Politics & Government
School District Returns $257K to Town
Unspent money was part of a $350K appropriation from last fiscal year.
The school district returned about $257,000 to the town last week, all of it unspent money from an appropriation to balance last fiscal year's budget.
About $350,000 in extra funds had been granted in the spring amid fears the district would exceed its approved budget of $68.7 million in fiscal year 2010. But the schools fared better than initially feared, prompting school district Director of Finance Richard Huot to explain the return of a large portion of that $350,000 during a Board of Education meeting this week.
"The obvious question from a lay person is why in the world are you giving back a quarter of a million dollars?" Huot said during a meeting Tuesday. "We agreed that if we had money leftover, we would not spend it."
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Darien schools had received the $350,000 from the Board of Finance via the Representative Town Meeting in late April; the RTM appropriated it in May. At that time, Huot had told school officials he predicted a shortfall of about $234,000.
That's because Darien schools received less money from the state that expected, as well as mounting legal fees and a number of budgetary challenges that transformed the special education budget by nearly $500,000 in the month of March alone.
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Yet Huot informed the school board this week that the district is now returning $257,627 to the town.
Darien school administrators said they apprciated the municipal government allocating the money, Huot said. Both parties pride themselves in using money wisely to provide Darien students with a stellar education, he said.
"The teamwork between the schools and the town is exquisite in Darien," Huot told the board.
RTM Education Committee Chairperson Lois Schneider agreed with Huot about the district and municipal government enjoying a collaborative relationship. She noted the school district cannot operate in a deficit.
Schneider said she is confident school administrators and Board of Education members will "continue to manage their money tightly until the end of the year."
