The Board of Selectmen and New Fairfield schools presented their proposed 2022-2023 fiscal year budgets to the Board of Finance and the public on March 5 in a virtual Zoom meeting.Board of Finance Chair Wes Marsh gave a brief overview of the day’s agenda, noting that the Board of Finance is the budgetary authority for the town. Mr. Marsh said the BOF’s role is to balance the needs of the town and the school district against what the Board feels the taxpayer is able to pay.
The upcoming fiscal year’s school and municipal budgets will very likely be costly to taxpayers. The town recently went to bid to bond $35 million for the school building fund. The term was 20 years and the winning bid had an interest rate of 2.51%. While the exact percent of the debt servicing increase has yet to be determined, it was estimated in December that the new round of bonding would account for a 3.84% tax increase all by itself. Given that the actual interest rate on the accepted bid is half a percent more than estimated, it stands to reason that the actual percent tax increase will be higher than the December estimate.
With that in mind, the Board of Finance tasked the Board of Education and the Board of Selectmen to keep its budgets flat over the previous fiscal year.
The Board of Education presented the school budget first. Board of Education Chair Dominic Cipollone presented the school budget, with input from Superintendent Dr. Patricia Cosentino, Director of Business & Operations Dr. Richard Sanzo, and other school administrators.
The BOE presented a total budget of $43,170,097. This represents an increase of $1,652,783, or 3.98% over the previous fiscal year (2021-22).
In reviewing the achievements during the past year, Mr. Cipollone referred to “points of pride”throughout the district. These included the management of learning in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, the implementation of Project Lead the Way for engineering, the STEAM program for grades K-5, the STRIDES program, and the fact that both school building projects are currently on time and within budget.
In discussing the proposed budget increase, Mr. Cipollone said that the Superintendent and the Board did take the Board of Finance’s call for a 0% budget increase. He noted that several different scenarios to accomplish this were discussed. However, he said, each scenario was deemed unacceptable if the district was to continue to move forward and be able to support the needs of all its students. He cited the coming year as being critical to accomplishing this. As the district and its students are emerging from the pandemic, he noted that students who were struggling before the pandemic are continuing to struggle. What’s more, he said, the gap between those who are achieving and those who are not has widened, not just in the district, but nationally. Keeping the budget flat, he said, would mean dropping teachers and support staff, increasing class sizes from an average of roughly 20 students to between 30-35 students.
In discussing the proposed budget, Mr. Cipollone stated that $1,095,889 in emergency relief funds had been saved for use in the 2022-2023 fiscal year. In order to do this, positions funded by emergency relief funds and created to provide Covid-19 support during the height of the pandemic will be discontinued in the coming fiscal year. The remaining funds will be used for an ELL Teacher, BCBA, MS STEAM, half a middle school strings teacher, and a middle school special education teacher.
Overall, the district will be reducing 22.3 full time equivalent (FTE) staff positions, including 6 guest teachers and 2 engagement coordinators, and adding 5.5 FTE positions for an overall net decrease of 16.8 FTE. Public comment featured mostly district teachers who are also residents and taxpayers urging the Board of Finance to accept the school budget as presented and pass it on to the voters to approve or decline.
Board of Finance Member Cheryl Reedy asked for clarification on how many of the overall FTE cuts were funded by emergency relief funds. The answer to this was about half. She also questioned how cutting so many positions could yield such a small overall savings (a little over $90,000). Dr. Sanzo cited the coming year’s contractually required wage increases of over $800,000 as the reason for the small savings when compared year over year.
Ms. Reedy then asked what storyline the Board of Education and the Superintendent could give to the public to help them understand the needs of the district. Mr. Cipollone said the children of the district have endured a pandemic, but some of their needs have yet to manifest. The district needs the proper staff to support students to stay or get back
on track in the coming year.
Superintendent Dr. Patricia Cosentino said the district is working to support all its students by staying in tune with promoting student socio-emotional health and mathematic achievement instruction. Board Alternate David Coleman asked about test scores and how they have fared during the pandemic. Assistant Superintendent Julie Luby said that early literacy and middle grade math have taken a hit. This, she said, mirrors national trends. The changes in staffing are designed, in part, to address this.
The Board of Selectmen’s municipal budget was presented by First Selectman Pat Del Monaco. Ms. Del Monaco noted that the BOS held a series of budget workshops over the past couple of months, meeting with all town department heads for input on their budget needs. Services that make up the municipal budget include road maintenance and plowing, senior services, police, fire & EMS, and public health—including Covid-19 testing and vaccinations, land use, events and activities, and the library. She listed the budget priorities for the coming fiscal year as maintaining services, maintaining infrastructure, supporting economic development, long term capital planning, and the new school projects.
The BOS is proposing a municipal budget of $13,265,589, an increase of $404,907, or 3.15% from the previous year.
Ms. Del Monaco stated that in finalizing the final budget proposal, she was able to identify some key areas where funding was not needed or where old projects could be closed out and the remaining funds applied other items, thus reducing the budgeted amount or removing them from the budget proposal entirely.
One such example was in town properties capital. By closing out several completed projects that had received audit approval, she was able to take the remaining $51,532 and apply it to several projects totaling $48,500, taking them out of the coming fiscal year’s budget. The remaining $3,032 was added back to the building reserve balance. BOF Member Cheryl Reedy praised the Board of Selectmen for finally being able to close out those old projects. The BOF had asked Ms. Del Monaco to look into the possibility at a previous BOF meeting.
In the bridge, drainage, public works, and equipment line items, Ms. Del Monaco said that funding for several bridge and drainage projects would be pushed back a year and the funds used to fund various public works and police department expenditures, thus removing those items from the budget. One area of the budget that grew substantially was road paving. Ms. Del Monaco noted that over the past 5 years, the road paving budget had been slashed from $500,000 in 2018-2019 to a low of $45,000 in the current fiscal year. She said that $105,000 had been added to the budget this year, bringing it up to $150,000. This was necessary, she said, so that the town does not fall further behind on road repair. The longer things are let go, the more expensive they are to fix. Using Gillotti Road as an example, she gave three different examples of repair costs. The first totaled $354,547.50, The second was a cost for more extensive repair if put off longer at $554,597.50. The final example was the cost if repair was put off even longer, $892,500.00. Ms. Del Monaco noted that not funding projects in the town’s five year capital plan next fiscal year would result in holes in the budget, and that this should be the exception rather than the rule.
Over the course of the next several weeks, the Board of Finance will meet with the Boards of Education and Selectmen to discuss both budgets in more depth and to make or suggest changes or reductions. Once the final budgets are agreed upon, the final budget proposals will be brought to a town vote in late April.
An overview of the Board of Education’s Recommended Budget can be found by going to www.newfairfieldschools.org and selecting the “2022-2023 Budget” hyperlink in the header.
The Board of Selectman budget can be found at www.newfairfield.org .
The Board of Finance will be holding budget meetings every Wednesday in March at 7:30pm via Zoom. The public is encouraged to attend.
By Greg Slomba