After a contentious budget process, the Nutmeg Board of Education finally has its appropriation for the coming fiscal year.  Sadly, however, the appropriation recommended by the Nutmeg Board of Finance and approved by the voters was $850,000 less than the budget the Board of Education originally submitted to the Town of Nutmeg in accordance with Conn. Gen. Stat. § 10-222.  With the budget finalized, the Nutmeg Board now faced the challenging task of “reconciliation,” i.e., making the additional reductions to its budget for the coming year to conform with the amount appropriated.

Mr. Chairman convened a special meeting of the Board to discuss next steps.  He opened the discussion by asking Ms. Superintendent to present her recommendations.  “This is terrible,” she began.  “But I have given this a lot of thought, and as you have all received, I have outlined my recommendations in the chart I sent you yesterday.  Please open your iPads and follow along.”

With that, Ms. Superintendent started to lead the Board members through a series of recommended reductions, including elimination of middle school sports and a number of teaching positions.  However, Board member Mal Content interrupted Ms. Superintendent and moved to add an item to the agenda, “Discussion of personnel matters,” which the Board then unanimously added to the agenda.

When the Board convened in executive session, Mal explained that consideration of eliminating teaching positions affects real lives and that it would be disrespectful for the Board to speak publicly about which positions may be eliminated.  Veteran Board member Bob Bombast, however, had no use for such niceties.  “Let’s get on with it,” he barked.  Ms. Superintendent told the Board members that she was comfortable proceeding with her recommendation publicly, and the Board reconvened in open session.

Ms. Superintendent then referred again to the chart she had prepared.  But before Ms. Superintendent could resume her description of the reductions she was proposing, Bob Bombast interrupted her.  “The Town has failed us again, and I have had enough.  I move that we go ahead with the budget that we approved.  If our projections are accurate for once and we end up looking at a deficit, we can ask the Town to bail us out.  But we have already cut our budget to the bone, and I say, ‘No More!’”

Mr. Chairman expressed doubt that the Board could simply start the year projecting a deficit, but he conceded that taking that approach might be better than making more painful cuts.  “Is that a motion?” he asked.

“It is!” Bob responded proudly.  Red Cent seconded the motion, and the Board voted unanimously to move ahead with the budget it had originally presented to the Town.

Nancy Newshound watched this spectacle unfold on the livestream of the meeting, and her story about the Board’s decision not to revise its budget for 2026-2027 appeared in the Nutmeg Bugle the next day.  Ominously,Nancy ended her story by stating that she has filed a complaint with the Freedom of Information Commission because the Board has violated her rights by not posting Ms. Superintendent’s chart in advance of the meeting.

What could Nancy be claiming?

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Nancy Newshound did have a valid Freedom of Information Act complaint, but not for the reason she stated.  The FOIA violation occurred when the Nutmeg Board added “personnel matters” as an item on the agenda.  Boards of education can add items to an agenda by a two-third’s vote, but only at regular meetings.  At a special meeting, boards are stuck with the agenda as posted absent an emergency, which is a very high bar to meet.  Moreover, the FOIA requires that an agenda item “fairly apprise the public of the business to be transacted,” and the Freedom of Information Commission has repeatedly held that an agenda item that simply states “personnel matters” violates his requirement because greater specificity is required.

Nancy raised a legitimate concern about the Board’s not posting Ms. Superintendent’s chart on its website, but that concern does not relate to the Freedom of Information Act.  Public Act 23-160 amended Connecticut General Statutes, Section 10-220 (“Duties of boards of education”) by adding new subsection (g), which reads:

(g) Each local or regional board of education conducting a regular or special meeting of such board shall make available for public inspection the agenda for the meeting or any associated documents that may be reviewed by members of the board at such meeting and post such agenda and documents on the Internet web site of such board.

This new requirement imposes a vague and troublesome obligation on boards of education that may surprise some board members.  Posting the agenda of regular and special board of education meetings is, of course, not problematic (and Conn. Gen. Stat. § 1-225(a) already requires that boards of education post the agenda of special meetings on the district’s website).  However, it can be a challenge to know what documents board members “may” review at the meeting and to post such documents on the website.  Moreover, the law does not specify when such documents must be posted.

The purpose of this new statutory requirement seems clear – to permit members of the public watching a board meeting at home better to follow the discussion.  However, as with other legislation that imposes challenging obligations, all a school board can do is its best.  Here, however, presumably Ms. Superintendent was planning to discuss her chart showing reductions with the Board, and the chart should have been posted on the district website.

As tempting as Bob’s approach may be, boards of education cannot commence the year with a deficit budget.  Conn. Gen. Stat. § 10-222 governs the budget process for local boards of education, and it makes clear that boards of education have an ongoing responsibility to monitor the budget and assure that it remains in balance.  The statute states unequivocally that “. . . no supplemental expenditures shall be made in excess of those granted through the appropriating authority.”  Moreover, an elaboration by the General Assembly in 1998 on the long-established right of boards of education to transfer funds from one line item to another makes the obligation of boards of education to avoid deficits clear.  As amended by Public Act 98-141, the law now provides that boards of education may delegate authority to “designated personnel to make limited transfers under emergency circumstances if the urgent need for the transfer prevents the board from meeting in a timely fashion to consider such transfer.”  It is therefore reasonable to infer that making transfers to keep the budget in balance is a legal requirement; otherwise, there would never be an “urgent need” to make transfers.

Finally, in amending Section 10-222 the General Assembly also provided the following helpful guidance: board of education budgets may be composed of “broad budgetary categories including, but not limited to, salaries, fringe benefits, utilities, supplies and grounds maintenance are divided into one or more line items.”  By defining “line items” broadly, boards of education may avoid the need to make frequent transfers, either by board action or through a designee (which would require additional board action afterwards).