Public Has Its Say on Proposed School Budget

The Board of Education has met three times this month to review the $35.58 million 2013-2014 school budget proposed by Superintendent Susan Viccaro on Feb. 20.

The public had been surprisingly silent at those meetings, until Wednesday night when three residents, one of them a teacher, addressed the board.

Durham resident Teresa Opalacz was the first to speak following the board's lengthy discussion which ended when they .

Opalacz, a member of Durham's board of finance, asked school officials whether the district had gone out to bid for health insurance and suggested that the board look into combining the bus routes for students at Lyman and Memorial schools.

"I just throw that out again because I really think that's the one that is not going to really be disturbing to anyone and I would think it would have some savings in it," she said.

Board members appeared willing to at least look into whether transportation savings could be made and although the district will be changing insurance carriers, health insurance costs will rise by 10.4 percent next year.

Opalacz urged the board against eliminating student fees which are used to cover the cost of extracurricular activities and athletics.

"What will end up happening," she said, "two years from now you'll start eliminating programs because you won't have enough money and I think the parents would rather prefer to have it, and pay for it. They're pretty used to paying for it."

Students who can't afford the fees should still be allowed to participate, Opalacz said, a point to which board chairman Kerrie Flanagan was already guaranteed.

Karen Meiman, a parent who was also a member of a committee formed two years ago to study transportation costs for the district, said combining the two school's bus routes would reduce bus mileage and wear and tear on the buses.

"We have the data," Meiman said. "It is a viable solution in the fact you would take 25 percent of your miles off the road."

Although the change would take time to implement, Meiman said the district could immediately eliminate a bus that sits idle during each of the three bus runs.

"That bus can be eliminated without any disruption to any route, it's just reworking the number of the buses," she said.

Meinman spoke in favor of an effort by administrators to reduce the number of study halls but said it should not be accomplished by reducing the number of electives offered at the high school. She also urged the board to maintain a part-time science position at the high school, which had been eliminated by the board as part of the budget reductions.

Coginchaug science teacher Susan Michael, who chairs the department, pointed out that as part of the board's budget reduction, she sacrificed $12,750 that would have been used to buy new textbooks for her freshman class.

"I've been working at or below the same budget in science for the past four or five years," she told the board.

Michael expressed concern over the elimination of a science teacher at Memorial School as well as a part-time science position at the high school, an area she said has strong student interest.

"It would result in the lost of an elective. All of my core courses are running at 20-25 right now. They're big," she said.

Flanagan said the eliminations would not impact the district's science offerings.

Several board members said they'd received email communications from residents on a number of budget issues, including class sizes and transportation, but they did not elaborate on those emails.