WEATHERSFIELD SCHOOLS Board OKs purchase of books, holds off on buying bus, repairs

The board opened its meeting with a moment of silence in memory of Joseph Lane.
By MARY SMITH
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
MINERAL RIDGE -- The Weathersfield Board of Education approved the purchase of $117,369 in new textbooks for the district's three schools.
The district, however, will have to forgo buying another new bus and some building improvements in the coming school year to complete a replacement cycle for books at Seaborn Elementary School.
The book replacements and school district repairs and improvements as well as bus purchases are paid for out of an emergency levy fund that generates $418,000 a year. Textbooks for English, language arts and reading at all three schools will be replaced.
Superintendent Rocco Addducci said at Wednesday's board meeting that books for the three subject areas will be purchased first for the middle school and high school for the 2002-03 school year, and Seaborn's new texts for those subjects will be bought in the 2003-04 school year.
Payment approved
The board also approved payment of $15,302 to National City Bank as the first installment on a loan it took out under House Bill 264, which allows school districts to borrow money for energy projects.
The high school was re-roofed and the 23-year-old heating and cooling system was replaced using a loan to span 15 years. Lewis said the average loan repayment figure will be about $103,000 annually. The project cost a total of $1.120 million, included some work at the middle school and Seaborn, and was started in December 2001.
The board opened its meeting with a moment of silence in honor of Joseph Lane, owner of Lane Funeral homes in the area, who died Saturday. The new sports complex at the high school is named after Lane, who contributed $500,000 to the $1.4 million project.
The board also accepted additional contributions to the sports complex in Lane's memory totaling $380.
In an updated report on the district's five-year financial forecast, Angela Lewis, district treasurer, said a deficit of $153,329 is expected in 2005, but she estimates that figure will jump to $1.07 million by 2006.
She said the district is working to trim those anticipated figures.
She added that she is projecting the deficit under the five-year forecast, which is required of local districts by the state, because revenues are flat for the next three or four years and health insurance for district workers is likely to continue rising.