Data show Wallingford school staff at high level

March 7th, 2010

By Samaia Hernandez
Record-Journal staff
shernandez@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2266

As published in the Record Journal Sunday March 7, 2010

Follow all the news directly on the Record Journal Website for the most up to date information. www.myrecordjournal.com

Write a letter to the editor letters@record-journal.com

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WALLINGFORD — Salvatore Menzo became chief of the town’s public schools last year, taking over a district 10 times larger than the one in Marlborough, where he began his career as a superintendent in 2005.

In his first budget season Menzo has pulled out many stops, from proposing to reconfigure the elementary schools to slashing more than 100 jobs. In the end, the Board of Education approved a plan for 2010-11 that cuts more than 80 positions without restructur­ing schools. The budget proposal is now in the hands of the Town Council and the mayor for likely revision and eventual approval.

School board officials have called this year the “toughest” budget in district his­tory.

Given rising costs, including those of contractual agreements, without making any cuts, Menzo said, the school board would have been looking at a budget in­crease of roughly 10 percent over the cur­rent year.

One of the ways he came up with the $88.9 million request, a 4.56 percent in­crease, is the same method the state De­partment of Education uses to gauge school performance: comparing school systems in the same District Reference Group, or DRG.

With salaries and benefits accounting for about 80 percent of the budget, a look at staffing levels alone shows Wallingford at the high end among systems of compa­rable size and makeup.

The state came up with the reference groups for reporting purposes and to group districts of comparable enrollment and socioeconomic composition. Classi­fied by the letters A through I, the smallest and wealthiest districts fall in the A cate­gory and the poorest and largest in I.

In group D, Wallingford is one of 24 school systems, from Berlin to Milford to Shelton to Southington to Wethersfield.

“It allows comparisons, apples-to­-apples comparisons,” said Thomas Mur­phy, spokesman for the education depart­ment. “That doesn’t mean that we don’t compare outside of DRG, but DRGs can help when you’re trying to compare the relative.”

For example, he said, “a large urban district that would serve a student population that has a high poverty level could compare itself to another simi­lar community to determine what the relative performance is.”

Though its total enrollment is 43 students short of Southington’s 6,826, Walling­ford has 24.6 more teachers than the nearby system and more than twice as many para­professionals, according to the 2008-09 Strategic School Pro­files for the districts. These numbers do not include spe­cial education teachers and staff.

Though few districts in its DRG have faced cuts as substantial or controversial as Wallingford’s, some officials say it’s just a matter of delay­ing the inevitable.

“I think that it shows that in some of our non-certified ar­eas we do have more staff than other districts, and in some other areas we are higher,” Menzo said. “I’m not trying to say that we shouldn’t have the staff that we have; it’s just I think that when we’re faced with difficult times, we have to look at all the data that’s pro­vided for us. If we weren’t in difficult times, we would maintain high levels (of staff), but in difficult times, it re­quires us to take as much data as we can to make the best de­cision.”

Southington’s school board unanimously approved an $80,441,401 request for 2010-11, an increase of 4.69 percent. In his seventh year on Southing­ton’s school board and his third as chairman, Brian Goral­ski was prepared for an “in­credibly lean” year, but was happily surprised when the budget process went smoothly, without any significant cuts.

“What it boils down to is what a community can sup­port,” he said. “Our commu­nity, I’m grateful, has been a proponent and supporter of education.”

Though the system got by without cutting staff this year, it has experienced growing class sizes at the middle and high schools.

“We’re doing the best to keep what we have,” Goralski said.
When Shelton proposed cutting 69 jobs, the unions came together, from adminis­trators to teachers, to find $700,000 in givebacks. But now Shelton School Superin­tendent Freeman Burr will likely be forced to make cuts, given the mayor’s announce­ment that he plans to cut $3 million from the school board’s $66,535,340 proposal, which was a 5.6 percent in­crease. Shelton’s school sys­tem has 5,547 students.

Like Southington, Milford, a district larger than Wallingf­ord’s, with an enrollment of 7,303 managed to get by this year without any major staff reductions.

“Overall, we’ve had very good support from the city, but it’s dealing with concerns about revenue, with the econ­omy being the way it is,” said acting School Superintendent Mike Cummings. Milford’s $85 million budget represents an increase of nearly 5 percent.

But Cummings predicts things will be much worse next year, after federal stimu­lus money has dried up. What managed to work this year might not fly next budget sea­son.

“I think what they’re trying to do in Wallingford is inter­esting work,” he said. “They’re trying to actually save money over years.

“Eventually, everybody’s go­ing to be in the same position.”

A‘quaint little berg’?

February 28th, 2010

As published in the Record Journal – Sunday February 28, 2010

“So you live in Wallingford . . . Why Wallingford?”

I actually get this question a lot when I’m talking with the people and the topic comes up. It can be onsite at a customer location or when I’m out of town having lunch and engaging in conversation.

During some exchanges it can be diffi­cult to get a point across to someone as to why you might never have left the town you grew up in, especially in this day and age when jumping residences and chang­ing what town you live in are almost as common as changing jobs.

Some people assume that I am talking about some quaint little berg until I men­tion that we have a population of about 45,000 and our own electric and water providers. It’s at that point they again be­come more mystified at my romance with my hometown.

I have a new story to tell the next time I engage in conversation with someone re­garding Wallingford.

I have the pleasure of a somewhat rare situation of knowing many people across town from my school days. I went to Pond Hill Elementary School but I was just one of seven kids that would go to Moran while everyone else went to Dag. This de­mographic shift was a little unsettling for me, going to a new school as a complete stranger to basically everyone. What I didn’t understand at the time is that it would offer me the chance to meet a whole new set of friends from the west side of town that I would probably have never otherwise met.

It was because of this cross town link that I had friendships all over town.

In the mid 80s and because of my “old” Pond Hill links at Lyman Hall I met Kenny De Simone.

I haven’t been in touch with Ken for some time now as he, his wife and their three children live out of state. I found out recently from another friend of mine on Facebook that Ken was diagnosed with anaplastic plasma cell myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow.

Then I found out the really bad news— while his kids have been covered by a state run insurance program that insures children, Ken and his wife have none and the bills were piling up into the six digit range.

So the rest of his friends that were still living here decided to try to help with the medical bills with a fundraiser.

I wasn’t as close to that group of friends with Ken as they all were but I joined in to do what I could as well.

The group sold tickets to family and friends.

Local businesses were approached for donations of items for the silent auction and many gave, some quite generously.

Extended members of that core group donated their time and skills to get the hall set and the food prepared.

Ken was still too sick from recent treat­ments to travel to the event but people spent time talking to the De Simone family members that were in attendance. They spoke of their friendship, memories, and of good times and the bad.

More than 200 people packed the hall the night of the event. Despite spending a moderate sum for the tickets they spent more on the items at auction.

The event and cause, driven by friends, supported by the local businesses, and at­tended by many, raised over $17,000.00 to­wards a trust that has been set up to make a dent in those six figure bills that have been racked up by this illness.

The people that I heard speaking to Ken’s family offered best wishes and words of comfort that while he may be far away and ill, his old friends were pulling for him. They had not forgotten nor aban­doned him.

For this reason, and so many others like it, is “why Wallingford.”

Without reconfiguration, Ford sees bigger classes ahead

February 24th, 2010

Read the entire article on the Record Journal website

When the vote came up by the Board of Education for the $88,933,060 million 2010-11 budget the vote was six “for” and two “against”. (Joe Marrone and Chet Miller, Republicans, both voted “no” for the budget as proposed).

Democrat Valerie Ford chose not to cast her vote stating that she was not totally for nor totally against the plan.

She was quoted in the Record Journal article saying “I couldn’t support a budget that would lead to the same detrimental large class sizes that my kids went through in elementary school, and that’s what this budget does. I would have preferred to leave the re­configuration in”

She also was quoted stating “What everybody doesn’t realize — I’m the only (board member) sitting there who went through this; they may have come in later in the pic­ture. Since the late 1980s, at least, one of the main things we fought was the problem of overcrowding in the schools.” Ford said Tuesday, “and by the time the town actually did something about it, it was al­most too late.”

She, as well as some members of the public do feel that this increase ask in the budget will never be approved by the Mayor and the Town Council.

Given that and the possibility of larger class sizes, it is almost a guarantee that reconfiguration will be back on the table.

Many have commented about the effect of the Concerned Parents Wallingford CT Board of Educ. Budget group and the $O$ $ave our $chool$ effort, saying that it was certainly a catalyst in getting the BoE to look at other alternatives.

The question from here is whether or not they stay engaged and with enough numbers to force any sway with the Town Council and / or the Mayor during the budget discussions.

REMINDER – WALLINGFORD TOWN COUNCIL MEETING

February 23rd, 2010
TOWN OF WALLINGFORD, CONNECTICUT
REGULAR TOWN COUNCIL MEETING

Town Council Chambers

February 23, 2010

6:30 P.M

AGENDA

Opening Prayer – Father Gary Simone, Most Holy Trinity Church

1. Pledge of Allegiance

2. Roll Call

3. Consent Agenda

3a. Consider and Approve Tax Refunds (#563 – #596) totaling $9,025.60 Acct. # 001-1000-010-1170 – Tax Collector

3b. Consider and Approve a Transfer in the Amount of $2,000 to Fuel Crisis Community Acct # 001-3070-600-6810 from Contingency-General Purpose Acct # 001-7060-800-3190 – Mayor

3c. Consider and Approve a Resolution authorizing the Mayor to enter into a contract with Capital Community College, 950 Main Street, Hartford, CT and the Wallingford Fire Department and designate Peter Struble, Fire Chief, as the administrator for the EMT-Paramedic internship program for the purpose of furthering paramedic education of students – Fire Chief.

3d. Acceptance of Grant Appropriation of $2,399.40 to Revenue Highway Safety Acct # 001-1050-050-5883 and to Police Overtime Acct # 001-2005-101-1400– Police Chief

3e. Approve Minutes of Regular Town Council Meeting of February 9, 2010

4. Items Removed from the Consent Agenda

5. PUBLIC QUESTION & ANSWER

6. Consider and Approve a Transfer in the Amount of $75,000 to Materials and Supplies Acct # 001-5015-401-4100 from Contingency-General Purpose Acct # 001-7060-800-3190 – Public Works

7. Discussion and Possible Action regarding the Board of Education requests for proposals for strategic plan, transportation analysis, facility use/redistricting – Superintendent of Schools

8. Discussion regarding outside advertising on Board of Education property – Councilor Economopoulos

9. Discussion and Action with regard to the Town Council Procedures – Chairman Parisi

10. Executive Session pursuant to §1-200 (6)(E), 1-210 (b)(5)(B), 1-210 (b)(7) and 7-232a of the Connecticut General Statutes to discuss the possible acquisition of transmission assets by CT TRANSCO – Director Pubic Utilities

11. Executive Session pursuant to §1-200 (6)(D) of the Connecticut General Statutes with respect to the purchase, sale and/or leasing of property – Mayor

Homeowners tax programs available

February 21st, 2010

As published from the Record Journal Sunday February 21, 2010

WALLINGFORD— The town assessor’s office will ac­cept applications for the Eld­erly and Totally Disabled Homeowners’ Tax Relief and Tax Deferral Programs now until May 15.

To qualify for the program, applicants are required to be age 65 as of Dec. 31, 2009, or totally disabled and receiving benefits under a federal, state or local retirement or disabil­ity program; be a Connecticut resident for one year; and in­come may not exceed $32,300 if single or $39,500 if married.

Documents needed for appli­cations are all sources of in­come for 2009 and a 2009 in­come tax form for those who filed. For information or to re­ceive an application, contact the assessor’s office at the town hall.

Applications are also being accepted for the Additional Tax Deferral Program. Appli­cants are required to meet the same qualifications as other tax relief programs with the exception of income guide­lines. Income limits for the program are $42,300 if single or $49,500 if married.

For information, call (203) 294-2001.

Benefit for Kenny DeSimone is TONIGHT 2/20/10

February 20th, 2010

There will be a benefit for Kenny at the PNA Park Hall N Plains Hwy on Saturday, February 20, 2010 from 5:00pm – 11:00pm

Tickets $25.00 per person.

There will be a full buffet and silent auction.

Tickets are still available at the door.

Benefit for Kenny DeSimone – Fundraiser for stem cell transplant
PNA Park Hall
N Plains Hwy on
Saturday, February 20, 2010
5:00pm – 11:00pm

Wish for Kenny DeSimone – response from Wish Upon a Hero

February 20th, 2010

GRANTED! Feb 18, 2010

Wish Granted by: Fallriversfinest Trishalynn justtrying2help aurora129 christina41690 jaleesasnanny nefer liltweety218201 flipflop4 gaillynn melissa21 onewhocares funshine sheena0709 fluffycancergirl WishUponAHeroFoundation blueeyesf36 jsilbert monica suzzie865 mytimewillcome shoppernanny mommymiki WishUponAHeroFoundation stacceee Tikitu saxnviolin Becky241 tsearight19 teacupsmommy icdedbd1 seanncaleb mommie817 ljlb6 pappuka SunshineYearRound carebear26 zadsdonna

This wish has received $655.00 in donations from the members of the site; these are people that barely know me from there and probably do not know the DeSimone Family at all.

http://wishuponahero.com/wishes/?id=527473 

My wife and I are donating a matching amount along with this check tonight at the fundraiser so this effort has yielded $1,310.00 for Ken and his family.

The FROM WALLINGFORD that wasn’t – Choate and a piece of the town budget

February 12th, 2010

by Jason Zandri

NOTE – This was my submission for this weeks FROM WALLINGFORD article. The Record Journal could not use it the way I had submitted it so I have presented it below as originally submitted and in its entirety.

They explained the reasons to me and I understand their position and their decision.

Since there’s not enough time for me to create a new submission ahead of the publication deadline I believe the paper is going to run something else in the place of FROM WALLINGFORD this week.

With all the discussion lately regarding the Board of Education budget, reconfiguration, and what the Council and the Mayor will or will not approve there had been a number of different questions that have come up in the different discussions at some of the meetings and online.

Should we fire all torpedoes and raise the taxes?

Should we cut here and fund there?

Should we tap the rainy day fund and if so how much?

What are we planning to do about next fiscal year’s costs?

One of the questions that came up from one of the parents that I found interesting and that I followed up on personally was with respect to the number of students that are housed on the Choate campus and attend schools in the Wallingford Public School system.

I thought there was a logical question in this topic.

There are some housing units (a few) on the campus that ARE taxed and ARE feeding into the town’s tax base, so the families that live there and are using the school services are, in effect, paying in (regardless of who is footing the actual tax bill).

There are also other housing units to consider. These are other buildings on the Choate campus that also house Choate students and their families where that real estate is not assessed for tax purposes. In some of these other housing units there are younger siblings and they are students that go to the elementary schools in town.

In an effort to find out what the cost impact was to Wallingford’s bottom line with respect to this situation, I decided to contact Superintendent Menzo to see if he had these numbers or perhaps just the number of students that attended Wallingford public schools that lived in these untaxed housing units. As it turned out I needed to follow up with Headmaster Shanahan at Choate to get this information as Superintendent Menzo did not have this data.

I emailed Headmaster Shanahan and asked: how many students attend Wallingford Public Schools and live in housing belonging to Choate that are not assessed for tax purposes?

I didn’t expect the number to be really high (I was figuring about 20 to 24 students – guessing off the top of my head).

I thought it was a simple sounding question but it really wasn’t because there is a little more to it than just what I was asking.

Here is the response that I received.

OUR RECORDS INDICATE THAT WE CURRENTLY HAVE 12 CHILDREN FROM 7 TAX-EXEMPT HOUSES ATTENDING WALLINGFORD PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

BUT CHOATE IS CURRENTLY PROVIDING A HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION FOR SOME 56* WALLINGFORD CHILDREN, 50% OF WHOM  RECEIVE SUBSTANTIAL (I.E. $2.4 MILLION) OF SCHOOL FINANCIAL AID.

[ONLY 30% OF NON-WALLINGFORD CHILDREN RECEIVE FINANCIAL AID.]

*CHOATE THEREBY IS RELIEVING WALLINGFORD PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS OF THE COST OF EDUCATING THESE 56 STUDENTS EACH YEAR.

This just goes to show you that sometimes there is a little more to a simple question than what meets the eye.

Where some felt there was a burden (and I admit at face value I initially thought there was too) there was actually a benefit.

Wallingford may be footing the bill for 12 additional children but we do not have to carry the burden for an additional 56 high school students. That is a net savings of whatever the cost burden is of 44 students.

I am sure that raising these points is going to have some of the nit-picky crowd coming up with a bunch of counterpoints. Some of the comments may well have some justification but the way I see things in this instance and with specific regard to the Board of Education budget, Wallingford is coming "ahead" of the game with a cost savings with respect to the net additional students.

For me, that is a little ray of sunshine in an otherwise bleak and overcast budget forecast.

More of the same with town unions as talks continue

February 12th, 2010

By Dave Moran
Record-Journal staff
dmoran@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2224

As published in the Record Journal Thursday February 11, 2010

Follow all the news directly on the Record Journal Website for the most up to date information. www.myrecordjournal.com

Write a letter to the editor letters@record-journal.com

WALLINGFORD — It ap­pears to be more of the same as the town attempts to negoti­ate labor contracts with three of its seven unions — the town contends there is “no money” to fund wage increases, while the unions continue to push for salary increases.

Two of those unions, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Em­ployees Local 1183, which rep­resents about 125 clerical, pub­lic works and sewer employees, and the Interna­tional Association of Firefight­ers Local 1326, which repre­sents about 60 firefighters, have entered into arbitration proceedings with the town. The third, the United Profes­sional and Service Employees Union Local 424-17, is still ne­gotiating with the town.

AFSCME has not had a con­tract since July 2008 and the firefighters union has not had a contract since July 2009. State labor laws prevent municipal employees from striking, and the unions have been working under the same salary and ben­efits packages since their con­tracts expired. Both unions have been in arbitration with the town for several months, and there is no time frame for when either might be resolved. Terence Sullivan, the town’s personnel director, said he could not comment on the sta­tus of negotiations, but he said the length that some of the town’s unions have been with­out contracts is not abnormal.

“There is no normalcy when it comes to collective bargain­ing,” Sullivan said. “It just de­pends on the issues. Once it hits arbitration it kind of stalls.”

Last year, before either went into arbitration, both AFSCME and the firefighters’ union pre­sented the town with contract proposals that included sev­eral furlough days to pay for salary increases, but the town rejected the proposals.

Mayor William W. Dickin­son Jr.’s budget for 2009-10 did not include raises for any town employees and he said agree­ing to the unions’ demands would set a bad precedent for future negotiations.

The four unions under con­tract with the town did receive their contracted wage in­creases last fiscal year, at a cost of $316,000, but the town paid for it by not filling vacan­cies in several departments and reducing the amount of work given to outside contrac­tors.

“We’ve gone to arbitration before,” said James De Bridgita, president of the local firefight­ers union. “We’ve gone — probably the longest I can re­member is two and a half years — without a contract. The guys would like to have a con­tract, would like to have a raise, but it seems to be part of the system in Wallingford.”

Larry Dorman, an AFSCME spokesman, echoed many of De Bridgita’s remarks, but said that what has been emerging during his union’s arbitration process with the town is that Wallingford, with its large sur­plus accounts, is in much bet­ter financial shape than many comparable municipalities in Connecticut.

“What distinguishes Wallingford from other negoti­ations is the fact that the town is in better shape than other cities,” Dorman said. “That’s something that’s become more apparent during the arbitra­tion process.”

But Dickinson, a Republican who has held office since 1984, has been reluctant to dip into the town’s reserve fund in the past and seemed to reiterate that stance Wednesday.

“The issue we’re dealing with this current year is the same as last year,” he said. “We’re saying no wage in­creases and trying to cut back — there’s just no agreement.”

Editorial – Wallingford budget

February 12th, 2010

As published in the Record Journal Thursday February 11, 2010

Follow all the news directly on the Record Journal Website for the most up to date information. www.myrecordjournal.com

Write a letter to the editor letters@record-journal.com

Wallingford’s school board and superintendent have tentatively agreed to go forward with a budget request that seeks a 4.7 per­cent increase but, signifi­cantly, does not mess with the traditional K-5 alignment of the eight elemen­tary schools.

There will, of course, be serious cuts in personnel – in certified staff, as they say, in paraprofessional staff and in other administrative staff, though not, we sus­pect, in its upper levels. This now seems to strike the public as an acceptable route to pursue, even though everyone expects the mayor to knock off a couple of million or a cou­ple of percentage points from the total sought or re­quested. That has been the pattern for a number of years.

And, strikingly, it now seems to be okay if such cuts result in increased class sizes.

Many people have com­plained for years about the Wallingford school sys­tem’s budget practices. Each year it submitted a budget destined to be trimmed; each year it would muddle by through the habit of carrying for­ward unused funds from the previous year. Yet this year’s effort, an interesting departure in principle, could best be described as worse.

Its chief plank was the re­alignment of elementary schools. This division of grades, in and of itself, is not necessarily a good or bad idea — or good or bad for Wallingford. It was, however, dumped suddenly in the lap of the school board with several new members just discovering their education legs. It was presented as an alternative to deeper staff cuts, to in­creased class size, and to higher total costs of the system.

It’s interesting how ideas that seem unthinkable one week – class size has been a mantra not only in Walling­ford but in many communi­ties for years now – can suddenly seem fair and log­ical when compared to something radical like mov­ing school assignments around.

We hope the realignment idea comes back for an­other visit, for it has its own merits and has been found helpful in a number of com­munities. For now, Walling­ford will see where the tra­ditional budget process will lead its school system this year.