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05/14/2019 12:00 AMIt was standing room only at the May 8 Chester Budget Hearing and town residents had a lot to talk about. The $14,379,720 2019-’20 town and schools spending plan represents an increase of $657,718 or 4.79 percent, which if passed, is poised to increase the mill rate by 1.68.
The town meeting vote on the proposed budget will be held on Wednesday, May 29 at 7:30 p.m. in Town Hall, 203 Middlesex Avenue.
The town-side spending plan, which includes both town and school debt, rises $64,287 or 1.40 percent to $4,653,159 under the proposal. The education budget, which contains the already-approved $4,857,584 Region 4 budget, a $388,003 or 8.68 percent increase, is $9,726,561, a $593,431 or 6.50 percent increase driven largely by increased enrollment. That cost rise was where most of the evening’s conversation focused.
During the 2 ½-plus hour meeting, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Ruth Levy presented the schools’ plan. The $4,868,977 Chester Elementary School budget represents an increase of $205,428 or 4.40 percent, with teacher salary and benefits representing $277,280 or 57 percent of the total and district supervision costs based on enrollment (quantified as Average Daily Membership or ADM) accounting for $1,72656 or 32 percent.
“There are high health care costs and it is the first year of the new teacher contract, which has affected all budgets, especially Chester’s,” said Levy.
Currently there are eight teachers at the elementary school who have been there for 19-plus years, which puts them at the highest pay grade, which is more than $80,000 annually.
She explained that in an effort to save money, the supervision district will be sharing more services in the area of network technicians, physical education, and library media. She also explained that there has been a decrease in the budget of $10,000 for electrical services due to savings made by the solar panels housed on the roof of the elementary school.
Moving forward, the plan at Chester Elementary School is for each grade to have two classes, however, projections for the current 3rd grade class, which will be moving up to 4th grade next year, has just 20 students. Audience members such as Bonnie Bennet questioned whether it would make more sense to have one class of 20 students instead of two very small classes of 10 each.
“It would be better for the students and it would help to save money,” Bennet said.
First Selectman Lauren Gister presented to town’s plan and offered context for the budgeting process.
“Many hours are dedicated by the Board of Selectman, Board of Finance, and the Chester, Region 4, and Supervision boards of education to ensure that we support critical services, maintain infrastructure, and provide the best possible education to our children. Everyone works very hard and we all do the best we can,” said Gister. “We have drilled down everything as much as we can and detailed items to figure out where we could find the most efficiencies. We have had six budget workshops with the Board of Finance and the Board of Selectman.”
She added, “I think we have come up with a solid budget, that for a lack of better words, is lean and mean and covers what we need to protect and maintain the health and services of our residents.”
Some residents voiced concern with the mill rate increase. Former selectman Ed Meehan questioned if the town could borrow money from itself to help lessen the blow of this kind of tax increase.
Board of Finance Chair Virginia Carmany answered that it would only be a Band-Aid, because the Region 4 budget is not going away anytime soon, so Chester is looking an increase in budget and mill rates for the next few years.
Gister agreed.
“ADM with schools I not a one-year deal,” she said. “We need to really talk about how we want to handle this in the future.”
There were murmurings during the question and answer portion of the meeting as to whether or not it would make sense to vote the budget down, however Board of Finance member Jon Joslow explained that the Region 4 Board of Education, which makes up approximately 60 percent of Chester’s entire budget, has already been passed, so voting down the town budget won’t help much in regard to the proposed increase in taxes and the mill rate.
“The only way to effect change for the next year is get out and vote, because people who live in Chester want to stay in Chester and age in Chester and if our taxes keep going up, that won’t be possible,” said Susan Wright.
“I don’t feel as a member of the public that I have representation in the boards of education,” said Karen Badger. “When I go to meetings and have questions, most of the time they just say thank you, but they don’t answer my questions.”
Chester Board of Education member Bob Bibianni explained that each member’s email is on the website and he invited anyone who has a question to email to the members so they could respond.
The town and schools budget is available at chesterct.org.