Wilton PTA Hosts Candidate Debate Highlighting Education Issues

Rather than have local candidates wend their way to Wilton’s four individual schools to meet with various school constituents, the district PTAs hosted a group debate forum on education issues Monday night, Oct. 30 at the Clune Center.

Candidates for the Boards of Education, Finance and Selectmen filled the auditorium stage, and while there were only about 25 visitors in attendance, the one-hour forum was also broadcast live online.

Earlier this year this same stage saw some bitter disagreement over the town budget — in particular the $1.4-million cut made to the BOE budget proposal.

While she wasn’t in attendance at the Wilton League of Women Voters‘ debate last week due to a work commitment, Democratic BOF candidate Slava Servello made it clear that frustrations surrounding this year’s school budget cut motivated her to seek election.

“You guys really inspired me to run for a seat on the Board of Finance after the last budget’s frustration over school funding,” she said, commending the PTA for its work.

“I will disagree with my colleague here that we have properly funded our schools in the past,” she said, noting a comment from Republican BOF candidate Prasad Iyer that Wilton schools have been “funded appropriately over many, many decades.”

Democratic BOF candidate David Tatkow indicated likewise, criticizing the current BOF for pinpointing line items to be cut in the BOE budget.

“It seemed like last year … there was a contingent within the Board of Finance who approached the budget process with the goal to reduce the size of the ask and was looking for line items to zero into, which to me is not the appropriate role of the Board of Finance,” he said.

“I, as well as Slava and many other parents in this town, I believe, were rightfully concerned,” he said, noting recent budget increases have been “very minimal.”

“I will not cut individual budget lines and I will rely on the expertise of the Board of Education to decide what services need to be funded to achieve the district goals,” Servello said.

Other BOF candidates included Democrat Tim Birch and Republican Rudy Escalante, both of whom pointed out that the town was going to have to investigate various means of funding what are expected to be significantly increased costs in the coming years due to school building maintenance and other needs.

Democratic BOE candidate Patrick Pearson, who likewise missed last week’s LWV debate because of a work commitment, placed blame for some of the budget problems squarely on the relationship between the BOF and school board.

“Had there been a working relationship between the BOE and the BOF … we could have avoided this,” he said, referring to what is expected to be a $100-million estimate to repair school infrastructure, due out in a report in November.

“We’ve simply deferred routine maintenance on our buildings and we’ve done that because when the Board of Ed has put budgets forward, one of the first set of line items to get scrutinized and ultimately get cut when they’re told that the budget cannot be approved as proposed, is maintenance,” Pearson said.

“We need to have a budget that’s fully funded,” he said.

“Had we been proactive about this in the lower-interest-rate environment, we could have saved ourselves at least half,” he said.

Unaffiliated candidate Heather Priest, a former teacher who is running on the Republican ticket against unaffiliated petition candidate Sara Sclafani for the separate two-year term on the BOE that resulted from a vacancy, said the budget needed to be examined line by line to “really evaluate discretionary versus non-discretionary spending.”

“We’re gonna have to make some very, very difficult decisions as we go through the next few years and that’s going to require us to … understand which programs directly benefit our students and which ones could potentially be removed,” she said.

Other BOE candidates included Republican Lori Bufano, Republican Annie Chochos, incumbent Democratic BOE Chair Ruth DeLuca, and Mark Shaner, an unaffiliated candidate running on the Republican ticket.

Asked about the mental health needs of students as they relate to the town, Republican Toni Boucher, the sole candidate for first selectperson, called it a very important topic.

“The town also has a role to play,” she said, noting that communication could be enhanced through the town website to allow residents to make better use of referral options.

Democratic incumbent Selectman Ross Tartell called mental health a “crisis,” noting it was partially an issue with funding but also a need to bring local nonprofits together to help devise strategies to address the issue.

“We can restart the Commission on Social Services,” he said, noting he hoped Boucher would make that a priority in her administration.

“There’s a great deal that we can do and a need that is very desperate that needs to be addressed,” he said.

While Republican Second Selectman Joshua Cole took part in the debate forum, Democratic candidate Farah Masani was unable to attend due to a death in her family.