IMPORTANT: Our students and teachers need your support!
Our school district’s budget is at risk of a $4.9 million cut. On Saturday, Mr. Testani posted a message on Parent Square that includes a summary. FPS also sent a summary in this month’s district newsletter here.
Please see below for important steps you can take TONIGHT, as the Board of Selectman (BOS) will be voting on this tomorrow. These steps will take less than 10 minutes of your time.
TONIGHT:
Step 1. Send an email to the Board of Selectman (BOS) and copy the Board of Education to show your support of budget as is:
To: BOS@fairfieldct.org
Cc: boemembers@fairfieldschools.org
Subject: #FullyFundOurSchools
Email body: We have been told that a copy-paste campaign will not be as impactful, so we encourage you to customize your letter to the extent possible, but it does not have to be long.
Your email can start with a simple line of: “Please support the Board of Education budget as proposed.” or “Please reinstate all funds that you are proposing to cut from this year’s Board of Education Budget.”
Then add in any personal information such as your number of children, why you love Fairfield, why you think education is important, why we should support our teachers, etc. You can view sample emails here.
Step 2. Spread the word. Tell everyone you know to do Step 1.
TOMORROW AND ONWARDS:
Step 3. Attend the BOS meeting. The Board of Selectmen will be meeting tomorrow, Monday March 3rd at 10am at the Fire Safety Center, 205 Richard White Way. You can attend in person, join via zoom, or watch on FairTV, information can be found here. At this meeting the BOS will vote on the BOE budget. It is also possible for them to amend the budget, either adding monies back into the budget or making additional cuts.
Step 4. Stay tuned in: This is not the final step in the budget process and if the BOS does cut the BOE budget, the Board of Finance (BOF) has the ability to add to or subtract funds from the BOE budget. After the BOF vote, the BOE budget moves to the Representative Town Meeting (RTM) for final approval. You can email both the BOF and your RTM reps and encourage them to support the BOE budget as is too. You can find the Board of Finance contact form here. And the RTM contact form here.
Your voice matters and the more people that become involved and speak up will impact the decisions made by our elected officials. Collectively we can ensure our teachers are supported and the programming our children receive is not impacted by budget cuts. Should the budget not pass, we are likely looking at transportation cuts and programming cuts that impact students directly. Please reach out with any questions.
Background: Rising transportation costs, contractual wage increases to teachers, and rising healthcare premium costs have resulted in a $10 million dollar increase to this year’s Board Of Education budget. $8 million of this increase covers contractual wage increase obligations to teachers and paras. It is important to remember that the teacher contracts were approved by many town bodies including the Board of Education, the Board of Selectmen, the Board of Finance and the Representative Town Meeting, so the budget increase is not a surprise and should be fully supported by other town bodies. Prior to approval, the BOE scrutinized their budget and made cuts of about $2 million in anticipation of not receiving the funding they are asking for. The Board of Selectman (BOS) is proposing a $4.9 million cut to the budget approved by the BOE.
For questions, please contact Jean Shurman, OHS PTA Board of Education Representative, jeanshurman@gmail.com
