Darien Board of Education member David Dineen listens to public comments regarding challenging instructional materials during the board's meeting in Darien, Conn., on Tuesday December 13, 2022. Much of the concern by parents are second graders being taught the picture book Julian is a Mermaid.
Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut MediaDARIEN — The Board of Education is defending itself and its process as town officials question whether next year’s proposed $116 million budget is too expensive.
The superintendent’s recommended budget grew from last year’s $110.6 million budget and is intended to address security and mental health along with staff shortages.
The board held a special meeting Jan. 17 to hear comments from the Board of Finance and Representative Town Meeting committees on education and finance and budget regarding the Board of Education's proposal. All three groups submitted questions ahead of the meeting.
Chairman David Dineen set the tone for the evening in his opening statement as he pushed back on questions of whether the budget amount was too high, adding “I’ll be honest with you, that’s a dumb question.”
Dineen said overall costs were up from last year because of the updated teacher’s contract and the rising price of utilities. He said asking why the budget was higher only proved “the work wasn’t done behind the scenes to pay attention to what’s going on.”
“It’s not necessarily about the number, it’s about the components of what’s in the budget and what we’re delivering to our students,” Dineen said. “The priority is safety and security, and the priority is mental health as I’ve repeatedly said throughout these meetings.”
He also scolded some committee members for asking questions that he said have been answered in previous meetings, specifically calling out questions on SAT scores, club sports and participation and graduation rates that he said the board goes over on a regular basis.
“It’s not our job during the budget season to reeducate the population that has not been paying attention throughout the course of the year,” Dineen said. “To go back and rehash stuff that’s been talked about, presented, reviewed, debated and the information is out there — it’s not fair to the administration and it’s not fair to the board.”
Despite this, all representatives from the Board of Finance and RTM committees on education and finance and budget voiced their concerns on the high cost in their comments that evening.
Board of Finance vice chair Dan Bumgardner said the board was concerned for the “overall spending growth” in the budget and implications adding new employees would have on future budgets.
“There’s a number of areas, whether it's security or mental health or special ed, where we don’t necessarily have an issue with the number of FTEs dedicated to that,” Bumgardner said. “There is, at least for me and I think some of my partners, a lack of clarity as to what specifically each of those FTEs is doing on a day-to-day basis.”
RTM finance and budget committee vice chair Beth Lane also said she was concerned about so many hirings and wondered whether the increase in spending was warranted given that economists were forecasting a recession.
“The proposed budget increase of 4.94 percent is not fiscally responsible in the view of many on our committee,” she said. “The scope of the increase, while affected by the increase in teacher and substitute pay, is based on other components that may not represent our most pressing priorities.”
In response to the repeated questions about cost, Board of Education member John Sini said this was the superintendent’s proposed budget, not the Board of Education’s, and he and other board members had their own concerns.
“The fact that we aren’t mentioning it or questioning it doesn’t mean that we don’t have concerns over it,” he said. “I’ll speak for myself, but I know many fellow members of this board take our role and responsibility of being fiscally responsible extremely seriously.”