By Sarah Opdahl

On Wednesday, March 11, New Fairfield’s Board of Finance (BOF) spent a few hours with school district staff going through dozens of previously submitted and in-the-moment questions regarding New Fairfield Board of Education’s (BOE) proposed $59.1M budget, a 4.32% increase over the previous year. Having delved line by line into the education budget, the BOF had larger and more minute queries about a range of topics.

The potential for savings, or the lack of realization thereof, due to the new school buildings rose a handful of times. A discussion that started about an 11% increase in the Buildings and Grounds staff, without increasing positions, prompted an enlightening conversation about care that’s needed for the new school buildings. In addition to rapidly increasing contractual services for elements of maintenance such as plowing and mowing, the overtime for these staff is amounting to over $100,000 per year. Director of Buildings and Operations Ms. Carrie DePuy shared, “now that our buildings are going around the clock, we’ve gone over in those lines. So I did make a market adjustment there, and added quite a bit to cover that…,” which is in large part due to the extreme weather this year. BOF members were shocked by this, questioning why such a heavy increase when the district had gone from three to two campuses. They also pointed out that an additional staff member, perhaps on alternate hours, would cost far less. School officials were asked to delineate how much overtime is being used for emergencies versus evening and weekend usage of the school buildings. DePuy said that these are “different buildings with different needs,” pointing to the window cleaning in the high school as an example of the more complex needs and increase in time requirements at one of the new schools.

When asked, it was noted that savings are a possibility in bus runs if the high and middle school start times align at some point, but Superintendent Dr. Ken Craw was not ready to commit to that possibility, pointing to the large number of runs needed for the elementary school and saying, “we don’t really have a sense of what savings or costs may be associated with this.”

There were lengthy discussions about pockets of the budget, such as technology, with BOF members learning the details about why, when, what, and for whom technology is scheduled to be replaced—especially Chromebooks which are purchased annually and preferably batch-ordered early for students entering third, sixth, and ninth grades. The third-party turned self-insurance/repair plans for Chromebooks were described in detail for BOF members. There were also answers supplied about software and anticipation of future costs for current free tech, such as AI use, for which the schools are predominantly leaning on Google Gemini, as part of the Google workspace for Education suite. Special education continued to be an in-depth topic to explore as the costs are a driving force in budgetary increases. Capital improvements at the middle school was another area BOF members questioned, and revenue and potential grants were of interest.

Regarding payroll, there were questions clarifying contract negotiations, position shifts, higher than expected salary increases, such as BCBA pay, and more. BOF members asked questions about special education staff, which was noted to be more stable, and permanent building substitutes. There were also questions about potential retirements, which are always tricky to anticipate. The amount of money spent on stipends, at over $600,000 for more than 200 roles, was heavily scrutinized by BOF members. Full-time employees who take on extra duties and adjunct employees who step in to fill roles such as athletics coaches, were thoroughly discussed.  BOF members asked for more historical information on stipend positions in recent years.

There was a discussion about the possibility of increasing Sherman tuition for high school attendance, which fell somewhat flat. Craw said he would like to “invite a member of the Board of Finance to join us for those negotiations with Sherman” later this year.

In regular BOF business, members approved transferring $205,700, of the $374,000 2024-2025 budget surplus, from the unassigned general fund balance to the Medical Reserve Fund, following their new policy. The matter now moves to the Board of Selectmen for approval and an eventual Town Meeting vote. All members agreed that keeping the remaining $168,000 in their back pocket for the budget discussions was wise.

New Fairfield’s Board of Finance will meet weekly on Wednesdays in March, 7:30 p.m.