Continuing its review of the superintendent’s proposed 2019-20 spending plan, the Board of Education took a closer look at the technology, continuing education, plant operations and maintenance, benefits, general services, transportation, and curriculum proposed budgets at its January 22 meeting.

As presented at the school board’s January 15 meeting, the superintendent’s proposed 2019-20 budget of $78,108,940 is a 2.7 percent increase from the current year’s budget. The Board of Education will continue to review the spending proposal before voting on its budget, which will then go before the Board of Finance and Legislative Council for review. The Board of Education is scheduled to adopt its budget at a February 5 meeting.

While the curriculum budget was brought up near the end of the meeting, it was discussed at length compared to the other proposed spending plans. According to the Superintendent’s Requested Operational Plan, the proposed curriculum budget for 2019-20 is $1,056,530, which is $73,428 more than the current curriculum budget.

Assistant Superintendent of Schools Jean Evans Davila presented the curriculum budget to the board. When crafting the 2019-20 spending proposal, Ms Davila said she focused on supporting established teaching and learning practices and professional development while repositioning accounts to support future administrative goals. The curriculum budget was also crafted with input from “key staff” from across the district, according to the presentation.

Ms Davila also spoke to a proposed new position in the superintendent’s spending plan, a district-level director of teaching and learning.

“This person would be able to assist the assistant superintendent in such a way that curriculum committees can become more focused as work groups rather than curriculum review committees,” said Ms Davila, who in October announced her pending resignation.

Later, school board members asked a range of questions regarding the new director. Both Ms Davila and Superintendent of Schools Dr Lorrie Rodrigue said the new position would closer align Newtown with other similar school districts for the level of administration positions in the district.

“That particular role I see as one of the most important things we are going to have in the budget, and I know that this isn’t just my request. This has been talked about and discussed by our whole administrative team, even when I was [Newtown High School] principal,” said Dr Rodrigue.

Dr Rodrigue said the district administration plans to hire the new director of teaching and learning later in the 2019-20 school year to have the new assistant superintendent help with the hiring process.

Ms Davila also offered a comparison of regional school district per pupil spending compared to test data to demonstrate there does not seem to be a correlation between higher spending and test performance.

Technology And Continuing Education Budgets

While presenting her proposed budget, Director of Technology Carmella Amodeo highlighted increases for repairs and contracted services. The $16,000 contracted services increase is due to a move to a different virtual server environment. A company will now host the virtual server environment, so while the district will pay for services related to the upkeep of the environment, it will not have to pay for hardware maintenance, according to Ms Amodeo.

Overall, the proposed 2019-20 technology budget is $1,68,342, a $68,400 increase over the current spending plan.

The proposed continuing education budget is $164,336, a $5,482 increase from the current budget. Newtown Continuing Education Director Elissa Gellis said a five percent increase in mandated services contributed to the increase for next year’s budget.

Director of Business Ron Bienkowski shared overviews of the plant operations and maintenance, benefits, and general services budgets. The proposed plant operations and maintenance budget has a 1.05 percent increase over the current budget, the benefits’ budget has a .22 percent decrease from the current budget, and the general services budget has a 2.11 percent increase. The security budget, which is within the general services budget, is set to increase by $10,750. After each budget was presented, board members asked a range of questions.

District financial analyst Tanja Vadas spoke about the 2019-20 proposed transportation budget. Ms Vadas noted next year will be the third year of the district’s ongoing five-year contract with All-Star Transportation, which covers the majority of the district’s student transportation needs.

Ms Vadas highlighted a 32 percent increase in vocational student transportation due to adding a new schooling option for students to attend District 12’s Shepaug Valley School, an agricultural high school. As previously reported in The Newtown Bee, the school board entered into an agreement with District 12 roughly two years ago to become a “sending school” to offer students who would otherwise enroll at NHS to instead enroll in Shepaug Valley School. Students who currently attend Nonnewaug High School for its agricultural program will continue to attend Nonnewaug until their graduation. According to discussion at the meeting, the overlap of the two agricultural programs for three years will have the district paying to transport students to both high schools.

Newtown’s fleet of buses with All-Star Transportation will also be entirely transitioned to propane buses, rather than diesel buses, next year. Ms Vadas reported fuel costs are expected to increase by two percent.