Scholarship

From A5

Current high school seniors must be ranked in the top third of their graduating class or have a 2.5 GPA or higher. Current college students must be maintaining a 2.5 GPA or higher.

Throughout its history, the foundation has provided over $14 million to 2,600 students through its scholarship program.

The American Savings Foundation is a permanent charitable endowment that also awards grants to area nonprofit organizations.

me that we were not because I have many questions I want to ask about the non-lapsing fund.”

The major concern for Democrats is that using a considerable amount from the non-lapsing fund, which is one-time-use money provided by grants and the federal government, to fund the district operations puts the district on a “fiscal cliff.” With a sharp reduction in grant money over the following years, they feel relying on that money for basic operational expenses will put the schools in an untenable position for the following budget year.

“They’re not recurring revenues. So how do we make up that massive hole next year? They’re going to have to fund, even if they want level services next year, we got to get all that money back. I don’t know how it’s gonna happen. That is fiscally irresponsible to do what happened last night,” Oshana said last Friday.

The funds were allocated for smaller district projects such as installing a security vestibule at Southington High School, repairs to worndown stairways with concrete exposed, poorly secured doors, weathered tilework, and replacements for safety radios and other technology.

While other projects, such as the roof improvements, remain unchanged, Democratic members of the board believe cutting back on those smaller, but still important projects poses a safety risk to students and staff at the schools.

Democratic members say they are actively being shut out of what is becoming a politically motivated school board, particularly since such significant changes were made outside of a public workshop session.

“It was assumed I guess that they would walk in and propose a cut to the budget and that we would all agree to it, but without having any information. That’s why I made the motion at the end to table it so we could talk it through and understand exactly what’s going on and why they presented what they presented,” Oshana said. “It’s been politicized. We’re the Board of Education, we’re not a political board. We’ve been politicized at this point. It’s really, really disappointing. Because I think the decisions they made were without all the facts that they needed to know. You’re talking about cutting safety and security items from our budget and not recognizing that? That’s very surprising and disappointing to me.”

Carmody echoed those sentiments. A prior chair of the Board of Education as a Republican, she said she was ostracized from trying to have conversations with members across the aisle, saying that over the years the board has become increasingly politicized.

“The Republicans have made the Board of Education a political party. And that’s not what our job is,” Carmody said. “You know, we Democrats were not part of any of the decision-making and what they came up with. And that’s not the way it should be.”

‘Fiscal reality’

Board Chair Colleen Clark took responsibility at the meeting for the lack of communication with the Democratic members, saying that it wasn’t her intention to keep them in the dark ahead of the meeting, having been out of town after the Jan. 23 caucus for personal reasons.

She contended that the decision made at the caucus was for the good of the district and to keep operations level. Despite the 6% increase, the district has seen no new additions to staff or significant improvement projects, and with the decrease in nonlapsing funds the projects the district was considering have now been scaled back. The sharp increase has been caused due to inflation, as well as steep hikes to power and insurance expenditures.

Under those circumstances, she said it would be irresponsible not to utilize those funds to aid the district and to put projects on hold that weren’t vital to operations, in spite of raised safety concerns.

“The fiscal reality is that we had money in a non-lapsing account, that we can’t just sit on and wait and see what our budget is. We have to be proactive with that money. And if there are projects, that