DARIEN — With a near $2.5 million shortfall in its school budget, Darien’s superintendent is recommending bringing back some controversial staffing cuts initially saved by the school board.

With the Board of Education's budget set at $119.8 million by the Board of Finance and approved by the Representative Town Meeting, the approved spending plan is a 4.7 percent year-to-year increase compared with the 6.5 percent increase the board had requested. To cover the gap, superintendent Alan Addley recommended eliminating staff members — through cuts and attrition — and increasing revenue by adding $200 athletic participation fees and raising school lunch prices by 50 cents.

On top of the controversial $2 million cut from the Board of Finance, the district is also facing an additional $453,682 in excess costs that emerged after the school board first approved its budget in February including changes in health care costs, student evaluations and legal fees.
 
“We looked at it from an efficiency point of view, a revenue point of view, we tried to protect students’ core programming, as difficult as it has been,” Addley said when presenting the administration's proposal on May 7. “I wanted to respect, certainly, the board values and positions that you have taken along the way through this particular budget process.”

Other changes include deferring some equipment and furniture replacements and bringing some of the district’s contracted services, including several therapist positions and groundskeeping, in-house as district positions.

The district would reduce teaching staff by five through attrition from teachers already leaving the district and retirements, and have some teachers pick up an additional fifth class. Addley also proposed cutting four teaching positions, five classroom paraprofessionals and a high school campus monitor, which had been proposed initially but withdrawn after board members objected to the reductions.

Attrition would cover originally proposed cuts for two English teachers, a social studies teacher and a science teacher all at Middlesex Middle School. Cuts would include a math teacher and Spanish teacher at the middle school and an art teacher and music teacher at the elementary schools.

Addley also proposed cutting five paraprofessionals for a total cut of 10 paraprofessionals next year, the number Addley had originally proposed in January before the Board of Education voted to save half of them.

Both members Kadi Lublin and Sara Parent, whose request returned the five paraprofessionals to the initial board-approved budget, opposed cutting the aides, with Parent saying, “For those who say that this $2.5 million cut doesn't hurt kids — that hurts kids.”

School board members requested Addley look into cutting back in administration, something Addley strongly opposed.

“The amount of work that people expect in this district, and understandably expect, the services that people expect firsthand, from parents to board members to the community at large — you will do, in my opinion… irreparable damage to this district if you do that, long after I'm gone, long after my cabinet’s gone,” Addley said.

During the board's May 14 meeting, Addley did bring a proposal for administrative cuts, though maintained his opposition.

Under the alternative proposal, the district would eliminate all department chairs, the director of elementary education, world language and elementary curriculum stipends and middle school teaching positions for world language and English. In its place, the district would create new K-12 directors for literacy, social studies, science and math and teacher leaders for K-12 world language and curriculum.

The alternate proposal would create about $158,000 in savings, which Addley suggested should be used to offset participation fees or increased school lunch costs.

The added $200 fee for athletics was another controversial change, with Lublin saying it was unfair to put a "one-size-fits-all player tax" on sports that vary by cost-per-sport and could prevent some students from participating.

“There are teams that students join just because it's their only chance to have an athletic experience at the high school, teams where students will never play varsity and are there for community,” Lublin said during the May 7 meeting. “Introducing a $200 participation fee is a barrier. Whether it's a financial one or not, it is a barrier and we need to acknowledge that. We can't shy away from that.”

Parent seconded Lublin’s use of the word tax, suggesting the board could exclude participation fees in future budgets and “this might just be a one-year situation that's being forced upon us by other powers.”

The proposal to add fees and raise lunch prices also received backlash from Council of Darien School Parents co-chair Joanna Walsh during the May 7 meeting, who said the finance board cut $2 million to keep taxpayer rates down, not to tax only parents who already spend effort and money fundraising for the school district.

“When someone moves to Darien, they expect that their taxes will fund the district, not most of the district,” she added. “We all pay for the library and the road maintenance and the debt servicing on Great Island. We all pay for the senior center. A subset of parents shouldn't pay for the full high school experience. Parents are tired of getting their pockets picked.”

During the board's May 14 meeting, members of the board suggested administration come up with alternative models for participation fees including not charging participation fees for student athletes already paying facility fees, a $250 athletic participation fee or potential flat fees that would include other school activities. Board member Julie Best also requested administration propose potential cuts to athletics.

Unfortunately for the school board, whether or not they’re comfortable with sacrificing parts of their budget is not really an option any more, board member Dennis Maroney pointed out during the May 7 meeting.

“I'm hearing my fellow board members saying they're not comfortable with roughly $800,000 of cuts, and we need to come up with $2.5 million,” Maroney said. “We have to make these cuts. We have no alternative. We can't just say, ‘I don't want to, I don't like it.’ We have to make it.”

Despite voicing her desire to keep the paraprofessionals and campus monitor, Best agreed with Maroney that board members will have to make decisions they don’t like.

“There are a number of things that I'm going to tell you I don't like, and I'm going to have to do them because that's the position we've been put in,” Best said. “This is a large cut, and it's going to hurt, and we're going to have to give up things that we're not comfortable giving up.”

The school board has until June 30 to make a final decision and is currently aiming to come to a vote on May 28.