Last Monday, January 16th at St. Matthew’s Church, Friends of Tolland Schools’ Advisory Board held their first meeting. Each Advisory Board member was selected based on helping balance the group’s perspective, subject matter expertise, and a history of service to the town.
Advisory Board Attendees were Sandy Chafouleas, Lou Deloreto, Mark Summers, Becky Ellert, and Dan Carmody. Town Leaders Jack Scavone, Andy Powell also attended.
Other Attendees, Suzie Lotreck, Bob Rubino, Frank Pasini, Brenda Falusi, Diane Clokey, Ken Kittredge, Jackie Kolb, role played other perspectives at one point during the meeting, including a senior on a fixed pension, a teacher, a high school student and a tuned out voter.
Participants worked on two questions:
- What are some of our biggest challenges to acting together?
- What are your necessary improvements to the budget process?
The notes below are based on what was captured on the flip charts, in a file here. The meeting handout is here. After comparing Tolland to this scenario (other districts have similar dynamics) participants discussed our biggest challenges to working together, and what they believe needs to change. The word “need” was offered frequently. Opinions may not have be shared by all present and were not prioritized. Specific budget increases FY 2012-13 was purposely NOT discussed.
Becky, Sandy, Jack, Andy and Dan, Lou and Mark discuss the budget process
Advisory participants felt that Tolland needs more clarity from the top.
People first don’t understand the repercussions if the budget fails. Folks need conversations like this, simple and efficient, to get on board. It was felt that some people want to get involved, but they don’t know how. Start by “changing the dance steps.” The Town Council and Board of Education have a predisposition, with roles that have formed over many years. We need our professionals to act in a different way from the roles they currently assume. As things are, our professionals speak a different language from each other and reach an impasse. They need to talk beyond just numbers, about services. It has become all about the numbers and the Board of Education is seen as a cost center. Yes, the numbers are important, AND get to the content. It was stated, “we need to set aside what HAS been done and look at what NEEDS to be done.”
“We need to set aside what HAS been done and look at what NEEDS to be done.”
Different roles bring a healthy tension, where each challenge the other. However, to be effective, it requires a healthy relationship and current dynamics are not effective. The complete change over of the Town Council brings an opportunity to develop different dynamics, now. We need more outside the box thinking with respect to folks working together. A great example was neighbors helping neighbors. It saved the town a lot of money and had other benefits. It helps us work toward breaking down where we are divided by age group.
Beyond that, it was felt that we are missing the bigger picture. We primarily focus from one crisis to the next. The year-at-a-time approach doesn’t work because a significant share of the budget are locked in costs, from contracts that span years. A longer term approach requires learning from past decisions. For example, High School Geothermal was defeated. However, with today’s hindsight, we missed the opportunity to invest capital and achieve very short payback. Today we pay significantly higher operating costs. We need a way to reconcile dollars to services in a way that people understand in terms of value provided. Otherwise, years of skimping on the operating budget cause larger problems that later need to be addressed. As we look longer term, the numbers become quite large. Focusing on the changes from year to year and between options will keep the discussions more manageable.
With that, it was suggested that the Town Council and Board of Education together offer a simplified message to voters, reiterated in communication from our professionals. We need to come to some common ground on the value to the community of what Tolland schools provide.
