Who Was at Fault in Norwalk Education Cutbacks? The Recriminations Continue

Mayor Richard A. Moccia and Jack Chiaramonte, chairman of the Norwalk Board of Education, say the Norwalk Federation of Teachers should have offered to sacrifice more to save the eight or so jobs lost in this year's straitened education budget.

Bruce LeVine Mellion, president of the union, saysthat his teachers bear no responsibility for education spending, that tax increases would have been minor if the Board of Education's preferred (higher) budget had been enacted, and that teachers did help the city save millions in the most recent labor contract.

The debate over which part of the community should have contributed more in the school spending controversy is less important now that the budget has been passed and Board of Education members were able to limit both layoffs and the impact on direct educational services to students—but the smaller debate is just as hot.

"It really does bother me that the union didn't think that this economy applies to them," Education Board Chairman Jack Chiaramonte said Wednesday. "In this economy, everybody suffers."

Mellion responded by making a variety of different points:

"The Norwalk Federation of Teachers, in negotiations for the contract, gave back to the city $7 million [in savings on health insurance and other job benefits]. We then took very tempered raises. So we gave first [before other unions], and we gave the most."

"Jack [Chiaramonte] was part of the board's negotiating committee, and he attended [meetings] when he chose to. He was not there all the time."

"Second, we discussed last year—and they didn't want to take it—a teacher's retirement incentive plan that gave back $132,000. That's real money."

Chiaramonte said the $132,000 retirement incentive plan proposed by Mellion's union was a "paltry" amount compared with the need to cut almost $4.2 million from the board's earlier budget request.

"I dont know a lot of people who think $132,000 is paltry," Mellion said when asked about Chairamonte's comment. "I find it odd Jack doesn't understand that, but that's normal for him."

"Third, and I think most important, I personally went to Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield," Mellion said. His discussions with that organization resulted in the city lowering its health insurance payments by $220,000 to $235,000, he said. "Those are all real dollars. We did it. We stepped up."

"The Norwalk Federation of Teachers [...] is totally cognizant of what's going on in the economy," Mellion said.

"If Jack and some of the other board members had fought a lot more rigorously, aggressively for that budget with the city [Common Council and Board of Estimate and Taxation], maybe we would've had a different result," Mellion continued. "If the city politicos had raised the taxes an additional 1 percent, an additional $2.5 million, [...] this [much of the cuts in services] would've really been avoided."

"Our position is: We negotiated a deal. We don't do givebacks. We don't do consensus. We don't do furloughs. A deal's a deal. If they believed in this budget [the Board of Education's original request for funds to the Board of Estimate and Taxation and the Common Council], they should've fought a whole lot harder for it, along with the superintendent. Their lack of political will to restore necessary funds for the Norwalk Board of Education is not our problem.

"It's not our business to subsidize them for what they're [not] willing to subsidize in tax revenue. They have the ability to pay. They lack the willingness to pay."

Mellion pointed out that the city has an undesignated fund balance of $25 million. Its existence allows the city to have a Triple-A, top of the line bond rating which keeps Norwalk's borrowing expenses down and serves as a "rainy day" fund for emergencies.

"They could've taken $600,000 to $800,000 of that and not affected the bond rating ... and been able to put that towards the Board of Education [budget]," Mellion said.

Told about Mellion's comment, Moccia responded later on Thursday: "The Rainy Day fund is there for a rainy day. We've had to go into it to reaugment our pension fund because of the [unexpected] losses in it. That's what the Rainy Day Fund is for—not to reimburse union members.

"He [Mellion] who does not even live in this town, or even this state, should not be saying to the citizens of Norwalk that they should be raising their taxes. He does his job. I do my job."

The mayor said that he objected to this statement of Mellion's in the May 13 "Focus" newsletter of the Norwalk Federation of Teachers: "Norwalk has the ability to pay but not the willingness, and that responsibility squarely rests with the city and the taxpayers who believe they can claim poverty and leave it to the school employees to subsidize their unwillingness to pay."

Moccia said that there are many Norwalk taxpayers who have seen their own pay cut or frozen or who have even lost their jobs. Many elderly residents already feel squeezed by the city's property taxes and larger numbers are applying for and receiving city tax breaks (shifting the burden further onto other taxpayers). (See attached video.)

"I stand by that statement 1 billion percent," Mellion said, when asked about the mayor's comments. "The school system belongs to the taxpayers of the City of Norwalk. It is their school system. We're the employees. It's their job to pay the ticket. It's not ours.

If program services were cut because the union stuck to its guns to keep its wage and step increases, Mellion said, "that's not our ault. It's the unwillingness of the politicians to raise the taxes."

Education spending in Norwalk was cut by $5.1 million in the budget passed last year, and another $4.1 million or so this year, Mellion said, referring to cuts in the proposed Board of Education budgets in each year.

For another $2.1 million in tax revenues, the median taxpayer in Norwalk would need to pay $60 more per year in taxes, he said. "They're not all destitute and in poverty."

The bottom line, Mellion said, is what services the taxpayers want to get and what they're willing to pay for them—something he and Moccia agree on.

In this budget, few direct services to students were cut, he said. "If education is going to be the issue [in November's local elections], what programs were eliminated?" Moccia said. "I used to tell people [in past political campaigns], 'I'd be lying to you if I ws going to say I was going to cut taxes and raise services.'" Those were races he won, the mayor said.

"Let the public decide in the polling booth what has been perpetrated on the Board of Education," Mellion said. "Let them [the public] decide."