Submitted by Greenwich Democratic Board of Estimate and Taxation members, Elliot Alchek, Matt DesChamps, Scott Kalb, Leslie Moriarty, Stephen Selbst , David Weisbrod
Over $4 million in education cuts are now a reality. Detrimental program changes that will harm our schools have been forced upon our community despite Democratic efforts to prevent such recklessness. Unfortunately, BET Republicans hold the tie breaking vote as a result of the 2023 election and all of us are subject to the way they vote and the unwise decisions they make.
The Board of Ed is now faced with “loathsome” choices; including options to eliminate the second grade Advanced Learning Program, reduce Physical Ed programs for elementary school children, eliminate foreign language classes for the third grade, radically alter the staffing at Greenwich High School, eliminate the innovative Positive Pathways program that would save the town money via reduced Special Education outplacements, reduce the team teaching structure at Central Middle School, or force a return to early start times for our high school students that runs against the recommendation of many academic studies on health and educational achievement for adolescents.
The amount of the cut was not based on specific opportunities identified during departmental meetings. Nor did it take into consideration the wealth of data presented by Greenwich Public Schools during the lengthy budget review process. Indeed, the BET Budget Committee only considered a cut of $250,000 and at no time until budget decision day was upon us was there any amendment presented to reflect the dramatically higher level of cut ultimately imposed.
In retrospect the $4 million cut appears to have been predetermined back in October 2024, when Republican members pushed through an arbitrary and erroneous “guideline” number based on incorrect contract calculations, and the failure to account for the loss of federal grant support and ARP funds. Months of deliberations, reports, reviews and analysis from the BOE and town experts were totally ignored. In the end, the doctrinaire imposition of predetermined political objectives, combined with a failure to listen to the voices of our community has resulted in a devastating cutback to our children’s education, and constitutes a failure to provide even minimally appropriate financial stewardship.
Along the way, compromises to meet in the middle were dismissed. A Democratic proposal, presented after careful analysis, to trim the BOE budget by a more manageable $1 million would have resulted in a mill rate increase of 3.5%, a mere three-quarters of a percent above the current level of 2.8%. All attempts to negotiate any kind of middle path were rebuffed. There was no motion made by a Republican member on budget decision day for a lower reduction and, despite the Democrats indicating their willingness to find a compromise, not a single one of the six Republicans on the BET was willing to reopen the budget discussion.
All of this suggests a troubling objective by Republican BET members to impose a political agenda and cut funding for schools while ignoring data that supported the initial budget request and the negative impact of the identified programmatic cuts.
These mindless cuts have serious consequences. To sacrifice the excellence of our schools, the very lifeblood of the community, for negligible tax savings demonstrates a profound misjudgment of priorities and a disregard for long-term consequences. This isn’t fiscal responsibility; it’s fiscal shortsightedness creating burdens for our students, teachers, families and schools.
The BOE budget had broad bipartisan support (7-1) and the Republican First Selectman recently stated:
“I was hoping that [the BET] would take another look at [the BOE budget] and see where they could cut in other places rather than that because you want to make sure when people are deciding where to live, families will look at the educational system and they’ll look at things like class size and programs that are being offered and so on and so forth…You don’t even have to have kids in the schools to support a really healthy and robust educational system.”
We agree!
Your Democratic BET Members,
Elliot Alchek
Matt DesChamps
Scott Kalb
Leslie Moriarty
Stephen Selbst
David Weisbrod