rising.

The parents were incensed by Nardella’s remarks and said so, forcing him to stand while they addressed him. Kate Marsland, who heads up the Branford Early Childhood Cooperative, observed that she works 60 to 80 hours a week at her job and volunteers 15 to 20 hours a week for the town. ​“To say we are not involved in inaccurate.” Kendrick was furious and said so.

Carrano walked to the microphone. ​“I don’t think anyone in this room tonight should be chastised for coming too late. If people don’t understand how the process works in Branford, then it’s our responsibility to teach them.” He said many in the audience had come to the RTM education committee meeting. He received a round of applause. 

Before the final vote, Democratic RTM member Paul Muniz observed that the Board of Education’s budget ​“is an increase over the education budget of last year. We are not talking about cuts to the budget. It is an increase to the budget. The elected members of the RTM do not control the elected members of the BOE. The BOE makes recommendations to its officials to use the money to best of their ability and possible manner. The important message is that the budget that is available to that agency is an increased amount from that which they received a year ago. 

Republican RTM member Peter Black agreed. ​“Over the last several years we have increased the board of education budget at a higher rate than that of the town. There has been some shared sacrifice.”

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