Lectern Auditorium Town Seal

Board of Education Chairperson Tara Ochman’s State of the Town Remarks

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Good Evening Mr. Moderator, members of the Republican Town Meeting, town officials, and the community of Darien, those here and those watching on Channel 79. The Board of Education is charged with that most important of missions; to educate and guide our children so they become contributing members of our society. __________

Editor’s note: This is Board of Education Chairperson Tara Ochman’s State of the Town speech, delivered (along with speeches from three other town officials) Monday night to the Representative Town Meeting. We think the full speech provides readers with an insight into town issues. This is the text of the speech as sent to Darienite.com on Tuesday.

Jon Zagrodzky Board of Finance 12-16

Board of Finance Chairman Jon Zagrodzky’s 2017 State of the Town Remarks

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Good evening. My name is Jon Zagrodzky, and I’m chairman of the Board of Finance. Once again, I’m glad to be here tonight and have a chance to offer some thoughts, on town finances and maybe a few other things. __________

Editor’s note: This is Board of Finance Chairman Jon Zagrodzky’s State of the Town speech, delivered (along with speeches from three other town officials) Monday night to the Representative Town Meeting. We think the full speech provides readers with an insight into town issues.

Town Hall 2015

Leaders on State of the Town: Control Spending as State, Feds Look to Squeeze $$ from Darien

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You’re a Darien taxpayer and the federal government may reduce your mortgage deduction, severely limit your state and local tax deductions, and the state may force the town to pay a third or more of teacher retirement costs. Also, the taxable value of your home may go up or down with next year’s revaluation. Town officials are assuming you’re not going to want to see anything more than a small increase — if that — in local taxes and spending next year. That was an important theme in State of the Town addresses from First Selectman Jayme Stevenson and Board of Finance Chairman Jon Zagrodzky, who each spoke Monday before the Representative Town Meeting. (In the past year, the town has been taking steps to keep itself attractive to potential home buyers and fiscally fit.

Dennis Maroney RTM Education Committee 05-11-17

UPDATE: How and Why Education Spending Is Up by 2.16% — Explanations From Town Officials

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Editor’s note: Here are three more statements from Monday’s votes approving the town education budget. All are marked “Update” below. They give a better picture on what town officials think of school spending. Several town officials spoke with prepared comments to the Representative Town Meeting about the education budget, with all of them defending it as, overall a good budget. The 2016-2017 education budget, which was approved by the RTM without changes, is up 2.16 percent from the Fiscal Year ’16-’17 budget passed last year, although it will be $2.2 million in the hole if the state eliminates all of its Education Cost Sharing grant to the town.

RTM Budget Meeting 05-10-17

Taxes To Go Up by 2.47% with Passage of Tax Rate, Town Budget by Representative Town Meeting

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The town mill rate will rise to $16.16 from $15.77, a 2.47 percent increase, the Darien Representative Town Meeting decided Tuesday night after it passed a $145,304,061 budget for the 2017-2018 fiscal year, starting July 1. Spending increases in the upcoming budget are relatively small, despite some new hiring in both the town and school district parts of the budget. “The overall mill rate increase, at just 2.47 percent, is the second lowest increase I’ve seen in my nearly nine years on the Board of Finance,” Finance Board Chairman Jon Zadgrodzky told the RTM. Several capital projects were also supported by the RTM, including the most controversial budget item — a $1.7 million expansion of the Darien High School Cafeteria, expected to take place in the summer of 2018. A proposal to lower the amount spent on the cafeteria expansion, cutting $1.4 million from the total cost of $1.7 million, was rejected by the RTM in a 68-to-9 vote to cut off debate on the matter (with one abstention), then in an 18-to-57 vote (with one abstention) to reject it.

Finance Board Chairman Zagrodzky on the Town Budget’s Pressures, Risks, Strengths

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If Hartford cuts Darien’s last remaining big grant or imposes mandates on the town that are unknown so far, Darien has fiscal resources to either avoid tax increases or minimize them, Board of Finance Chairman Jon Zagrodzky told the Representative Meeting on Monday. Zagrodzky spoke Monday before the RTM took various votes on different parts of the town budget and on town taxes. In the end, after various discussions and debates, the RTM passed the same budget that the Board of Finance had approved back in April. Here’s Zagrodzky’s full statement to the RTM, as prepared:

Good evening. I appreciate the opportunity to address you tonight about the budget.

Town Hall

RTM to Vote Monday on Teachers Union Contract — the Biggest Part of the Town’s Next Three Budgets

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Two Representative Town Meeting committees have each voted to recommend that the full RTM, when it meets Monday night, approve the teachers union contract. The proposed three-year Darien teachers union contract will be the single largest expenditure made by the town — not just for the coming fiscal year, but for the two that follow it, as well. Once the RTM vote is taken, that expenditure of tens of millions of dollars a year will be locked in, essentially, unavailable for either the Board of Education or RTM to change for three years. Most of the town’s education spending is on teacher’s salaries, and town education spending is close to 70 percent of the entire town budget. The RTM’s vote will be the final one, putting the contract into effect starting July 1 and ending June 30, 2020. 

Top school administrators and several members of the Board of Education answered questions about the contract on Tuesday at a joint meeting of the RTM’s Education Committee and Finance & Budget Committee.

daylight savings clock

The Board of Education Needs to Set an Example

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On Tuesday night — or, rather, past midnight on Wednesday morning — the Board of Education did the same thing it’s previously done at budget season: Conduct a rushed, exhausting marathon of a meeting that sets a lousy example for students and adults by demonstrating a lack of planning. It’s also a poor way to conduct business that many town residents want to be able to monitor. 

The board members and senior district administrators shouldn’t be patting themselves on the back this morning for sacrificing their night in order to get the budget passed before February break. Sure, they need to give the Board of Finance time to review the budget. But everybody’s got deadlines. This is supposed to be a deliberative process, and midnight isn’t the time to deliberate.

Darien Public Schools

Board of Ed OKs $98M Budget with 4.5% Increase (2.34% from Loss of State Aid)

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The Darien Board of Education approved a 2017-2018 budget of 98,073,175, which represents a 4.5 percent increase over the budget passed last year. The removal of about $2.1 million in state aid accounts for a 2.34 percent increase in the burden on taxpayers, and school district spending would also increase 2.16 percent. Working until just past midnight, the board voted on the budget after a  4 1/2 hour public meeting (with a half-hour executive session before that). The board supported the funding of two special education department chairs instead of the one originally proposed by Superintendent Dan Brenner. One would supervise special education in the high school, the other in Middlesex Middle School.

Ann Dickson Darien High School parents 02-06-17

Budget Statements on High School, Middle School at the Board of Ed Public Hearing: PART 2

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Here are three statements from Thursday’s Darien Board of Education public hearing on the 2017-2018 proposed school district budget, from parent teacher organizations at Darien High School and Middlesex Middle School. Darien High School (First Statement)
These are excerpts from a statement as read by Peter Orphanos (Darienite.com did not receive his full statement from the Council of Darien School Parents):

[…] We wish to support Principal Dunn and her team at Darien High School for their work enhancing and enriching the learning experience within the framework of a responsible and well-planned budget. Program growth in areas such as technology and guidance counselors affirm Darien High School as a flagship high school […]

A cafeteria is more than a place to eat, it is where our students gather with peers, and it creates an important sense of community. Principal Dunn has spoken of having the cafeteria evolve into more of a student center — a central gathering place for academic collaboration and social community. Darien High School students need this.

Sarah Goertel elementary education budget 02-06-17

Elementary School PTO Statements on the Budget at the Board of Ed Public Hearing: PART 3

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These are two of the statements from elementary school parent teacher organizations about the proposed education budget to the Board of Education at Thursday’s public hearing on the budget. First Statement: Curriculum

Good Evening.  My name is Sara Goertel.  I have 3 of my 4 children at Tokeneke school.  I’m going to speak this evening about initiatives important to the parents of elementary school students.

SEPAC parents 02-06-17

Special Education Parents Statements at the Public Hearing on the Schools Budget: PART 4

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The Special Education Parent Advisory Committee addressed the Board of Education with two statements on Thursday, at the board’s pubic hearing on the 2017-2018 education budget:
FIRST STATEMENT
Good evening we are Courtney Darby and Tricia Bresnahan, co-chairs of the Special Education Parent Advisory Committee, SEPAC, and Kelly Dupont, Linda Straubel and Wendy Hopper, SEPAC representatives. We would like to thank Shirley Klein, Scott McCarthy and Dr. Brenner and other school administrators for working collaboratively with our committee to hear the concerns of all Darien parents – and to help all students learn effectively. We would also like to thank the many educators and administrators who work tirelessly and effectively to help our students achieve their potential. We are relaying the concerns and input we have received from many parents in the district. Composite Students
In order to get a true sense of challenges kids face but protect student privacy, we will start with three composite students who share similarities with many students in our district but are not one student in particular.

Peter Orphanos public hearing education 02-06-17

Topics at Education Budget Hearing: DHS Cafeteria, Dept Chairs, Guidance Counselors

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Darien High School’s overcrowded cafeteria, the addition of academic department chairs and getting more guidance counselors were some of the more commonly voiced pleas at the Board of Education public hearing last Thursday on the schools budget. Cafeteria Expansion
The proposed cafeteria expansion got the most comments at the public hearing of any item in the budget. Peter Orphanos, speaking on behalf of the Darien High School Parents Association, told the board that the cafeteria wasn’t just a place to eat, but “where our students gather with peers, and it creates an important sense of community.” He added: “Principal Dunn has spoken of having the cafeteria evolve into more of a student center, a central gathering place for academic collaboration and social community. Darien High School students need this.”

Brenner budget meeting 01-09-16

Superintendent: Hire 6 Middle/High School Dept Chairs for $265,000

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At Darien High School and Middlesex Middle School, 12 teachers coordinate six different academic departments in each school, spending about 20 percent of their time doing it. But a better system would be for the school district to hire six department chairs, each of whom would spend 80 percent of the time running an academic department across both schools, and 20 percent teaching a class, Schools Superintendent Dan Brenner says. He wants to change to that system in the next school year. It would cost about $265,000 more each year. Brenner introduced the proposal to the Board of Education and the public during the marathon, all-day budget meeting of the board on Saturday.