The Board of Finance isn’t too happy with Board of Education member Tom O’Brien.
Finance Chairman Rich Miecznikowski said Tuesday he takes “deep umbrage with Mr. O’Brien’s negative comments” about the fiscal oversight panel and its staff.
Miecznikowski said it is “inappropriate to suggest” that the finance board “does not understand the budgeting process” in terms of education spending.
During a school committee meeting Monday, O’Brien said the finance board is filled with newcomers and doesn’t understand that the school budget is different from spending plans submitted by other city departments.
"They're very confused," said O'Brien. "They don't truly understand how it works."
“Currently, all but one Board of Finance member has experienced at least one completebudget cycle of the city,” Miecznikowski said.
He pointed out that the other panel members “have many years of combined experience with the budget process” and some have helped shape school budgets directly because of positions they held at the Board of Education.
O’Brien was plotting strategy for winning finance panel approval for a $103 million school budget for the coming year, a push that might crimp efforts to hold down property taxes.
O’Brien said, too, that educators “have to address the impressions that certain members of the Board of Finance have been fed by the controller” and called for school officials “to be very clear and challenge” finance commissioners.
Mayor Art Ward defended the finance board’s role and called for school leaders to try to keep spending in check.
"The scrutiny of the budgetary process applies to all departments,” the mayor said. “Under the economic circumstances of the entire city, the Board of Education should look within its budget to control current and future costs and eliminate any non-essentialitems.”
Miecznikowski said that everyone needs to understand “that city revenues and other city resources that support the budget are stagnant at best in this recession prone economy.”
“With that said, it should be further understood that under these circumstances, all departments have to do with less. Costs to taxpayers are rising on many fronts and to compound the fact of increased costs this year is the implementation of a state mandated city-wide revaluation,” he said.
The finance chief said that his board “has provided for fully funded or near fully funded educational budgets at the request level for the past 3 years. To the best of myknowledge, that funding level has never been done for any other city department.”
Miecznikowski said that O’Brien is wrong about City Comptroller Glenn Klocko.
“The comptroller's office understands his role in his work with the Board of Finance and I feel confident that the comptroller also understands that the final budgetary decisions rest with the Board of Finance.”
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Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
Showing posts with label O'Brien. Show all posts
Showing posts with label O'Brien. Show all posts
February 26, 2008
Board of Finance members "very confused" and need educators' guidance, O'Brien says
The Bristol Board of Finance is filled with newcomers and doesn't understand how the school budget is different than other city departments, said Tom O'Brien, chairman of the school board's finance committee.
O'Brien said it is up to the board and district administrators to educate finance commissioners and convince them of the need to fund a $103 million school budget this year.
"They're very confused," said O'Brien. "They don't truly understand how it works."
The budget, approved by O'Brien's committee Monday, shows a 7.67 percent increase over the existing budget. It will be presented to the full school board next week.
As he and other board members reviewed a budget presentation by Superintendent Phil Streifer, O'Brien coached Streifer on how the case should be made to the finance commissioners.
"This is a marketing program," said O'Brien. "It's not just a budget request."
Finance commissioners should hear how much surrounding towns spend on education, as well as how much the urban districts in the region shell out, O'Brien said.
"We have to address the impressions that certain members of the board of finance have been fed by the controller," said O'Brien. "We have to be very clear and challenge the board of finance."
O'Brien told Streifer to limit the numbers and wording on his PowerPoint presentation to the finance board.
"More pictures, less words," instructed O'Brien. "If we do presentations with words and numbers, people tend to fall asleep."
To help principals be "instructional leaders" instead of "disciplinarians and bureaucrats," said O'Brien, the district should add four assistant principals. He said he wants to make sure he gets at least one.
O'Brien urged Streifer to talk about Bristol children in poverty and how poverty impacts educational costs.
"We cannot go backwards," said O'Brien. "We cannot afford to level off."
The school district's budget must cover unfunded state mandates, said O'Brien, especially with regard to special education.
If the school budget isn't fully funded, O'Brien said, "more and more of our budget will go to special education students, leaving less and less for everyone else."
That's how school systems collapse, said O'Brien.
The school district isn't like the police department, public works or the parks department, O'Brien said, because those aren't ordered to spend money on such mandates.
"We're getting hurt by the state," said O'Brien.
The board is also adding a small amount to the budget for Renzulli Learning, a computer program from the University of Connecticut for gifted students. Deputy Superintendent Susan Moreau said the $16,000 subscription would cover all the kids in the program in elementary and middle school, serving about 500 students in grades 4-8.
The school board meets next on March 5. The district has a budget hearing with finance board members March 27.
*******
Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
O'Brien said it is up to the board and district administrators to educate finance commissioners and convince them of the need to fund a $103 million school budget this year.
"They're very confused," said O'Brien. "They don't truly understand how it works."
The budget, approved by O'Brien's committee Monday, shows a 7.67 percent increase over the existing budget. It will be presented to the full school board next week.
As he and other board members reviewed a budget presentation by Superintendent Phil Streifer, O'Brien coached Streifer on how the case should be made to the finance commissioners.
"This is a marketing program," said O'Brien. "It's not just a budget request."
Finance commissioners should hear how much surrounding towns spend on education, as well as how much the urban districts in the region shell out, O'Brien said.
"We have to address the impressions that certain members of the board of finance have been fed by the controller," said O'Brien. "We have to be very clear and challenge the board of finance."
O'Brien told Streifer to limit the numbers and wording on his PowerPoint presentation to the finance board.
"More pictures, less words," instructed O'Brien. "If we do presentations with words and numbers, people tend to fall asleep."
To help principals be "instructional leaders" instead of "disciplinarians and bureaucrats," said O'Brien, the district should add four assistant principals. He said he wants to make sure he gets at least one.
O'Brien urged Streifer to talk about Bristol children in poverty and how poverty impacts educational costs.
"We cannot go backwards," said O'Brien. "We cannot afford to level off."
The school district's budget must cover unfunded state mandates, said O'Brien, especially with regard to special education.
If the school budget isn't fully funded, O'Brien said, "more and more of our budget will go to special education students, leaving less and less for everyone else."
That's how school systems collapse, said O'Brien.
The school district isn't like the police department, public works or the parks department, O'Brien said, because those aren't ordered to spend money on such mandates.
"We're getting hurt by the state," said O'Brien.
The board is also adding a small amount to the budget for Renzulli Learning, a computer program from the University of Connecticut for gifted students. Deputy Superintendent Susan Moreau said the $16,000 subscription would cover all the kids in the program in elementary and middle school, serving about 500 students in grades 4-8.
The school board meets next on March 5. The district has a budget hearing with finance board members March 27.
*******
Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
February 8, 2008
Closing in on the "tipping point"
Poverty rates are soaring in Bristol.
In just the past four months, 5 percent more elementary school children in Bristol have successfully applied for free or reduced-price school lunches because their families don't have much money.
Susan Moreau, the assistant school superintendent, said that applications are coming in daily. Many of them are the result, she said, of mothers or fathers getting laid off in the slowing economy.
In all, officials said, 37 percent of the city's elementary school students are getting discounted or free lunches.
To Tom O'Brien, a Board of Education member, the numbers are alarming.
O'Brien said that studies show that once the poverty rate hits 40 percent in a community, it's almost impossible to slow the slide. He said that "it almost always jumps to 60 percent within five or six years" after reaching that tippoing point, the result of the spiraling impact of rising taxes to cope with the cost and a middle class fleeing for greener pastures.
The community should be "very, very concerned" that poverty keeps going up, O'Brien said. "This is a very scary thing," he said.
Unless city leaders find a way to attack blighted housing and crack the whip on out-of-town landlords and slumlords, O'Brien said the trend is clear.
Without a change, he said, "We will be New Britain. We will be Meriden. We will be East Hartford."
"The city cannot just sit here and hope it goes away," O'Brien said.
School Superintendent Philip Streifer said that rising numbers of poor children make it tough on educators, too.
He said he was shocked to see how many of the incoming kindergarten students in Bristol last fall didn’t know the kinds of basic facts, from colors to letters, that they should have learned beforehand.
“These kids are unprepared to learn,” he said, adding that perhaps a third of the incoming youngsters didn’t have the backgrounds they should.
Starting off “so far behind” their peers in more affluent communities and families, it’s tough for them to catch up, officials said.
He said that poverty is also the main reason that 40 percent of the students in an average elementary school class in Bristol move during each school year, half of them out of the town and half to another school district.
That puts a burden on both teachers and students because of the loss of continuity.
*******
Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
In just the past four months, 5 percent more elementary school children in Bristol have successfully applied for free or reduced-price school lunches because their families don't have much money.
Susan Moreau, the assistant school superintendent, said that applications are coming in daily. Many of them are the result, she said, of mothers or fathers getting laid off in the slowing economy.
In all, officials said, 37 percent of the city's elementary school students are getting discounted or free lunches.
To Tom O'Brien, a Board of Education member, the numbers are alarming.
O'Brien said that studies show that once the poverty rate hits 40 percent in a community, it's almost impossible to slow the slide. He said that "it almost always jumps to 60 percent within five or six years" after reaching that tippoing point, the result of the spiraling impact of rising taxes to cope with the cost and a middle class fleeing for greener pastures.
The community should be "very, very concerned" that poverty keeps going up, O'Brien said. "This is a very scary thing," he said.
Unless city leaders find a way to attack blighted housing and crack the whip on out-of-town landlords and slumlords, O'Brien said the trend is clear.
Without a change, he said, "We will be New Britain. We will be Meriden. We will be East Hartford."
"The city cannot just sit here and hope it goes away," O'Brien said.
School Superintendent Philip Streifer said that rising numbers of poor children make it tough on educators, too.
He said he was shocked to see how many of the incoming kindergarten students in Bristol last fall didn’t know the kinds of basic facts, from colors to letters, that they should have learned beforehand.
“These kids are unprepared to learn,” he said, adding that perhaps a third of the incoming youngsters didn’t have the backgrounds they should.
Starting off “so far behind” their peers in more affluent communities and families, it’s tough for them to catch up, officials said.
He said that poverty is also the main reason that 40 percent of the students in an average elementary school class in Bristol move during each school year, half of them out of the town and half to another school district.
That puts a burden on both teachers and students because of the loss of continuity.
*******
Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
October 10, 2007
Taxpayers lost "millions" when city dropped K-8 years ago
When the city dropped its kindergarten to eighth grade schools a quarter century ago, it made a mistake that costs taxpayers millions of dollars, said the Board of Education member spearheading the effort to return to the old K-8 system.
Tom O’Brien, who is championing the effort to build two new schools and return to a K-8 system, said the city erred when it made the costly switch in the early 1980s to a new system that had elementary and junior high schools.
City Councilor Frank Nicastro said Wednesday that O’Brien’s admission of the wasted money is “a major thing” and helps explain why he is so wary of jumping to support what might prove the latest fad that educators are pushing.
“We did a flip-flop” back in the 1980s, Nicastro said, and are now asking taxpayers to shell out $115 million for two new 900-student schools so that education leaders can go back to the K-8 system they rejected a generation ago.
The school superintendent, Philip Streifer, said the switch to K-8 is justified by studies that have shown they are more successful in urban environments than the existing system in Bristol.
He said studies show they allow for more parental involvement, smaller peer groups for students and less transition for families. They bolster student achievement, increase extracurricular participation, improve self-esteem and decrease the sense of victimhood among middle school age children, Streifer said.
“This plan is a good step forward,” the superintendent said.
Nicastro said he remembers officials “spouting all the great reasons” for abandoning the K-8 system years ago. He said he’s concerned that educators are simply following the latest trend and that it won’t pan out.
O’Brien said that one advantage of the plan on the table now is that if the two new schools are built, half the district will be in K-8 and the other half in the existing system, offering a perfect laboratory to compare the two concepts.
“We will have the best of all possible worlds,” O’Brien said.
The entire Board of Education has backed the concept of returning to a K-8 system and only one of the 13 school board candidates has expressed public doubt about the concept.
Mary Rydingsward, the Working Families Party candidate, said she is “not totally opposed” to a K-8 system, but she is against the plan to erect two new 900-student schools rather than relying on smaller neighborhood schools.
Rydingsward also challenged the research that educators said they are relying on to bolster the K-8 plan. She said that it applies to small schools, not large ones such as Bristol intends to build.
Rydingsward said that she’s concerned that a 900-student school could trigger more violence among students and hinder education.
“Smaller is better,” she said. “I don’t want to think we’re brewing a Columbine situation here.”
City councilors this week gave their initial blessing to plans to put a new school next door to Greene-Hills School, but rejected the idea of putting the other one in a former Scalia sand pit off Barlow Street.
The Board of Education is pushing to close four older schools – Bingham, O’Connell and Greene-Hills elementary schools and Memorial Boulevard Middle School – and opening the two K-8 schools to replace them.
*******
Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
Tom O’Brien, who is championing the effort to build two new schools and return to a K-8 system, said the city erred when it made the costly switch in the early 1980s to a new system that had elementary and junior high schools.
City Councilor Frank Nicastro said Wednesday that O’Brien’s admission of the wasted money is “a major thing” and helps explain why he is so wary of jumping to support what might prove the latest fad that educators are pushing.
“We did a flip-flop” back in the 1980s, Nicastro said, and are now asking taxpayers to shell out $115 million for two new 900-student schools so that education leaders can go back to the K-8 system they rejected a generation ago.
The school superintendent, Philip Streifer, said the switch to K-8 is justified by studies that have shown they are more successful in urban environments than the existing system in Bristol.
He said studies show they allow for more parental involvement, smaller peer groups for students and less transition for families. They bolster student achievement, increase extracurricular participation, improve self-esteem and decrease the sense of victimhood among middle school age children, Streifer said.
“This plan is a good step forward,” the superintendent said.
Nicastro said he remembers officials “spouting all the great reasons” for abandoning the K-8 system years ago. He said he’s concerned that educators are simply following the latest trend and that it won’t pan out.
O’Brien said that one advantage of the plan on the table now is that if the two new schools are built, half the district will be in K-8 and the other half in the existing system, offering a perfect laboratory to compare the two concepts.
“We will have the best of all possible worlds,” O’Brien said.
The entire Board of Education has backed the concept of returning to a K-8 system and only one of the 13 school board candidates has expressed public doubt about the concept.
Mary Rydingsward, the Working Families Party candidate, said she is “not totally opposed” to a K-8 system, but she is against the plan to erect two new 900-student schools rather than relying on smaller neighborhood schools.
Rydingsward also challenged the research that educators said they are relying on to bolster the K-8 plan. She said that it applies to small schools, not large ones such as Bristol intends to build.
Rydingsward said that she’s concerned that a 900-student school could trigger more violence among students and hinder education.
“Smaller is better,” she said. “I don’t want to think we’re brewing a Columbine situation here.”
City councilors this week gave their initial blessing to plans to put a new school next door to Greene-Hills School, but rejected the idea of putting the other one in a former Scalia sand pit off Barlow Street.
The Board of Education is pushing to close four older schools – Bingham, O’Connell and Greene-Hills elementary schools and Memorial Boulevard Middle School – and opening the two K-8 schools to replace them.
*******
Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
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