The Town of Norfolk skimped on its education budget this year, according to the state’s Department of Education (DOE).

In fact, the state has ruled that when Norfolk’s Board of Finance reduced Botelle School’s budget by $40,000 in the current year, it put the town in violation of the state’s Minimum Budget Requirement, a measure enacted to ensure that towns do not balance their budgets by taking from their education spending.

On Wednesday, March 13, First Selectman Matt Riiska and Board of Finance Chairman Michael Sconyers traveled to Hartford to meet with the DOE’s chief financial officer, Kathy Demsey. They brought documents to show that the town gave the school substantial in-kind services this year in addition to its direct funding. The cost of these services, valued at $135,000, was carried on the town’s budget and not the school’s. Over the past five years, the town has provided in-kind services worth up to $234,000, for insurance, audits, mowing, snowplowing and tree removal, as well as to pay the debt service on the school’s recently installed windows, which will remain in the budget until 2025-26. Demsey was not impressed.

The town must put back into the school’s budget a sum of $35,318, said Demsey. The matter will most likely be addressed at the May town meeting, according to Riiska.

If the town fails to comply, the state could reduce its educational subsidy to Norfolk, known as the Education Cost Sharing funds, which currently amounts to $25,000 per year.