Weathersfield implements plans to improve finances

Staff report

MINERAL RIDGE

The Weathersfield Local School District has implemented some savings plans that have improved the districts’ five-year financial forecast to push the year of an anticipated deficit forward from 2012 to 2013.

Treasurer Laurena Rouan said that from the October 2009 financial forecast to the April forecast presented at the board’s Wednesday meeting, she is predicting additional revenue of $217,848.

That figure includes an expected $200,000 in savings to be achieved by changes made by the district.

Rouan said about $100,000 savings are to be realized in personnel expenses after six teachers took early retirement last month with the plan to replace only two of them.

A school psychologist has also been hired for next year, which will save the district money. The psychologist will be shared with McDonald, which will pay 40 percent of his wages and benefits, instead of the district’s using a Trumbull County psychologist.

Another $100,000 in savings is projected because the district also has made changes in how it plans to purchase services for special education for 2010 to 2011. Instead of purchasing special-needs services through the county, the jobs will be done in-house. The district also will implement a change in hiring teacher aides, which have been hired through Trumbull County. The district will now hire these aides itself.

The projection for a deficit has been changed from the 2012 fiscal year, when a $380,504 balance is expected, to the 2013 fiscal year, when a negative $384,460 balance is projected.

Rouan said real-estate taxes will have to reach projections for the figures to hold true.