Controversial budget, open enrollment to be discussed in Deerfield school deliberative session

The Deerfield School Board will discuss a contentious budget and a petition advising against open enrollment in the upcoming deliberative session.

At the start of the year, the town’s municipal budget committee proposed a 15% cut, or about $3.1 million, to the school board’s budget request.

School Board Chair Kendra Cohen filed a lawsuit against the committee, which resulted in the group’s decision for a more modest cut of $785,000, still 3.8% less than the school board suggested.

“That type of scheme by the MBC was deemed illegal in 1970, which is why I filed the lawsuit,” she said.

Cohen said that about $500,000 was cut from teacher salaries and $200,000 from benefits. The article on the warrant was not recommended by the school board, with Cohen in the majority. It was narrowly recommended by the budget committee.

One of several petitions on the warrant regarded open enrollment. The Deerfield School Board was one of two districts in the region to not bring a school choice article to the warrant, citing uncertainties.

“There’s so much up in the air in terms of legislation, and there had been pending litigation about it,” Cohen said. “We wanted to see how that played out before we asked voters to vote on it.”

A petition article on the warrant suggested that open enrollment would increase costs for the district and taxpayers. A rapid push to pass legislation to make school choice mandated statewide could make individual municipal action void.

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