See You In Court! CABE Monthly Column
“See You In Court!” is written by Thomas Mooney and appears in the CABE Journal, a publication of the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education.
After a contentious budget process, the Nutmeg Board of Education finally has its appropriation for the coming fiscal year. Sadly, however, the appropriation recommended by the Nutmeg Board of Finance and approved by the voters was $850,000 less than the budget the Board of Education originally submitted to the Town of Nutmeg in accordance with Conn. Gen. Stat. § 10-222. With the budget finalized, the Nutmeg Board now faced the challenging task of “reconciliation,” i.e., making the additional reductions to its budget for the coming year to conform with the amount appropriated.
Mr. Chairman convened a special meeting of the Board to discuss next steps. He opened the discussion by asking Ms. Superintendent to present her recommendations. “This is terrible,” she began. “But I have given this a lot of thought, and as you have all received, I have outlined my recommendations in the chart I sent you yesterday. Please open your iPads and follow along.”
With that, Ms. Superintendent started to lead the Board members through a series of recommended reductions, including elimination of middle school sports and a number of teaching positions. However, Board member Mal Content interrupted Ms. Superintendent and moved to add an item to the agenda, “Discussion of personnel matters,” which the Board then unanimously added to the agenda.
When the Board convened in executive session, Mal explained that consideration of eliminating teaching positions affects real lives and that it would be disrespectful for the Board to speak publicly about which positions may be eliminated. Veteran Board member Bob Bombast, however, had no use for such niceties. “Let’s get on with it,” he barked. Ms. Superintendent told the Board members that she was comfortable proceeding with her recommendation publicly, and the Board reconvened in open session.
Ms. Superintendent then referred again to the chart she had prepared. But before Ms. Superintendent could resume her description of the reductions she was proposing, Bob Bombast interrupted her. “The Town has failed us again, and I have had enough. I move that we go ahead with the budget that we approved. If our projections are accurate for once and we end up looking at a deficit, we can ask the Town to bail us out. But we have already cut our budget to the bone, and I say, ‘No More!’”
Mr. Chairman expressed doubt that the Board could simply start the year projecting a deficit, but he conceded that taking that approach might be better than making more painful cuts. “Is that a motion?” he asked.
“It is!” Bob responded proudly. Red Cent seconded the motion, and the Board voted unanimously to move ahead with the budget it had originally presented to the Town.
Nancy Newshound watched this spectacle unfold on the livestream of the meeting, and her story about the Board’s decision not to revise its budget for 2026-2027 appeared in the Nutmeg Bugle the next day. Ominously,Nancy ended her story by stating that she has filed a complaint with the Freedom of Information Commission because the Board has violated her rights by not posting Ms. Superintendent’s chart in advance of the meeting.
