Derby Schools Superintendent Matthew Conway
DERBY –The Derby Board of Education unanimously approved a $20.8 million budget for the 2024 – 2025 fiscal year on Tuesday (Feb. 20), an increase of $1.2 million — or 6 percent — over the current budget.
The budget now heads to the city’s tax board for a review.
Here is the breakdown of the requested $1.2 million increase:
*Salary increases for certified staff – $461,847
*Pay increases for non-certified staff – $198,008
*Health insurance – $12,892
*Professional Services – $20,575
*Purchased services (which includes special education tuition/transportation for outplaced students) – $589,095
*Supplies and materials – $25,204
*Dues and fees – $1,378
*Property services (decrease of $131,888)
*Equipment (decrease of $300)
Derby School Board Chairman Jim Gildea said the budget is fiscally responsible.
“We believe that after years of financial neglect and given a zero percent increase in the way of a budget appropriation for four of the last six years, that this budget is reasonable,” Gildea said. “We are cautiously optimistic that after the devastating effect of the previous administration, this new administration will properly invest in our children and help continue the progress that we have made throughout the entire school system.”
The school board received a 2.24 percent budget increase last year. The previous year it received a $100,000 increase.
Superintendent of Schools Matthew Conway said the school district, like others across the nation, has pretty much used up all of its COVID-19 funds (American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, and Elementary and SecondarY School Emergency Relief, or ESSER) which were used to fund some staffing positions. Some of those grant-funded positions have now been moved to the board’s operating budget, Conway said, while some are still being funded through the district’s “alliance grant,” a program from the state.
The school district’s business manager Robbie Trainor gave the board a rundown of what’s driving next year’s budget increase.
“We are requesting 6 percent. We know that’s high, it’s a total ask of an extra $1.176 million dollars, and of that, 3.18 percent is just special education cost increases,” Trainor said.
When students with special needs move to Derby yet are not able to be educated within Derby schools, the school district is required to pay for tuition to out-place them to other facilities. Trainor said this averages $118,000 per student, per year, and Derby has a total of 33 out-placed students.
“The two key notes to the city tax board are that we are losing ARPA and ESSER funds and our special education costs are up,” Gildea said.
Conway echoed similar sentiments about the budget.
“It’s a very transparent budget in that it puts people in the right seats in the right budget line items where they belong; they were in grants and they are an actual core part of our schools and they belong in the operating budget,” Conway said. “It’s a very reasonable budget with no fluff.”
Of the $20.8 million budget, $13.8 million goes toward paying employees.
Gildea said the board will present the budget to the tax board at its meeting scheduled for 6 p.m. Feb. 27.
