Danbury superintendent warns proposed charter language could risk BOE privacy, commission debates access

At a June 17, 2026 meeting of the City of Danbury Charter Revision Commission, Superintendent Kara Casimiro urged the panel to limit municipal access to Board of Education financial systems, saying the proposed Section 6-18 risks crossing legal and privacy lines.

"Subjecting the board to municipal financial management and purchasing procedures crosses a line," Casimiro said, adding concerns about HIPAA and federal privacy protections and asking that instances of the word "shall" be amended to "may." She said limited, need-to-know access for auditing purposes could be provided but opposed continuous access to BOE financial systems.

Commissioner Michael Safranek responded that the city has previously encountered difficulties obtaining BOE financial information needed for audits and described instances of returned or unaccounted funds and surpluses. "The financials can be requested via FOI and thus are not private," Safranek said, arguing for municipal oversight tools to ensure accountability.

Corporation Counsel Dan Casagrande and Commission Legal Counsel Joseph Mortelliti told the Commission they had worked with the BOE attorney and had reached agreement on much of the proposed language, with the exception of whether access provisions should be permissive or mandatory. Mortelliti said language in the later paragraphs of the section provided safeguards for privacy and governance concerns.

Chair Joseph W. Britton emphasized that the proposed addition is meant to codify existing collaboration between the city and the BOE and noted the BOE is the largest recipient of city funds. Commissioners discussed statutory constraints; counsel confirmed state statute (cited in discussion as Sec. 206(a)) constrains local numeric limits on BOE membership and supersedes conflicting local language.

The Commission did not object to counsel making grammatical edits and indicated it would return to fine-tuning the "shall" vs. "may" wording, leaving the substantive question of access scope for further counsel revision and possible future consideration. No formal change to the charter text was adopted at the meeting on this point.

The commission closed the public-comment portion of its agenda earlier in the meeting after several BOE members and residents urged careful review of Section 6-18; the panel set follow-up edits for legal counsel and scheduled a subsequent meeting date change to June 25 after the public hearing.

Next step: Staff and counsel will redraft the language to reflect the Commission's instructions and report back; no final modification to Section 6-18 was adopted at the June 17 meeting.