See You In Court – February 2026

It is only February, but things are not looking good for 2025-2026 budget of the Nutmeg Board of Education.  The costs of fixing damage caused by a broken pipe at Median Middle School and providing needed services to two newly-enrolled students with significant special needs are putting a significant strain on the Board’s budget.  Veteran Board member Bob Bombast, Chair of the Board’s Finance Committee, expressed his concern in an email to Ms. Superintendent and his fellow Board members.  “We need to tighten our belts,” he urged, and he proposed that the Board avoid all unnecessary expenses for the remainder of the year, including cancellation of a contract for a costly new curriculum that was to be purchased this spring and implemented next year.

Board member Mal Content was incensed when he read Bob’s suggestion.  Student achievement has been lagging in Nutmeg, and as the Chair of the Teaching and Learning Committee, Mal has fought hard to have the Board include purchase of the new curriculum in its budget for this year.  He promptly emailed the other members of the Committee to urge them to hold firm against Bob’s suggestion.  The other committee members promptly confirmed with Mal by return email that they would do whatever they could to resist Bob’s efforts to cancel the contract for the new curriculum.

At the next Board meeting, Bob made his move, and Mal and his committee members were ready.  As expected, during Board member comments Bob moved to cancel the contract for the new curriculum, and Penny Pincher seconded the motion.  However, Mal promptly raised a point of order, asserting that Bob’s motion is improper under Robert’s Rules because Bob had voted against purchasing the curriculum when it was first approved and only a member who had voted with the majority can move to reconsider prior action.

After pausing to reflect, Mr. Chairman ruled that Bob’s motion was indeed out of order for the reason cited by Mal.  Bob objected, but Mr. Chairman simply responded that the Board has a full agenda to address and that the Boad must move on.

Move on it did.  Ms. Superintendent presented her budget forecast for the rest of the year, and it was not a pretty picture.  She noted the unanticipated expenses Bob had mentioned as well as a projected shortfall in the substitute account, and she told the Board that she had frozen all expenditures for classroom supplies and conferences.  She was doing what she could, she explained, but she concluded her report by telling the Board members not to be surprised if the district ends up with in a deficit for the year.

In response, Bob spoke again.  “We need to do something now!  I, for one, do not want to be held personally liable for deficit spending.  If we overspend, Seymour Dollars, Chair of the Board of Finance, will not hesitate to send each of us a bill with his demand that we each pay our share of the deficit.”

“There he goes again,” Mal responded.  “Bob is up to his usual histrionics, and we should just stay the course.  If Ms. Superintendent’s prudent measures do not solve the problem, the Town can make a supplemental appropriation to bail us out.”

Should the Nutmeg Board of Education just wait to see how things turn out before taking action?

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No.  It is incumbent upon the Board members to act now, given the projected deficit and its ongoing responsibility to monitor the Board budget.  

Conn. Gen. Stat. § 10-222 is the statute that governs the appropriation process for towns and boards of education.  In the early 1980s, several boards of education projected deficits and voted to end the school year early to avoid overspending.  As expected, the State Department of Education brought them and their town leaders to court to enjoin that illegal action.  In response to these events, in 1982 the General Assembly amended Section 10-222 to address projected deficits.  Now, when a deficit is anticipated, the board chair must reach out to the board of finance (or other appropriating body) to request a supplemental appropriation, and no additional funds may be expended except as are provided through a supplemental appropriation.  When the deficit was projected in Nutmeg, Mr. Chairman should have followed this procedure and reached out to the Board of Finance to request additional funds.

From a board of education perspective, this fix was imperfect because it leaves to the municipality the unilateral decision whether to appropriate additional funds.  Rather than providing a mechanism for assuring that an adequate supplemental appropriation will be made, however, the General Assembly took a different approach in amending the law in1998.  

That year, it amended Section 10-222 further to provide that boards of education may adopt policies permitting other persons to “make limited transfers under emergency circumstances if the urgent need for the transfer prevents the board from meeting in a timely fashion to consider such transfer.”  Section 10-222 has long provided that over the course of the year boards of education may make transfers between line items (which per Section 10-222 can be defined as “broad budgetary categories including, but not limited to, salaries, fringe benefits, utilities, supplies and grounds maintenance”).  However, by adding reference to an “urgent need” to make budget transfers, the General Assembly underscored the expectation that boards of education will monitor their budgets and make transfers to avoid deficits in line items on an ongoing basis.  Moreover, boards of education have been required since 2020 to “post the board’s current and projected expenditures and revenues” on a quarterly basis and to provide a copy of that information to the municipality.  Conn. Gen. Stat. § 10-248c.

Three other issues here warrant brief mention.  We read that Mal coordinated opposition to Bob’s motion through email with his committee.  That communication violated the FOIA in the same way that “reply all” messages among a quorum of a board can constitute an illegal “meeting” because committees are public agencies that are subject to the same rules.

In addition, Mal’s invocation of Robert’s Rules to block Bob’s motion was improper.  While a motion to reconsider must be raised by a member who voted with the majority, such a motion can only be made in the same meeting.  By contrast, Bob’s motion to cancel the contract was essentially a motion to amend action previously taken, and such a motion may be made by any member of the body provided that certain notice requirements are met.

Finally, Bob raised the specter of personal liability if the Board over-expends its budget.  In this regard, we must remember that board members are indemnified against personal liability for claims made against them for actions they take in their official capacity.  To be sure, that protection is subject to the condition that the board member’s actions are not “wanton, reckless or malicious,” and board members must act responsibly in such matters.  However, there is no precedent for imposing liability on board members in such situations, and board members acting in good faith should not worry about personal liability.