In my June 29 letter to the editor, “Is This What We Signed Up for?,” I stated that the 2023-’24 budget was “unnecessarily exorbitant.” Subsequently, I have been asked to explain this statement. Please consider the following:

Included in this budget was a 2.8% cost of living increase (COLA) for all Guilford town municipal union pensioned employees. This increase was originally requested by the police union but rejected by the Guilford Pension Committee because COLA increases were not part of their contract, and if they were given an increase, the Town would end up giving the same increase to all other Town unions. Regrettably, this is exactly what happened. We all would like a COLA increase for our private pension or 401K retirement funds, but this unnecessary, arbitrary use of our taxpayer funds to enrich government unions sets a precedent that will prove unsustainable if continued in the future.

The projected total student enrollment for Guilford Public Schools (GPS) for the 2023-’24 school year is 3,065, which represents almost a 10% decline from the 2015-’16 school year when student enrollment was 3,393. The student-to-teacher ratio in GPS, according to the National Center for Education Statistics for the 2021-’22 school year, was 11.88-to-1. According to the Guilford Board of Education policy manual section 6011 concerning class size, the recommended class size ranges from 15 to 20 students in kindergarten and increases to 19-28 students for grades 9 to 12. Guilford high school has five full-time administrators, including three assistant principals. The superintendent’s office has four full-time certified employees at a combined salary of $856,007 (a 6.18% increase from 2022-2023) and 10 non-certified employees at a combined salary of $774,507 (a 6.74% increase). Let’s see; enrollment is down, student-to-teacher ratios are down, and salaries are substantially up. Translation, an unnecessarily exorbitant budget.

Dave Holman

Guilford