By Linda Conner Lambeck

WESTPORT–In the end, the school board stuck with all of School Superintendent Thomas Scarice’s recommendations, yet voted unanimously to recommend a 2026-27 budget that is $750,000 less than the bottom line presented in January.

It did so by going with a plan to dip into a health insurance reserve account to make the proposed increase come in at a 4.98 percent increase.

The board’s request is for a 2026-27 operating budget of $157,863,623–nearly $7.5 million over the current operating budget.

After a month of deliberation and weekly meetings, it took the panel less than 12 minutes to deliberate on the budget on Thursday.

The proposed budget next goes to the Board of Finance then the Representative Town Meeting. 

The town has not cut the district’s proposed budget in several years.

The budget plan includes a long sought-after assistant director of facilities and security position and two new behavioral specialist positions at the elementary school level. Also new is a $95,000 line item for the district to begin a rotation of supplying Staples sports teams with uniforms.

Raises account for 2.64 percent of the budget increase, with health insurance costs accounting for much of the rest.

Although dipping into the insurance reserves could cause what is called a fiscal cliff in the 2027-28 budget when those non-renewable funds would have to be made up somehow, the board was told at a meeting last week that an expected elimination of an $810,000 lease payment that year would help even things out.

Board Chair Lee Goldstein said it was important to her to get the requested increase below 5 percent. The increase would have been 5.4 percent were it not for the $750,000.

On the decision for the district to start picking up the tab for sports uniforms, Board Member Stephen Shackelford said he supported it on the understanding that it will work for the teams, that the expense won’t go up much in future years and that the uniform budget can’t be supplemented by booster clubs.

Board Member Andy Frankel said though some questions were raised during the process by members of the public about special education, the concerns seemed to him to be not budgetary issues. The board was promised the district’s special education program would become part of the program review cycle.

Linda Conner Lambeck

^{_{Linda Conner Lambeck covers education for Westport Journal. She was a reporter for more than four decades at the Connecticut Post and other Hearst publications. She has covered education throughout Fairfield and New Haven counties. She is a proud member of the Education Writers Association.}}