MONROE, CT — Sunny Gill, a married mother of two young children, has a vested interest in the future of Monroe’s public schools, which face crumbling infrastructure and overcrowding with enrollment bursting at the seams.
Gill, who has served on the Monroe PTO for three years, is running as a Republican candidate for the Board of Education. Her two sons are ages five and seven.
“They are my motivation of why I wanted to run,” Gill said during a Meet the Candidates event the Monroe Republican Town Committee held at Monroe Social last Wednesday.
If elected, Gill would be the parent with the youngest children among fellow school board members.
“Having kids in the school system, you want the schools to thrive,” she said. “I think I bring a different perspective to the table.”
Currently, Greg Beno, a Republican school board member whose term is not up, has the youngest children enrolled at Monroe’s public schools, including a five-year-old at Fawn Hollow Elementary School and a four-year-old starting there in August.
The Republican Party enjoys a 6-3 supermajority on the Board of Education and is running four candidates to maintain that advantage. Their party’s ticket includes three incumbents whose terms are up: Christine Cascella, who serves as the board’s vice chair, Jeff Fulchino and Dennis Condon.
Cascella, who has served on the board for 12 years, four as vice chair, still has a daughter in the school system. Fulchino, a board member of eight years, has three children in the school system, and Condon, who has served for four years, has adult children who already graduated from town schools.
In this election, Jerry Stevens is the lone Democrat seeking another term, but petitioning candidate Marie Blake has made this a competitive race with six candidates vying for five seats. One candidate will be the odd one out.
The four Republican candidates are running as a team.
“Over the past two years, Republican leadership has demonstrated strong fiscal responsibility, while advancing important town projects and fully supporting the Board of Education budget,” said Cascella.
“The Board of Education has made addressing the need for additional school space a top priority through the Facilities Ad Hoc Committee,” she said. “With continued Republican leadership, we can ensure that Monroe maintains a strong, well-supported school system that meets the needs of our students and families.”
“We’ve got a good team going now,” Condon said. “We’ve kept costs down. We’re very efficient. We’ve had six budget surpluses in a row, despite 50 pages of unfunded mandates from the state.”
Facilities committee recommendations total over $220 million worth of upgrades to Monroe’s school buildings.
“This town can’t afford that,” Condon said. “We’re the stewards of financial responsibility. It’s got to be done by phasing it the right way.”
Though engineers will determine whether Chalk Hill could handle a third floor, Condon, who served on four committees and commissions to assess EMS’s building needs as a former chairman, said his preference is to demolish Chalk Hill and build a new school.
“We’ve put in a process now,” Fulchino said of how to go about addressing the district’s space needs. “Our intention is to see it through efficiently and as quickly as possible. Whatever we do, it will require money from the state,” he added of construction grants.
Both Fulchino and Condon agree on the need for a longterm strategic plan.
“We need a strategic plan that allows us to do this right,” Condon said. “We need to do this. It’s not a matter of if.”
Despite class space issues, all of the candidates praised the efforts of Superintendent Joseph Kobza and his administration, school principals and staff for working well as a team to benefit their students.
A desirable town
“We’ve become very attractive for families in Fairfield County,” said Fulchino, who is a Realtor. “We’re affordable and have extraordinarily strong schools.”
He said families that have moved into town over the last five years cite those two factors as the biggest reasons for coming here.
Monroe’s public schools have over 300 more students than last year, according to Condon.
Fulchino said growing pressure on enrollment could come from housing projects the town has approved that have yet to be built, such as Quarry Ridge, a 99-unit cluster housing community on Turkey Roost Road.
Condon said some may see 55-and-older housing as a better development option for the town moving forward, but that does not take into account the residents who move there, leaving their houses open for new families to move in.
Budgeting
Gill said she used to be in commodities — on the trading, shipping and accounting sides.
“I’m familiar with budgets,” she said, adding her experience as a PTO member keeps her up to date on what is needed and important.
“When negotiating contracts, having a finance background is huge,” Condon said. “We’ve done a very good job of keeping the contracts within reason.”
Condon said First Selectman Terry Rooney authorizing the sharing of a full-time grant writer between the school system and the town could lead to more savings.
Among the factors outside of board members’ control, the salaries and benefits in teachers’ contracts are already baked into budgets and an increase in special education students contributes to rising costs.
“I’m a zero based budgeting guy,” Condon said. “You can’t do that for the schools.”
Fulchino pointed out how the Board of Education must approve its budget, before the state approves its biannual spending plan, so board members make decisions during the process without knowing exactly how much state aid the district will receive.
Then there are unfunded state mandates, sometimes requiring Monroe’s schools to spend time and money on programs it may not deem necessary. One recent mandate was a new reading program.
“We’re happy with our reading program and we thought it was forced on us unnecessarily,” Fulchino said.
“We cannot control Hartford,” Condon said. “The town blames us for everything, but we don’t control everything.”
Condon said board members have good discussions on what’s best for the town, the students, teachers and administrators.
“We’ve been good stewards of the budget,” Fulchino said.
“We’re not overspending and wasting taxpayers’ money,” Condon agreed.
Photos from Republicans’ Meet the Candidates Night
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