By Thane Grauel 

WESTPORT — The proposed town and education budgets for fiscal year 2023-24 were presented to the Board of Finance on Wednesday night.

They total $233 million, the bulk of which — 63 percent, or $136 million — is for education.

“That represents a 4.39 percent increase,” or $9.82 million dollars, over the current fiscal year, First Selectwoman Jennifer Tooker told the Board of Finance of the spending plan.

The Board of Finance meeting involved only a presentation of the budget proposals — there was no discussion, debate, public input or votes.

On the town side, public safety is the largest expenditure, followed by pensions, then public works, and parks and recreation.

Tooker’s proposed budget, if posted at all on the town’s website, is not easy to find. The Board of Finance’s budget link had nothing newer than the current fiscal year’s approved spending plan. Same for the Selectwomen’s Office budget page.

A year ago, the proposed budget for the coming fiscal year was posted in early February.

Two weeks ago, at a budget meeting the Westport Library, the Westport Journal requested a copy of the working budget (now outdated) and it was on a third-party website.

The Board of Education’s proposed budget was easy to find.

Tooker said the town-side of the budget stands at $81.9 million, “That’s an increase of 4.32 percent over the current fiscal year.”

She said there were four drivers for increases.

“First being inflation,” she said. “Inflationary costs on supplies and materials … the other piece is the labor market.”

“We see that all over our budget,” Tooker said.

The schools’ budget request is about 5 percent over the current fiscal year.

Board of Education Chairwoman Lee Goldstein gave an overview, and said administrators had whittled the budget down before coming to the town.

“You asked us last year, and we respected, not playing around,” she said. “We’re not coming in here with a bloated budget, and expecting you to cut it, and coming back with what we really wanted or expected.”

Supt. of Schools Thomas Scarice said the budget request has an increase just over a 5 percent.

He began his remarks by noting it was one year ago when students were allowed to remove their masks and leave behind the 6-foot distancing.

“I don’t think a day goes by that there’s not a discussion about a group of students, a faculty member, who’s still experiencing side-effects from everything we experienced from that period of time,” Scarice said of the pandemic era.

Increases in the proposed education budget are primarily attributed to more than 120 unanticipated new students and other costs, he said.

Thane Grauel, executive editor, grew up in Westport and has been a journalist in Fairfield County and beyond more than three decades. Reach him at editor@westportjournal.com. Learn more about us here.