The school budget process kicked off in Derby Friday, with a school board subcommittee getting its first look at a draft spending plan for 2015 – 2016.
In terms of the lifetime of the annual budget process, the numbers discussed Dec. 19 in Superintendent Matthew Conway’s office are bubble guppies in a pothole puddle.
District administrators will spend the next few months formulating a proposal to give the school board in February. The school board hands over a budget to the city’s tax board in April, whose members get the final say on how much money to give to the schools.
But a rough draft is a rough draft, and business manager Mark Izzo reviewed a budget that, if adopted today, would see spending increase by roughly $815,000 — or 4.9 percent — from this year’s budget.
School board president Ken Marcucio, Jr. asked Izzo to come back with a draft budget with a budget-to-budget increase of no more than 3 percent.
The total budget under discussion Friday totaled $17,399,152.
Izzo said his immediate next steps are to talk to Derby principals about individual budgets for each of the city’s four schools. In addition, Izzo wants to touch base with the district’s facilities manager, because the schools spent a lot of money on overtime and repairs this year.
Finally, Izzo said he’ll also talk money with the district’s special education supervisors. Special education can be a big-ticket item because local towns are required by law to pay for transportation to out-of-town facilities. The money is supposed to be reimbursed, but the districts never get back the full amount.
Some other highlights from Friday’s one-hour meeting:
- It’s unclear how much money the district is saving on electricity at Derby High from turbines installed at Derby Middle School. The system was installed to pump electricity to Derby High School, but the city didn’t fund software that would provide that information, school officials said. Marcucio and board member George Kutyka wanted more information on the issue. Click here for a video from former Superintendent Stephen Tracey talking about the turbines in 2011.
- The total money allocated for certified salary positions (teachers and the like) in the budget could go up 2.1 percent next year.
- The school district may have to find a way to purchase new practice “sleds” for football. The state passed new laws designed to cut down on concussions in football by reducing how often football players hit each other, which means more time hitting practice sleds. Marcucio said the varsity football coach is concerned the sleds in Derby won’t hold if used more often.
- A new contract for heating oil will see the school district’s price drop to $2.50 per gallon from $3.17 per gallon. The school district uses about 35,000 gallons per year.
- School board member Christine Robinson was the third subcommittee member in attendance Friday.
