The Shelton Board of Aldermen have found nearly $500,000 more for the Board of Education for 2013 – 2014, following a budget workshop Tuesday.
That may partially close an $841,000 gap that school officials said last week remained in their budget for the new school year.
City Finance Director Paul Hiller said he would know by Thursday, when the Aldermen are scheduled to meet to finalize the budget, if the adjustments would affect the mill rate.
Board of Alderman President John Anglace said he believed that the new budget would still reduce the mill rate from 22.4 to 22.3 mills for next fiscal year, starting July 1, 2013.
The worst case is that city taxpayers will get the same 22.4 mill rate as this year, he said.
The Aldermen also agreed to requests from the city’s four volunteer fire companies to increase an annual allowance from $9,000 to $10,000 each.
Representatives from the volunteer fire companies presented details of expenditures they covered themselves, such as purchases of firefighting and emergency response equipment, and said the extra $1,000 for each company would go toward disability insurance for their members.
“We’re willing to work with you because we think the purpose that your spending the money, disability insurance, is well worth it,” Anglace told the firefighters.
Schools
Mayor Mark Lauretti had proposed to increase the Board of Education budget from $63,736,627 to $65,400,000, an increase of about 2.6 percent.
But at a budget public hearing on May 15, Board of Education members and school administrators appealed to the Aldermen to increase the school district’s proposed budget allocation.
They said they might have to lay off teachers or other staff and make program cuts if the $841,000 budget gap wasn’t closed.
Anglace said after that public hearing, he and Hiller met with Schools Superintendent Freeman Burr and Mayor Mark Lauretti and came up with additional funding for the schools.
At least $175,000 will come from last minute savings that school officials negotiated for next year’s employee health insurance premiums.
Anglace said a problem the school board faces each year — having to vote on its budget request no later than January, although many of its costs for the coming year aren’t finalized until April or May.
Another adjustment was a bookkeeping correction.
Hiller explained that the city auditors had applied an insurance payment to the next fiscal year, although in reality the bill had already been paid.
Hiller said the bookkeeping move was correct according to General Accounting Principles, which municipal governments must follow, but no one had told school officials that they didn’t have to pay it again.
In addition, the Aldermen added $200,000 to the Board of Education budget.
Hiller said the total adjustments add up to about $500,000.
Other Adjustments
A number of other additions were also made Tuesday.
Some of the larger amounts were:
- $30,000 for an annual report
- $30,000 for Police Department data processing
- $24,189 for youth programs.
Hiller said the increases totaling $336,902 would be offset by the transfer of a $212,000 insurance reserve to the revenue side of the budget.
He doubted that the balance was enough to affect the mill rate, but that would be determined after consulting with Lauretti, who did not attend the budget workshop.
