Joint boards approve BOE bailout
NAUGATUCK — At a special meeting of the joint boards of Mayor and Burgesses and Finance on Tuesday, a wide, 16-3 majority approved an...
BOE to ask borough for $1m bailout
NAUGATUCK — Despite several members’ concerns about its autonomy, the Board of Education voted Thursday night to request almost $1 million from the borough government to close what remains of a $1.55 million budget deficit.
As conditions of the bailout, the board agreed to retain borough Controller Wayne McAllister as its business manager through next fiscal year and to switch its insurance broker from USI Insurance Services to CDC Kane Partners.
It also approved concession packages presented by labor unions, which total $592,126. The total sum the school board will request from the borough will not exceed $955,906.
Naugatuck teachers approve concessions
NAUGATUCK — Hours before the Board of Education was scheduled to meet Thursday, the Naugatuck Teachers’ League approved a concession packaged, worth an estimated...
Thursday’s BOE meeting relocated
NAUGATUCK — Thursday’s Board of Education meeting, at which the body is expected to vote on a solution to its $1.55 million budget shortfall,...
R16 BOE applauds student journalism
BEACON FALLS — “In my 37 years of teaching, I have never seen the level of quality in a student newspaper that I have...
Online grade posting a success at WRHS
BEACON FALLS — Region 16 has taken grade posting to the next level with its account on Edline.com. Schools have used this program to...
Study recommends grade realignment
NAUGATUCK — Closing a school is not among the recommendations of an architectural firm that completed recently a study of the borough’s 11 public school buildings, but grade realignment and construction planning are on the list of suggestions.
Greg Smalley of Hartford-based JCJ Architecture, which the school district paid $36,000 to perform the study, summarized the findings at last Thursday’s Board of Education meeting. His report was overshadowed by discussion of the system’s $1.55 million budget shortfall.
The Board of Education commissioned the study in July to help it determine how to use most efficiently its facilities over the next decade. Given its current financial state and the fact that district enrollment has declined by 22 percent since 1995, the board indicated previously it would consider shutting down a school building to save money.
BOE seeks union concessions, bailout money
NAUGATUCK — News that the school system’s projected 2009-10 budget shortfall has shrunk to $1.55 million, down from $2.33 million on Nov. 11, was not enough to sooth tensions within and surrounding the Board of Education during a meeting last Thursday at Naugatuck High School.
The board took no action but plans to meet this week with borough officials and employee unions in hopes of balancing its books at a special meeting Thursday at 8 p.m. at Tuttle House. Superintendent of Schools Dr. John Tindall-Gibson said last month he expected the board would reconcile the budget gap by Wednesday.
A Board of Education negotiating subcommittee has met with Naugatuck Teachers’ League representatives three times since the week of Christmas, on Dec. 21, 27 and Jan. 7, but both sides have been quiet about their progress. Board Chairwoman Kathleen Donovan said only that they are working on a concession package worth about $600,000. During public comment at the end of last Thursday’s meeting, NTL President George Macary stressed the urgent need to reach a compromise but provided no details about ongoing labor talks, citing an agreement to keep such information private.
City Hill students explore culture through art
If music, as the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once famously wrote, is the “universal language of mankind,” visual art is probably not far behind.
At...
