By Linda Conner Lambeck
WESTPORT — A budget casualty last year because of ballooning health-care costs — a request to add two elementary assistant principals — may face another uphill battle.
The Board of Education was warned last week that rising contractual salary costs, coupled with inflation, technology upgrades and other rising expenses could send an increase for the requested 2025-26 budget north of 6 percent before anything new is added.
As the administration prepares its budget recommendation, Elio Longo, the district’s chief financial officer, invited the school board members to offer any budget assumptions of their own that will likely add to the bottom line.
Last year, after pleas were made by elementary school principals to add two assistant principals, the board deadlocked 3-to-3 on the request and the motion failed.
The school board’s operating budget in the current fiscal year stands at $143.6 million, which is 5.3 percent more than the year before.
Longo said the district’s tentative agreement with its teachers’ union will add about $3 million to the spending request out of the gate.
The district has been advised that employee benefits, which this year cost about $21 million, could go up about 8 percent, Longo said.
Combined, Longo said salaries and benefits will result in a 3.75 percent increase. “If we target a 5 percent increase year over year that leaves a 1.75 percent increase on all other accounts,” Longo said. Most accounts, meanwhile, have been averaging a 3 percent increase, he added.
Planned upgrades in technology — replacing aged out equipment — could send that account up as high as 24 percent.
To offset that, Longo said the district would need to flat fund a half-dozen other accounts.
On the plus side, Longo said the district is hoping its special education out-placement account can be flat funded.
Transportation is expected to see a 3.25 percent increase, but Longo said the district is continuing to see a $280,000 credit by letting the bus company park much of its fleet at the Greens Farms Railroad Station. The Police Department gets $100,000 of that credit and the school board, $180,000.
“It’s working,” said Longo, adding he wants what was initially considered a short-term parking arrangement extended.
Members of the Board of Finance and Representative Town Meeting will meet with the board in December to talk about spending for the new fiscal year.
Central office will hold a two-day budget workshop in mid-December and the board will get a full-day budget presentation on Friday, Jan. 3, 2025. The board is expected to vote on a budget to send to the town later that month.
Board Chair Lee Goldstein blamed inflation for the projected increase.
“Salaries need to reflect that,” she said. “We are a people business. There is a really good reason why it’s [a] $3 percent [jump] out of the gate.”
Some 80 percent of the budget, added board Secretary Neil Phillips, goes to salaries.
Board member Robert Harrington said while he is excited to see some progress in transportation efficiencies, he would like to see more. He also wants to see the assistant principals as a key recommendation from the administration.
The district once had two assistant principals at each elementary school, but they were scaled back, a decision principals now view as a mistake.
Only Long Lots has two assistant principals. The other four elementary schools have one and a half positions.
Board member Kevin Christie said he is interested in hearing an explanation of the current roles and responsibilities of assistant principals.
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.
They lost me at “if we are targeting a 5% spending increase.” Inflation is 2.4% and we have not had school population growth that would merit an increase twice that. Especially in a period when they will be asking for $60 million for a single elementary school rebuild, it would be nice to have a BOE that showed some fiscal restraint.
And while I think it is a smart idea that the buses are being parked at Greens Farms Station, and I understand why $100,000 goes to the Police (and I totally get that we are simply shifting around the same amount of money on paper) shouldn’t the $180,000 go to Town to cover the Town budget items? As is, the BOE is paying itself “rent” even though it is occupying Town property – they are paying Town instead of a private entity, but still spending the money.
We all benefit from our excellent school system – both in terms of having well-educated children and in the increases in our property values. But in my thirty years in Westport, the BOE has never acted as if they were part of the Town, rather as if they were this singular organization for which the Town was the benefactor. It would be nice to see… maybe some expression of gratitude and a little more respect for taxpayers.