Reprinted from The Trumbull Times © Copyright 2008
June 5, 2008

To the Editor:

The following is a response to Joann Tyborowski's May 29, letter concerning the uncertainty of the amount budgeted under the Board of Education's 2008-209 'teacher retirement' budget account for money to be saved as a result of lower-salaried teachers being hired to replace higher-salaried teachers who will retire by June 30.

The issue at hand concerns the projected dollar amount to be saved within the various teachers' salary accounts as a whole and whether to use such 'saved dollars' to restore certain athletic and gifted program budget reductions which the BOE recently approved for the coming school year.

Tyborowski, a member of the BOE, voted with the four majority members of this board to not use additional dollar savings to be realized in the afore-mentioned budget account in order to restore the cuts that were made to these student programs. Her rationale for casting her vote was the assertion that the subject budget account was not based upon 'hard numbers' like some other budget accounts that were reduced.

While her reasoning is partially true, i.e. there is no certainty that 'average' teacher replacement salaries will equal the $55,000 figure projected by the school administration as the amount to use for all 'new hires,' there is no doubt that the 24 'actual' retirees (20 were budgeted) identified to date will retire at an average salary of $80,000 as budget by the administration.

Based upon my calculations, and assuming the administration's 'new hire' amount of $55,000 was fairly estimated, an unbudgeted teacher salary account "cost savings" of approximately $275,000 can reasonably be expected to accrue to the benefit of the BOE during the 2008-2009 school year.

The $89,000 average retiree salary amount and the 24 identified retirees are both hard numbers - the $55,000 replacement salary amount is not.

My question is this - if Tyborowski and other BOE members have chosen not to rely on the administrations calculated new hire rate, aren't there many more estimated amounts within the overall budget that should also be challenged as to their reasonableness? The very nature of a budget is that most of its figures are estimates.

Finally, as the former (36 years) school business administrator, I can well understand the administration's desire to retain some undesignated funds to address potential unanticipated emergencies. It was always my experience that undesignated funds, anywhere from $50,000 to $250,000, will accrue after July 1 because of subsequent unanticipated retirements, resignations, leaves of ab sense, etc., all of which will provide the emergency funds required to address most unexpected contingencies of a reasonable nature.

Republican board members Loretta Chory and Debbie Herbst voted unsuccessfully to use the available funding source identified above to sustain the athletic and gifted program cuts that were approved on May 6. I whole heartedly concur with their initiative on this matter.

Bill Crooks, R
Board of Finance