The city’s tax board is mulling a proposed school budget that carries a 2.9 percent increase in spending.
But $177,000 of the new spending will be reimbursed, so the budget-to-budget increase is actually 1.9 percent, school officials said.
Jim Gildea, a member of the Derby Board of Education, said the school budget is solid.
“As a taxpayer and parent, I felt it was a reasonable budget that allows us to meet contractual obligations while at the same time making modest improvements by bolstering our foreign language programs at the middle and high schools, adding art electives in the high school, maintaining class sizes, continuing to invest in textbooks and the band program at all schools,” Gildea said in an e‑mail Monday, April 7.
The contractual obligations include 2.5 percent raises for the school principals at Derby High, Derby Middle School, and the city’s two elementary schools, Bradley and Irving.
The principals could receive an additional .5 percent raise if they do well on a new employee assessment plan Superintendent Matthew Conway and the board of education are using.
The Derby school board unanimously endorsed the 2015 – 2016 spending plan March 31.
Conway presented the budget and fielded a few questions from the city’s Board of Apportionment and Taxation during a meeting April 1.
A copy of what the school district presented to the tax board is embedded below. Story continues after the document.
Derby Proposed Budget 2014 – 2015
Please note the budget shows the four school principals receiving 7 percent salary increases. It’s a 2.5 percent raise, but with five additional work days, according to school officials.
Conway is shown receiving a 15 percent raise, but that is because the proposed budget lumps his benefit pay into the salary line item, according to school officials.
The document is full of year-to-year increases that aren’t increases, because the district has been editing its budget to accurately reflect precisely where the money is going, officials said.
The Numbers
The current school budget (2013 – 2014) totals $16,163,336 (see page 53 of the embedded document above).
The school board is requesting a new budget (2014 – 2015) of $16,646,978.
But they’re counting on $177,000 in reimbursements from the federal government’s “e‑rate” program, which provides money for technology.
So, after subtracting the reimbursement dollars, the proposed budget is $16,469,978 — a 1.9 percent increase from the current spending plan.
Laptops For All Students
The budget includes an ambitious plan to thrust Derby schools into 21st-century learning.
Derby schools are teaming with Sprint to provide laptops to every student from sixth to 12th grade.
Families will pay a $50 annual fee to rent the machines, but the vast majority of the costs will be picked up by Sprint and the federal e‑rate program, which is funded by telecommunication companies.
Derby is eligible for between 75 to 80 percent reimbursement for the program because the school district has a large number of students who receive free or reduced-price lunch, an indicator of poverty.
“We’re talking about providing for students who today do not have the same access to technology that you and I do. They don’t go home and have a computer. They don’t go home and have Internet,” Conway told members of the tax board last week.
Every student in sixth through 12 grade will be receiving a laptop, not just students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.
While many schools across the U.S. are giving students laptop, the Derby program is unique in that in addition to laptops, the students will be able to access the Internet through Sprint’s network anywhere outside of the school campus.
The total cost of the program is roughly $720,000, but Derby’s only on the hook for a fraction of the total cost, Conway said.
Conway and the school board allocated $100,000 toward the project.
School officials said the $100,000 commitment shows the city takes the program seriously and is not just taking a handout.
“The $100,000 is the ownership in this community that we want the best for our students, for our children,” Conway said last week. “We think this program makes sense. We’re getting it at a fraction of the costs than most other districts because of the number free and reduced lunch students we have.”
Watch the video below to see Conway’s full presentation to the Derby tax board.
Parents have the option to insure the laptops through their own insurance of through the school district.
A student will trade in the laptop for a new machine every three years. If one breaks, the student will get a replacement laptop on the same day.
Conway said the initiative still needs final approval from the e‑rate program, but both e‑rate and Sprint have been meeting with Derby school officials regularly about the project.
Sprint gains from the program because the e‑rate program will pay for Derby students to use Sprint’s data lines.
Staff Changes
The proposed budget eliminates a few positions and looks to add a few positions to free up schedules and expand some course offerings.
The budget seeks to eliminate a non-certified library clerk at Derby Middle School, along with a non-certified reading facilitator at the middle school, and a “security safety officer” at the middle school.
The safety officer’s title isn’t does not accurately describes the duties of the job, which is to essentially supervise students who are serving in-school suspensions for breaking the school’s rules.
Conway said the district is changing the way it handles in-school suspensions by putting teachers in charge of supervising kids.
The emphasis will be on behavior interventions and teaching the students in trouble, as opposed to just having them sitting in a room all day supposedly doing class work on their own.
The budget looks to add a certified library media specialist at the middle school, along with incremental increases to language and art courses at the middle school.
In addition, the proposed budget seeks to hire one fifth-grade teacher at Bradley Elementary because of an anticipated enrollment increase.
After subtracting the $177,000 e‑rate reimbursement, new spending in the budget totals more than $300,000, spent as follows:
- $30,000 for athletic transportation (in the past, the school board has funded transportation by taking money from an athletic “enterprise account”)
- $254,000 for certified and non-certified salary increases
- $8,000 for the district’s music program
- $3,000 for a multi-year plan to replace football uniforms
- $42,635 for an early retirement package
