Superintendent of Schools Chris Melillo and Director of Business and Finance Tanja Vadas responded to a long list of questions from Legislative Council members as part of a budget proposal review at a March 28 Education Subcommittee meeting.

The school board’s 2023-24 budget request is $85,484,651, roughly a $3,350,012 or 4.1 percent increase over the 2022-23 approved budget of $82,134,639.

The Board of Finance, upon completing its review of the 2023-24 spending plan earlier this month, approved the municipal budget with no adjustments but made a $185,000 reduction to the school district’s proposal.

The $185,000, representing $25,000 for a replacement sound system in the gym of Hawley Elementary School and $160,000 for stage lighting controls and stage curtains at Reed Intermediate School, is in addition to $546,000 in spending that has been moved to the Capital and Non-Recurring (CNR) Fund.

Those numbers may appear slightly larger than normal due to $900,000 being sent to the CNR Fund, but that money will not have an effect on taxes, according to Finance Director Robert Tait. An estimated mill rate of 26.39 mills — adjusted due to revaluation — currently stands at 34.67 mills. A mill represents $1 in taxation for every $1,000 of taxable property.

Among the questions asked was one concerning the possibility of early retirement incentives.

Melillo responded that the district offered an early retirement incentive package two years ago, with a net savings from early retirees of $643,271. He explained that each year the town expects roughly ten retirees and that previous incentive only generated 14 retirees. That means the savings the town hoped to achieve was actually reduced by offering a retirement incentive to teachers who were likely to be retiring anyway.

When asked about the possibility of increasing pay-to-play costs, Melillo noted that the town currently has a fee of $160 for most sports except for hockey, which has a $250 fee. Melillo said he hadn’t looked at the possibility of raising the fee because of all the other increases most families are absorbing lately, and he did not want those families to have to make choices between sports and other things.

Chromebooks Questions

Another question pertained to whether the use of Chromebooks has been mandated. Melillo said Chromebooks are not mandated, but “the district recognizes the importance of technology and its ability to enhance the learning experience.”

Board of Education Chair Deborra Zukowski said Chromebooks are becoming the equivalent of textbooks and are “an important part of the curriculum.”

It was then asked if the BOE had considered a partial cost sharing program to offset the cost of Chromebooks. Melillo said there is a partial cost sharing program that is similar to ones in other school districts in Connecticut.

The Device Insurance Program is offered to students in all grades who are assigned a device. The program protects students and families in the event the device issued is stolen or damaged due to no fault of the student. The program covers accidental damage or theft and is subject to a zero dollar deductible for the first occurrence per year and a $50 deductible per occurrence thereafter. Families may be charged for any intentional damage done to a device.

Regarding a question on the superintendent eliminating four paraprofessional positions, which the Board of Education later added back, Zukowski said that the library media specialist is absorbing the gifted and talented program with the use of MakerSpace at the savings of .8 FTE positions.

“When you start a new program, there’s a lot of work to get the program right,” said Zukowski. “There was concern with what the time needed to do that means to current services. It was clear that the media specialist was picking up the work of the enrichment teacher.”

Zukowski said the paraprofessionals were being kept to help support the library media specialist and take some of the load off her during the start-up of the new enrichment program.

The paraprofessional positions may be re-evaluated in future years.

Melillo said budget cuts do not “necessarily mean the students are getting less.”

“We’re saving some money and the students are getting more from it,” said Melillo. “Sometimes you can get more from less.”

Another question concerned the budgeting process and how the budget was built. Melillo said that the 2023-24 budget is the second year of using a zero-based budget planning approach.

“It was decided that building our budget from the ground up [each year] and basing our requests on needs would be fiscally more responsible,” said Melillo.

Melillo explained that students are still dealing with learning loss from the pandemic and the school system may be dealing with the fallout from that for the next five to ten years. He said that even with inflationary pressures on the budget, he came in with a 4.69 percent spending increase, compared to the previous superintendent coming in with a 4.35 percent increase the previous year.

He said he knew in spite of inflation, he could not come to the taxpayers with a six or seven percent spending increase when some residents “are struggling to keep the lights on.”

“That’s where my head was when we put this budget together,” said Melillo. “Given the learning loss, I’m confident this budget is a good balance between the needs of the taxpayers and the needs of the students.”

Associate Editor Jim Taylor can be reached at jim@thebee.com.