After the proposed $129.4 million budget was rejected at referendum on April 21st, the Guilford Board of Finance held a public meeting on Monday April 27th at the Community Center to discuss possible reductions in the proposed budget before sending it out to referendum again on Tuesday May 19th.
At this meeting nine residents spoke in favor of reducing the budget while zero residents spoke in favor of keeping the budget the same or increasing the budget. More than one resident suggested that any budget increase must be limited to no more than the core rate of inflation which is 2.8%. This would necessitate a reduction of $3.4 million from the original proposed budget of $129.4 million.
In the end, the Board of Finance voted 7 to 0 to reduce the budget by $750,000 ($525,000 from the Education Department Budget and $225,000 from the Town Budget) which is only a 0.0058 reduction from the original $129,413,203 combined budget. This revised combined budget of $128,663,203 increases our current budget by $6.1 million, or 5%. It is still too high and must be defeated for the following reasons:
Be aware that property revaluation happens again this Fall and all of us could be hit with yet another additional property tax increase on top of the increase required by this $6.11 million budget increase.
Annual 5% Budget increases will result in Budgets doubling every 14.4 years.
The $525,000 reduction in the Education Budget was achieved without pain. A new proposed position was cancelled, a retiring instructional coach will not be replaced, and other redundant and unnecessary budgeted expenses were eliminated.
Knowing that the biggest component of the budget increase is a whopping $2.5 million, or 25%, increase in the Guilford Public School District’s medical insurance, no one (including our school leadership, our BOE, our BOF, nor our BOS) solicited alternate medical provider bids nor investigated if it would be less expensive to purchase insurance coverage rather than self-insure as we have always done.
Through FOI requests and email conversations, it was discerned that the annual $ value of medical insurance coverage for Guilford Public School employees (single, 2-person, or family plan less their employee contributions for the 2025-2026 school year) average 21.5% higher than the annual $ value of medical insurance coverage for Madison school employees (single, 2-person, or family plan less their employee contributions for the 2025-2026 school year), even after taking into consideration that Guilford’s medical insurance costs are 4.5% higher than Madison’s.
The latest data from the National Center for Education statistics show that Guilford has a student to teacher ratio of 11.29 to 1 vs the national average of 15.2 to 1. This is 25% less than the national average. Hundreds of studies have shown significantly diminishing returns in student performance once this ratio falls below 15.2 to 1. If we increase this ratio to 15.2 to 1 in Guilford Public Schools, we could eliminate up to 70 full-time employees resulting in savings of $8.4 million per year. For this small increase of 3-4 students per class, we could dramatically reduce the burden for Guilford taxpayers.
Chromebooks have proved detrimental to student education. According to Horvath, “instead of students learning twice as much in half the time, they are learning half as much in twice the time.” If we eliminate Chromebooks in Guilford Public Schools, it will not only result in improved student performance, but also savings of $1.5 million per year in licensing fees, hardware costs, and technical services.
According to his contract, the Guilford Superintendent of Schools makes $341,808 per year.
We have five School Administrators at our Guilford High School, including three Assistant Principals, who make an average salary of $192,240 each.
Four Central Office “certified” employees who make an average salary of $234,500.
Union negotiated teacher salaries/benefits now comprise over 78% of the Guilford Education budget, which comprises two thirds of Guilford’s total budget. In Guilford, the average teacher’s salary (not including benefits) is $93,680.
Guilford Public Schools employ 12 non-classroom instructional coaches (work only with teachers) who make an average of $115,000 each per year. Eliminating these positions would save $1.38 million.
Our Guilford school leadership continues to promote their “Portrait of a Graduate”, Six competencies which have nothing to do with requiring students to be proficient in English, math, science, civics, ethics, etc. when they graduate. According to NICHE, 24% of GPS students are not proficient in English and 34% are not proficient in math. This means that over 1000 Guilford students are not proficient in English, or math, or both. Further, only 46% of Guilford High School graduates are considered college ready.
For all the above reasons, please vote no on May 19 th at the budget referendum, and please share this information with all your neighbors, friends and family. This proposed $6.11 Million Budget increase is unnecessarily too high and ultimately unsustainable.
The Connecticut Centinal is the state’s premier investigative newspaper. Long suffering from an absence of patriotic media, Connecticut is in dire need of an organization which will confront, and highlight, corruption in the jurisdiction. Connecticut is an historic state with a long and honorable reputation of defending freedom. The Connecticut Centinal will follow in CDM’s tradition of providing trustworthy news as we rebuild the American republic from the cradle of liberty.
The dirty little secret about Guilford, and cities and towns across CT, is that we not only have the 5th highest teacher salaries in the United States, but also among the lowest student-teacher ratios and class sizes (not the same thing). This combination is what makes our property taxes the 3rd highest in the country. The problem,as identified by hundreds of studies by education economists, is that these low ratios produce little or no educational benefit below 15.2: 1 vs. Guilord's 10.93: 1
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The dirty little secret about Guilford, and cities and towns across CT, is that we not only have the 5th highest teacher salaries in the United States, but also among the lowest student-teacher ratios and class sizes (not the same thing). This combination is what makes our property taxes the 3rd highest in the country. The problem,as identified by hundreds of studies by education economists, is that these low ratios produce little or no educational benefit below 15.2: 1 vs. Guilord's 10.93: 1