DARE AND RESOURCE OFFICER MOST LIKELY ELIMINATED FROM BUDGET

CLINTON -- The question for school Superintendent Albert Coviello isn't
whether the finance board's reduction of the 2002-03 school budget will
mean the loss of staff in the coming school year.

The question for Coviello and the school board is how many, and from what
positions in the school system.

The Board of Finance, faced with forecasts of declining revenues and
increasing costs, cut $770,000 from proposed town and school budgets for
the coming year, mandating a reduction in town and school services for the
first time in years.

Town officials anticipate a $375,000 decline in combined income from
investments -- a consequence of reduced interest rates -- and in state
grants, even as they are confronted by a $483,000 increase in the cost of
health and liability insurance.

Although the other increases in proposed town and school budgets generally
were confined to contractural pay raises, they combined with declining
revenues and unanticipated insurance costs to create a bottom line
requiring a tax increase of more than two mills.

Believing voters would not accept such an increase in taxes, the finance
board reduced spending for town and school operations and capital plans by
$770,000 to lower the projected tax increase to 1.18 mills.

The $230,000 cut from the school operating budget "is definitely going to
mean (the elimination) of a person or two," Coviello said. "We'll look at
places to cut staff that will have the least impact on instructional
programs ... what positions we can combine or do away with, or handle
through attrition."

With no savings to be found in non-salary or fringe line items, Coviello
said the school board could consider small cuts to the athletic budget for
additional savings.

Because of other finance board cuts, Coviello and the school board also
must consider the future of the school-based police officer's position and
the 14-year-old Drug Awareness and Resistance Education program.

The finance board stipulated that the school resource officer, placed in
the high school in 1999 by selectmen and the school board, would remain
only if the majority of the officer's salary was funded by the school
board, rather than the police department.

Already considering the elimination of positions, Coviello said, "My
personal position is that I'm not interested in cutting teachers or
programs to fund a police officer. That's a police function, whether he's
at the school or down at the corner."

The finance board also cut about $9,000 from the police budget which would
fund overtime costs incurred by police officers in DARE instruction,
effectively eliminating the program with the recommendation that the school
board consider alternative ways of meeting state mandates for drug education.

Coviello and police Chief Joseph Faughnan are considering ways to
restructure the program, which has strong support from the community and
First Selectman James McCusker Jr., as well as Coviello himself.