Naugatuck teachers approve concessions

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NTL Vice President Charley Marenghi (left) and borough teachers approved a $521,000 concession package early Thursday evening. Mayor Bob Mezzo and the Board of Education were scheduled to meet at 8 p.m. Thursday to vote on a solution to the school system's $1.55 million budget shortfall.
NTL Vice President Charley Marenghi (left) and borough teachers approved a $521,000 concession package early Thursday evening. Mayor Bob Mezzo and the Board of Education were scheduled to meet at 8 p.m. Thursday to vote on a solution to the school system's $1.55 million budget shortfall.

NAUGATUCK — Hours before the Board of Education was scheduled to meet Thursday, the Naugatuck Teachers’ League approved a concession packaged, worth an estimated $521,000, that it hopes will avert job cuts during the current school year.

“It is our hope that no layoffs will be required,” NTL Vice President Charley Marenghi wrote in an e-mail to Citizen’s News. “The teachers of Naugatuck have once again shown their commitment to the children of this town and are prepared to make the required fiscal sacrifice in order to preserve a high quality of education for Naugatuck’s children.”

The borough school district faces a $1.55 million budget deficit this year and was counting on union concessions to take a chunk out of that figure. The Board of Education planned to meet Thursday at 8 p.m. at Central Avenue School to vote on a solution that likely will include a roughly $1 million request of money from the borough government.

Marenghi had said previously that the teachers would not endorse a concession package that unless Superintendent of Schools Dr. John Tindall-Gibson resigned.