At a virtual meeting of the Board of Finance on March 16, the Board discussed the medical insurance fund as well as the 2022/2023 education and municipal budgets. Tom Kowalchik of USI gave the Board an update of the status of the town’s medical insurance fund. He noted that when he had met with them in February, it appeared that the medical claims amount for the coming fiscal year should be $6.9 million to $7 million. This was much higher than the $6.05 million the Board had penciled into the upcoming fiscal year’s budget.

At this meeting, Mr. Kowalchik had some better news. He said that the cost of retiree claims ha d been separated from the active employees, reducing the claims amount by $450,000. He also said that increased employee contributions and increased deductibles beginning in the next fiscal year brought the total medical insurance cost for the town down $219,000. Combined with a lower than expected amount of medical claims in February, it amounted to a decrease of $800,000 in expected costs for the 2022- 2023 fiscal year. This puts the estimate and the Board’s projected budget amount roughly $100,000 apart. He said he hoped to have updated numbers at the next week’s meeting, and final numbers by the end of March.

In discussing the proposed municipal and education budgets, Board Member Claudia Willard asked about the health department’s need for a new vehicle to replace an aging existing one. She wondered if it had been included in the proposed mun icipal budget. First Selectman Pat Del Monaco said that by closing out some existing capital projects, she was able to use the excess funds to pay for the new vehicle.

A number of Board members were looking for extended data from the Board of Education including 10 years’ test scores and a comparison with other districts within the district’s peer group, the average cost per pupil, the number of administrators with salaries greater than $100,000, a 10 year chart of special education spending including any state reimbursement received.

Board Member Thora Perkins questioned whether some of the ARPA funds could be used to remove items from the municipal budget and she was not happy with the Board of Education using ESSER grant funds to finance new school positions that would have to be financed by the town in future years.

First Selectman Pat Del Monaco said that $1.7 million in projects that fall under the guidelines of the program have already been removed from the budget and are being considered by the ARPA working group and the Board of Selectmen. She said she would forward the U.S. Treasury Department’s guidelines to the BoF members for their review.

Board Alternate David Coleman suggested spending part of the next meeting reviewing the 5 and 10 year capital improvement plans to see what the needs of the town and BoE will be and how best to approach it. He noted that one of his goals is to get the town to be more focused on overall metrics to determine if the town and t he district’s level of spending is reasonable.

The next Board of Finance meeting will be Wednesday, March 23 at 7:30 pm.

By Greg Slomba