The Seymour Board of Education hopes to receive a 3.5 percent increase in its budget for 2014 – 2015, officials said Wednesday.
The school board unanimously adopted a $32,024,884 spending plan, which carries a spending increase of $1.08 million over the current budget.
The budget will go to the Board of Finance for review before eventually heading to voters in the spring.
Given the rough go-around for school funding in previous budget cycles, Seymour school board members are already worried residents might not support the district’s latest plan.
“My position is I think 3.5 (percent) is going to be a hard number for the town to take,” said Board of Education Chairman Yashu Putorti. “My guess is if it’s 2.99 (percent) it might be better, but I’m not sure.”
Board members approved the proposal, saying the new programs funded in it were necessary to keep Seymour schools competitive.
But Seymour voters have been traditionally finicky about the schools budget, as Putorti noted in his remarks. The budget has taken three to four votes to pass each of the last four years, according to a Board of Education presentation Tuesday. That has happened whether the district asked initially for a 5.2 percent increase — as it did in 2012 — or a 2.4 percent increase, as it did last year.
So board members said they will be straightforward about what they need, and then go out and advocate for the request.
“It’s our job now to really sell this budget to the town,” Putorti said.
The Numbers
The current Seymour school budget is $30,942,984. The town’s portion of the budget is $22,045,915.
Superintendent Christine Syriac Syriac told the board members that if the district kept all its services the same as this year, it would need a 2.9 percent increase in spending to operate. Syriac proposed a 3.5 percent increase in order to pay out retirement benefits and pay for several new requests for the district.
The new requests include:
- Two new teachers at the middle school — one to teach STEM subjects through Project Lead The Way and another to teach language arts.
- A new fine arts teacher at the high school to teach graphics arts and photography.
- A part-time special education teacher at Bungay School.
- Four new paraprofessionals for kindergarteners at both Bungay and Chatfield-LoPresti elementary schools.
- A language arts coordinator for grades 6 through 12, who would also teach high school English classes.
- A full-time physical education teacher at the high school, in place of a part-time teacher.
- Stipends for club advisers at the high school and middle school.
Syriac proposes paying for the new positions through a series of savings from retirements and rearranging of other positions, so the school district would be getting 5.5 new positions for roughly $91,000.
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Seymour Schools Budget Proposal
Putorti called the reallocation of money “very creative.”
For example, one paraprofessional at the high school is retiring, which freed up money to hire two paraprofessionals at the elementary level. The elementary schools also plan to cut supplies budgets in order to pay for the third and fourth kindergarten paraprofessionals.
The retirement of a high school social studies teacher paid $91,023 will help pay for the new fine arts teacher at the high school, and bump the physical education teacher’s position from part-time to full-time.
And the retirement of an English teacher, paid $84,644, will help fund the 6 – 12 Language Arts Coordinator.
The district will save more money when it replaces a retiring high school science teacher, who was paid $91,623 last year, with a new science teacher who will receive only $48,329.
More Savings?
Board member Ed Strumello asked First Selectman Kurt Miller whether Seymour had talked with other Valley towns about creating its own regional special education program.
The district budgeted $607,390 for special education tuition and $281,438 for transportation to out-of-town special education programs this year, Strumello pointed out.
“We need to take a look at consolidating town departments, board (of education) and town, before we look to consolidate outside of town,” said school board member Jay Hatfield in response.
Miller said he hadn’t had a conversation yet about a regional special education program in the Valley, but his office is talking with the Seymour schools about other consolidation efforts — such as with technology and public works. One such meeting is planned next week, Miller said.
Next Step
The Board of Education has requested a meeting with the Board of Finance to present the 2014 – 2015 budget proposal on Feb. 5, and is waiting to hear back, according to Putorti.
The Board of Finance takes that, and requests from the First Selectman, to make its own budget to present to voters in the spring.
Seymour residents vote on the school and town budgets separately.
