As the Board of Education prepares for its discussion tonight of strategy regarding the health insurance account shift, First Selectman Tim Herbst has a few questions.
In a letter to Schools Supt. Ralph Iassogna, Herbst opened with thanks to the superintendent.
"Thank you for sending me your agenda for the special meeting scheduled for April 28, 2011. From reading the agenda, it appears that the Board of Education is contemplating litigation against the Town of Trumbull. Shipman & Goodwin is a well-respected (and expensive) law firm," Herbst wrote. "Can you please provide this office with the amount of money expended to date for Attorney Mooney, including his hourly billable rate and the account from which he is being paid for services rendered?
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"Also, as an ex-officio member of the Trumbull Board of Education, will you be providing me with any and all legal memoranda, case law and/or statutory references concerning these issues? Thank you," the first selectman said.
The board is contemplating its next move after the Town Council voted April 14 to move about $1.1 million for the board's health insurance costs into a special townside account.
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School Board member Tom Kelly has said the figure included $223,000 in savings the board was going to use elsewhere.
Although the town controls the purse strings of the acccount, the money remains the school district's.
At the April 14 budget meeting, the council received two legal opinions.
According the one from Attorney Thomas B. Mooney of Shipman & Goodwin, "Given the well-established law in Connecticut, it is clear that such action would violate the statutory rights and responsibilities of the Board of Education.
"If the Town Council were to take such action, it would invite litigation that would almost certainly result in a court ruling ordering the town to appropriate that amount to the Board of Education," he said.
In the second opinion, Town Attorney Dennis J. Kokenos of Owens, Schine & Nicola determined that "the obligation to provide healthcare to educators is being provided pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement and is not a statutory obligation but rather a contractual obligation to be satisfied by the town of Trumbull."
The school board had voted before the budget decision to study moving the account.
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