After spending roughly a month inspecting details of the superintendent's proposed 2016-17 operational plan, the Board of Education adopted its budget - $74,215,066 or a 3.67 percent increase over the current year - on Thursday, February 4.

As originally presented by Superintendent of Schools Joseph V. Erardi, Jr, on January 5, the 2016-17 proposal was $74,361,623, a 3.87 percent increase from the current $71,587,946 spending plan for 2015-16.

Driving the increase, Dr Erardi told the board at the start of January, are health insurance cost hikes, personnel contractual agreements, out-of-district student placements, and operational staffing impacts from the Department of Education's School Emergency Response to Violence (SERV) grant ending this year. All of those expenses, according to the superintendent's original presentation, added $2,622,388, or 3.66 percent, to the overall increase.

The school board discussed a number of areas in the budget on February 4. The adopted proposed spending plan will be presented to the Board of Finance on Monday, February 8, and will then go before the Legislative Council before heading to referendum in April.

Dr Erardi and district Business Director Ron Bienkowski said on Thursday adjustments to the budget since it was first presented decreased the superintendent's proposed operational plan, and from that point the school board began requesting more information about the budget from district personnel and making motions to add or subtract from proposed line items.

Board of Education members discussed funding for mental health supports, estimated fuel costs for the new Sandy Hook Elementary School building, the new format for funding district technology, Newtown Middle School's switch to offering its rotation course Project Adventure as part of the school's physical education curriculum instead of a separate program, the district's pay-to-play program for sports, and class sizes and class relevance at NHS.

"While it may look a little different, I have the assurances that it will still be a really good program for our kids," said NMS Principal Tom Einhorn about adding the Project Adventure program to the school's physical education courses.

The school board and Mr Einhorn also spoke about looking at the middle school's Moving Up ceremony for eighth graders and finding alternatives to holding the graduation event at Western Connecticut State University's O'Neill Center for the 2017-18 school year.

Board member Rebecca Harriman-Stites questioned positions in the proposed budget that would support mental health needs that are anticipated to be funded by grants, not the proposed budget.

Ms Harriman-Stites made a motion to add a half-position to the certified behavior analyst, to make the current request a full-time position, after discussion of an original principals' request for four half positions for the elementary schools, one part-time position for each school. The requested positions were decreased to a 0.5 position in the superintendent's budget, according to the discussion. The motion passed 4 to 3, adding roughly $36,000 to the proposed spending plan.

With other budget adjustments presented by Dr Erardi and Mr Bienkowski, the original budget proposal was decreased by $146,557.

Before the board voted to adopt its $74,215,066 budget, members shared their comments about the proposal.

Kathy Hamilton was the only board member who voted against the budget, sharing concerns about how the budget increases in the district's per pupil expenditure will affect tax payers. Ms Hamilton said the school board needs to evaluate its facilities and look for efficiencies in its budget.

Board Secretary Debbie Leidlein said rising costs for special education are affecting school budgets nationwide, and said there are "certain growing costs" that are out of the school district's control, yet the board is doing what it can to investigate those costs.

John Vouros said Dr Erardi and the leadership team created a budget with "efficiency and it has tremendous educational gains for the children with a directive of efficiency of staff. That is key for everyone to understand."

The board is scheduled to present its adopted budget before the Board of Finance at 7:30 pm on Monday, February 8, at the Newtown Municipal Center.