With possible exception given to interparty squabbles among the New London Democrats, the most potent political drama in the city this year has been the growing acrimony between the City Council and the Board of Education.
And last week the vitriol was without veneer.
Republican Councilor Rob Pero and Democratic Councilor John Maynard lashed out at the Board of Eduction during a Finance Committee meeting over the school board’s decision to cut more than $56,000 in student programs from the 2008-2009 spending plan.
“It’s ridiculous,” Maynard told board members Republican James Pearce and Democrat Bill Morse, who were in attendance.
“When you can’t find $50,000 in a $39 million budget,” Pero noted, “there is a problem.”
Board of Education President Alvin Kinsall’s response to the councilors’ criticism was unflinching.
“If they are upset, too bad,” he said. “It’s not their call, it’s our call, and we were trying to better student achievement.”
On May 8, the school board, acting on orders from the City Council, cut $1 million from its budget with the New London High School track and field team as the most visible reduction.
Morse, a former city councilor, noted that, including coaches, the track program cost $17,000 a year to fund.
Other sports cuts included middle school wrestling and softball, while the high school girls’ and boys’ swim teams would be merged.
The school board voted 5-1, with Democrat Anthony Nolan dissenting and Democrat Elizabeth Garcia-Gonzalez absent, to approve the cuts.
“What was most important,” Pearce said, “was that we not impact academic achievement. No teachers got the ax.”
On May 8 the school board laid off a media specialist at the middle school and reduced the number of school nurses in the city.
Although the City Council cannot make line-item reductions in the school budget, Pero and Maynard essentially levied two charges at Morse and Pearce: The school board lacked gumption in making the cuts and that this year’s budget was an act of revenge on the municipal side of the ledger.
On the first point, Maynard said the Board of Education did not “step up to the plate” when making its budget cuts.
“That’s what we did [on the City Council],” Maynard said, referring to the Democratic proposal to eliminate top salaried jobs in the Office of Development and Planning. The Democrats have since backed off on the majority of their cuts.
Maynard, borrowing a page from the Looking Out For Taxpayers, or LOT, playbook, accused the school administration of being “top heavy.”
“You are secretary heavy,” he said. “You have to start cutting jobs where it hurts the administration.”
This year, and in past years, members of LOT have often harangued the school board and City Council about the salaries earned by Central Office workers.
“When you cut, you cut from the top,” said Evelyn Louziotis, a municipal meeting regular, at the May 8 school board meeting.
Morse said he brought up the subject of cutting secretaries at preliminary budget meetings this year, but the idea went nowhere.
“You need four votes,” he said.
Morse, a teacher in East Lyme, disagreed with the perception that the school system is waterlogged with administrators.
“New London has about the same amount as neighboring towns,” he said.
Pearce noted that the school board eliminated the director of special services position in Central Office, as the new assistant superintendent will assume those responsibilities. Morse, though, put forward the argument that the number of secretaries and administrators in the district are noted as criteria when the school system applies for grants.
“It’s a complicated bureaucracy that needs more bureaucracy to get some of that funding,” he said.
Kinsall said Morse “is absolutely right about that.”
“Somebody needs to do that work,” he said.
Pero accused the school board of political gamesmanship in order to make the City Council look bad in the eyes of the public.
“This is an attempt to get back at the City Council,” he said.
Pero, a councilor since 1997, accused the school board of “being mad because the city has funded police and fire in recent budgets.”
Pero also accused the school administration of producing a budget that lacks lucidity.
“It’s not the best document,” he said.
Pero went on to say that it is difficult to get information from members of the school administration, because people are afraid to tell the truth for fear of losing their jobs. “I take what they say with a grain of salt,” he said.
Both Pearce and Morse said they would take the City Council’s message back to the Board of Education.
Though, according to Maynard, the school board’s reputation may already be tarnished.
“The way it looks is that the Board of Education is not keen on kids,” he said.