At the midway point of today’s referendum, 998 of Newtown’s 19,148 registered voters had visited Newtown Middle School to cast their four-question ballot.
As the Fairfield Hills campus is a former brownfield, NewSylum Brewing was chosen as the location of an April 5 informational session on brownfields to help showcase how such properties can be rehabilitated into useful economic developments.
Newtown Police Department and other law enforcement agencies nationwide will be partnering with the Drug Enforcement Administration this month for the 26th Drug Take Back Day.
Yes, she did say that. Why would any bureaucrat publicly admit they made a mistake or recommended violating policy? Yet others, including board members, acknowledged naming the vendor for the routing services as All Star was "a mistake" and likely poisoned the well to other bidders (as was explicitly specifying the fuel type of the rolling stock.) While the members knew they did not get a competitive response to the RFP, they awarded the contract anyway... to the same vendor who got a no-bid contract in 2017. That means Newtown's ~$4.5M annual bus contract has not been put out to bid in 10 years, something to consider when asking why our PPE is so high.
They clearly didn't get the message ! CUT THE BUDGET by 20% , not raise it ! Newtown spends $2,500,000.00 every week now ! It will be $2.6m if you approve it ! Who are these people not paying attention to the cost of living? Throwing money at the school administration will not make your kids any smarter ! We are at $22K per kid per year, that is insane ! CUT THE BUDGET ! Go show up and VOTE, because 1200 people who voted yes will show up again, and it's the 1200 people who decide your cost of living for years to come. 51% voters turnout should be mandated to approve the budget, not pathetic 15% of voters. Stop these nonsensical referendums and send everyone a card in the mail so we have a true outcome what people actually want.
All due respect, the headline to this article is misleading. The budget presented was a proposed budget that did not pass public referendum. There are no cuts to anything, rather a reduction in the Board of Education original asking dollars. As matter of fact, the current recommendation from the LC is an increase of 2.3M more than the previous budget from 2023/24.
Some background on the Bus comment Mr Knapp made on not following policy. From ther Bee may 2023.
Following a Request for Proposal (RFP), the school board learned at its March 15 meeting that only one bid came back for the school district’s transportation contract. The current contract with All-Star Transportation, which oversees the majority of bus routes for the district, is set to end at the end of this school year.
At the May 3 meeting, district Director of Business & Finance Tanja Vadas said — reacting to Public Participation speaker Ryan Knapp who, among other things concerning the transportation contract, questioned the school district’s RFP process — she stands by the district’s RFP process “but other companies just didn’t bid.”