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Newtown schools Superintendent Christopher Melillo
Contributed photo / Hearst Connecticut Media
NEWTOWN – An $86 million school budget for the upcoming 2023-24 fiscal year proposed by the new superintendent represents a 4.7 percent spending hike, driven by increases in salaries and benefits.
“The big drivers in this budget fall into nondiscretionary items that can only be controlled by a reduction in workforce or a cancelation of services,” Superintendent Christopher Melillo said at a school board meeting in January. “The salary costs include a recently negotiated teacher’s contract.”
Melillo, who was hired in May, was referring to a preliminary budget that calls for $3.8 million more in spending than the current school budget, mostly to cover increases in teacher salaries and benefits.
The school budget is the larger half of Newtown’s annual spending plan that residents will vote on in April. Voters will also consider the town budget portion of the spending plan, which carries a nominal 0.05 percent spending increase for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
A tax rate will not be assigned to the proposed spending plan until the two parts of the budget are combined later in the year.
The town’s $46.9 million budget for 2023-24, proposed by First Selectman Dan Rosenthal in mid-January, would increase spending by $25,000 over the current year.
“We want to be transparent about what the demands are and what the spending is and not hide behind the bottom line, which is five-hundredths of a percent increase,” Rosenthal said during a Jan. 17 Board of Selectmen meeting. “There is (increased) spending in the budget – I don’t want to hide that.”
The cost of wages, benefits, energy and debt service all increased in the town portion of the proposed budget, he said. But those increases were offset by Town Hall's decision to put $1.7 million less into a capital fund than it did in the current budget.
Rosenthal also decided not to honor requests by department heads to hire two police officers, an emergency communications worker and a fire administrator.
“I felt like we were juggling a bunch of things – our pensions … our roads … and some of the other inflationary drivers around electricity and gas and everything else,” Rosenthal said. “I am not saying those positions can’t be discussed in future years, I just didn’t think this was the year for it.”
Town Hall also kept a lid on spending increases by eliminating 1 1/2 vacant positions, and because new police officers have replaced retiring officers.
“We have quite a few new police officers who are starting on step one of their wage schedule replacing officers who retired who were on step five,” Newtown Finance Director Robert Tait said. “So that made a major difference.”
In the school budget, which forecasts a 1 percent enrollment drop of 41 students from the current 3,953 total, the district would eliminate three teaching positions and 12 staff positions, including 11 paraeducators.
Those cuts help absorb a spending increase of 3 percent or $1.6 million for salaries, and an increase of 5 percent or $595,000 for benefits.
In addition, Melillo said he reduced budget requests from administrators by $1.75 million.
Reach Rob Ryser at rryser@newstimes.com of 203-731-3342