Monthly Archives: April 2016

What Were They Thinking? (A.B.C and Region 1 Board) 1

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As we stated three days ago, and if WE AT REGION ONE REPORT KNEW THIS, the A.B.C. and Region One Board should have know this…

Both boards (All Boards Chairmen and Region One) gave an ADDITIONAL retirement package to the superintendent, with a multi-million dollar renovation project for H.V.R.H.S on the horizon, and with massive state cuts on the horizon. Well, here are the cuts in ECS funding for each town in Region  One(and Norfolk)…once again NO RESPECT has been shown to the taxpayers that fund education in Region One….it is time to once again, defeat this current Region One Budget proposal, cut administrative costs, cut our bloated administrative budget, and spend the money on actually EDUCATING our students, not enriching our administrators. Read below and weep taxpayers in the following towns….

Just released in State Of Connecticut proposed budget:

Comparison of 2016-17 ECS Grants (Governor’s state budget)

Town                                   Change in ECS funding (loss of funds in thousands of dollars)

Canaan (Falls Village)                   -7,800
Cornwall                                          -85,129
Kent                                                -167,052
Norfolk                                          – 381,255
North Canaan                                -80,600
Salisbury                                        -148,652
Sharon                                            -139,261

A CALL TO ARMS…. Reply

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North Canaan Residents read this with great interest…your local school budget is about to take a HUGE hit UPWARDS….and the rest of you Region One taxpayers will be effected by this as well.
Please read this report, and if you agree,  share it with all your friends. Action needs to be taken to correct this horrible decision by the All Boards Chairmen and The Region One Board Of Education.
In the video attached to this post you will watch the Region One Board Of Education grant additional retirement package to outgoing superintendent Patricia Chamberlain! With full endorsement from the All Boards Chairmen!
Region One taxpayers will have provided over $110,000 for a 403b retirement plan for the superintendent by the time she retires. Is the Regional School District No. One Board of Education so dense that it didn’t know that was a part of her employment package and that they had already provided plenty of money to her in the form of a retirement benefit by the time she retires in June of 2017?
Further she was also given two years of health insurance so she pays very little for that benefit and those two years will take her to Medicare eligibility. No other superintendent in the history of our regional school district has been given a severance and health insurance in retirement.
Teachers don’t get a handsome retirement annuity such as the superintendent. They do get a severance when they leave or retire, but only if they have served in the district in which they teach for 20 years. The superintendent’s district is the Regional School District No. One District and she has not worked for this district for 20 years.
In addition, Connecticut’s Education Committee is slashing the ECS for every school district in the State of Connecticut. ECS is Education Cost Sharing. Simply speaking, that means that every school in Connecticut and that means every school in Region One will be getting a cut of thousands of dollars to decrease the deficit. The question to ask your Region One Representative, and Region One All Board Chairmen…how can Region One afford an ADDITIONAL “retirement” package when coming down the pike is a cut of thousands of dollars to each school in their ECS? (North Canaan this will effect you most). In our calculations the less money for schools equals the mill rates for each town must increase to make up the loss. Did our Region One Board or A.B.C. even consider this? Please call your member and ask them, then demand action to take emergency action to cancel the first ever in Region One additional retirement package offered the Superintendent. Their email and telephone numbers are listed below.
Canaan (Falls Village)
Ms. Andrea Downs, Chair
Falls Village, CT
Phone: (860) 824-1070
Email: adowns@region1schools.org
Cornwall
Mr. John Sanders
West Cornwall, CT
Phone: (860) 672-0038
Email: jsanders@region1schools.org
Kent
Mr. Jonathan Moore, Secretary
Kent, CT
Phone: (860) 927-4580
Email: jmoore@region1schools.org
North Canaan
Mr. Edwin Gow, Treasurer
Canaan, CT
Phone: (860) 824-0195
Email: ngow@region1schools.org
Salisbury
Ms. Jennifer Weigel, Vice Chair
Lakeville, CT
Phone: (860) 435-9939
Email: jweigel@region1schools.org
Sharon
Mr. Bob Whelan
Sharon, CT
Phone: (860) 364-0452
Email: rwhelan@region1schools.org

Region One Board Of Education Budget Hearing April 6, 2016 5

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Watch this video please…and then call your Region One Representative to complain!

A retirement package for our superintendent? Really? Excuse me, but have we not paid her enough already? Does anyone know what retirement package Muff Received? What Val received? What about Mr. O’Brien?  Teachers get retirement but are paid a pittance to what Patricia was paid. This has never happened before in Region One, and with the declining enrollment, and increasing taxes, now is NOT the time to start. Especially with a superintendent that had to settle a law suit against her thousands of dollars, a superintendent who had to have her hand picked assistant  bought out of a contract that cost the district thousands of dollars, in fact hundreds of thousands of dollars. The superintendent who lost in court the residency case in Kent costing us thousands of dollars. Enough is enough. Petition the BOE to rescind this package or face the prospect of another budget defeat.