The views stated here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the editors of this newspaper. We welcome supporting or opposing views on any published item. Received May 12, 2026.
On May 5, voters in Haddam and Killingworth defeated the proposed RSD17 school budget. Killingworth turnout climbed from 662 voters last year to 1,125 this year, a 70% increase on a first-round budget vote.
The budget numbers were real. 6.07% on gross expenditures, 8.5% on net assessments, 10.4% on Haddam alone, on households already absorbing higher utility rates and a cost of living that has not eased, including a High School project over $150 million still to come. A budget on top of that stack deserves scrutiny.
What turned ordinary scrutiny into a defeat was not just the dollars. It was how the Board of Education responded to households opening their wallets to pay the bill, answering legitimate questions with corporate parlance and lawyer-speak. That is the difference between treating taxpayers as partners versus treating them as a problem to be managed.
Take the Superintendent line. The salary increased from $216,460 to $238,115, a 10% increase, while the budget cuts five educator positions. When the public named it, the Board’s Budget FAQ replied, in part:
“The superintendent is NOT receiving a 10% raise. All contractual employees are compensated according to the terms of their negotiated agreements. The superintendent was hired five months ago and is being paid in accordance with that contract.”
Read that carefully. The line item went up 10%. The real concern is simpler than the reply allows: a line the Board controls went up 10% in a budget that cuts educator positions. The Board negotiated the contract. The Board approved the budget. That is lawyer speak: technically defensible, yet unable to engage with what residents actually asked.
The same posture shows up on the $2.35 million reserve fund. Board policy targets the unrestricted reserve at 2% of the operating budget (about $1.09 million for FY27), leaving $1.26 million above target. Applying that excess, authorized by Connecticut’s 2024 PA 24-45, would have cut the net assessment increase from 8.5% to 5.9% while keeping the reserve at the policy floor. When the Chair replied to my letter in this paper to push back on applying the reserve, she cited a five-year capital plan she described in the same letter as “currently updating and prioritizing.” A plan still being written cannot justify a decision to grow the reserve while raising what taxpayers owe. The Board already holds this $2.35 million in taxpayer money. The proposed budget would have grown that to $2.95 million.
That is the pattern. A concrete question raised; an answer that deflects. A discretionary lever; treated as untouchable. A 10% line item; framed as procedurally inevitable. Families talk about money at the kitchen table in plain numbers and plain trade-offs, and expect the same when asked to fund the school budget. When plain questions are met with technical language, as if residents would not understand, trust erodes. Residents stop trusting their elected officials and start running the math themselves. That is what this turnout reflects.
This year, like last year, the budget failed on the first vote, overturning years of routine first-vote passage. If the Board reads that as an inconvenience to be retried until residents relent, it will have learned the wrong lesson. Come back with a number that respects the math and the households paying the bill. Apply the reserve; it’s taxpayer money the Board already has. And when residents ask whether a 10% line is a raise, answer in plain English.
Importantly, remember who you represent. Bring back respect for the taxpayer, and you will be amazed at how generous our residents can be.
Eric Nunes, Killingworth
