Bethel School Budget
Climbs by 3%
By Chris Costanzo

At their school district meeting on Tuesday, March 6, Bethel voters approved the school board's proposed $4,550,472 budget for the coming fiscal year.

The budget, passed by a paper vote of 88-53, represents a 3.2% increase over last year, but entails cutting one full-time position.

The school board has maintained that any further budget reduction would have to come from yet more personnel cuts. The budget will generate a residential tax rate of about $2.29 per $100 of value (versus $2.053 last year).

Principal Andy West explained that negotiated salaries and benefits account for a large portion of the budget increase, as did rising maintenance costs for buildings and grounds. He also gave the voters a "heads up" on additional expenses that are not in the proposed budget this year but which the school will probably have to address in following years, such as an upgrade to the roof over the walkway, as well as major work on the furnace.

School board chair David Allen said the school population declined from 308 last year to 296 this year causing an increase in Bethel's cost-per-student, which is the number that determines the school property tax rate.

"The solution is to get more students," he said.

As an attempt to market Bethel's schools to other communities, Allen reported the school board's recent decision to lower its tuition rate for out-of-district students in exchange for a commitment from those nearby towns without schools of their own to send their students to Bethel.

"It's already caused a lot of talk in these towns," he noted.

He noted, however, that discussions so far with neighboring school districts regarding cost-effective consolidation or sharing of resources.

Skirting the Penalty

There was considerable commentary from a number of voters, especially because it appeared at first that the proposed budget generated a state-imposed "penalty" added to the cost-per-pupil for exceeding a state threshold. Louise Ferris-Burt pointed out that a reduction of only about $10,000 in such things as technical supplies would eliminate the penalty.

Davis Dimock agreed. "The state penalty is placed there for a purpose, and if we incur a penalty it means we have gone too far," he said.

However, after consulting with business manager Ollie Jakob, Allen reported that the calculation sheet printed in the town budget was wrong. It had omitted a credit that the state allows to schools for construction costs. Once the credit is factored in, Bethel's cost-per-pupil falls below the penalty threshold, and the penalty vanishes, Jakob said.

Since the penalty was small to begin with, though, the effect on the tax rate will be minimal. Allen said at the meeting that correcting the error would lower the tax rate by three cents, but recalculating after the meeting, he told The Herald that the anticipated difference in the property tax rate will be only several tenths of a penny and the rate will stand at $2.29.

There were some generic comments regarding budget and school administration.

Miriam Kill said there was "great waste" in special education costs, but that the problem originates with parents in the homes. However, Keith Abbott insisted that they should be discussing the budget and not lay the budget problems on the kids and families.

Charlene Bostrom urged that the school find ways to use teachers more productively.

In general, however, the mood at the meeting was one of resignation, and that there was no choice but to pass the budget and to hope that the school board's initiatives to improve revenue will pan out.

At the end, the voters unanimously reelected David Allen and Dietre Feeney to the school board for three and two years respectively.