By Linda Conner Lambeck

WESTPORT — The school district needs a budget increase of between 4.2 to 8.3 percent for 2023-24 over its current $129.5 million operating budget, Supt. of Schools Thomas Scarice told the Board of Education this week.

A 4.2 percent increase — or $5.4 million — would cover current staffing, but not those positions funded through expiring federally funded grants.

With an 8.3 percent hike — just shy of $11 million — the budget could absorb grant-funded positions that help with COVID-related learning loss, as well as add five teachers to handle enrollment increases and satisfy all requests from building principals and district coordinators.

“Where will the budget land?” Scarice asked, suggesting the final figure would be somewhere in between.

Monday’s brief look at what the board can expect in budget deliberations for the coming fiscal year will be followed by an all-day, program-by-program workshop on Jan. 6.

The budget briefing comes weeks after leaders of the Board of Finance and Representative Town Meeting appeared before the school board to praise both the process and outcome of the last budget cycle.

For the current fiscal year, school officials initially sought a budget with a 3.8 percent spending increase, and at the end of the budget process in May, won approval of a budget that was 3.1 percent higher than the previous year’s.

Instead of suggesting a specific budget increase to aim for in 2023-24, the officials suggested the school board develop a budget to provide students with what they need while being mindful of the shaky economy.

Scarice said challenges in the coming year are many.

Pressure points in building a new budget, according to Scarice, include enrollment — it keeps rising.

“As much as I would like to say inflation, inflation, inflation, really the impact is the incredible number of families that have moved to the community,” the superintendent said.

At the elementary school level that requires additional classes.

Salaries and benefits make up 80 percent of the district’s budget. Teachers start a new contract in June that in its first year will raise salaries by 3.41 percent.

In past years, money could be saved from teacher turnover, as retiring teachers at the top of the pay scale were replaced by teachers paid starting salaries. In the age of teacher shortages, that is less likely, Scarice said.

Health benefit costs for the district, meanwhile, could increase 14 percent, he added.

Utility costs also are going up. A 6 percent increase in transportation costs has been penciled-in. There are technology and facility maintenance expenses to be factored in.

While staff spent two days brainstorming creative ways to reduce the bottom line, Scarice said it was clear millions of dollars in cost reductions cannot be found.

“The numbers are the numbers,” said board member Robert Harrington. He said school officials need to be clear that much of the spending increase is tied to enrollment, and that efforts are being made to find efficiencies in transportation and possibly redistricting.

“We can’t just snap our fingers and redistrict,” board Chairwoman Lee Goldstein said, at least not in time for the start of the 2023-24 school year.

Freelance writer Linda Conner Lambeck, a reporter for more than four decades at the Connecticut Post and other Hearst publications, is a member of the Education Writers Association.