BOE Continues Discussing Proposed FY’25 School Budget Tonight, with Coaching Program Already “On the Table”

As part of the annual budget-setting process, Wilton’s Board of Education (BOE) has begun to dig into the proposed FY 2025 school budget, which Superintendent Kevin Smith presented to BOE members on Thursday, Jan. 11.

After budget workshops on Jan. 23-25 and a session for community members to discuss budget concerns and ask questions, the BOE held its first all-board discussion with Smith at a regularly scheduled BOE meeting on Thursday, Jan. 25. [Editor’s note: the conversation will continue at tonight’s BOE meeting, Thursday, Feb. 1 at 7 p.m. BOE members have expressed their desire to hear from residents with questions or comments about the proposed budget. Residents can attend in person or watch online and also participate during public comment, in person or via Zoom. They can also email the BOE.]

Smith’s proposed $94,140,103 school budget for 2024-25 represents a $4,958,411 increase (5.56%) over the $89,081,692 budget approved for the current fiscal year.

But it’s also $1.5 million over the guidance provided by the Board of Finance. The board discussed specific costs as well as whether members should make particular suggestions for possible spending reductions — and if so, what expenses to cut.

One suggested area around which there was extended discussion was spending on the instructional coaching program, which BOE member Heather Priest suggested should be considered for reduction to help meet that BOF guidance.

Specific Areas Discussed

Smith responded to specific questions about his proposed budget that previously had been submitted by BOE members, including:

• Special education evaluations: In the current budget year, the district has already spent $91,990 on evaluations. Assistant Superintendent for Special Services Andrea Leonardi said that spending is already “slightly elevated” due to an increase in the number of required psychiatric evaluations, while other types of evaluations have been “pretty stable.”

Smith projects that evaluation costs will be higher for FY’25, following trends showing rising costs over the last four years: in 2019-20, the district spent approximately $81,000; by 2022-23 spending was approximately $113,000.

• Anticipated reductions in state grants: Wilton Schools receive money from the State of Connecticut through two grants: the Education Cost Sharing grant (ECS) and Excess Cost Reimbursement (ECR) grant.
  • ECS: Smith said Wilton’s ECS grant has been cut “pretty dramatically” over time. “Four or five years ago, we got somewhere north of a million dollars, close to a million and a half, and that’s been whittled away in recent years.” Smith anticipates getting $461,796 for FY’25.
  • ECR: Smith explained this grant is related to special education expenditures. “For any student who costs four and a half more times than our per pupil [cost], we can submit [a request to the state] for reimbursement. The state never fully funds that grant. In recent years, we’ve gotten 75%-80% back.” For the current fiscal year, Wilton budgeted for 70% reimbursement but according to Smith, the district recently “received some bad news” — that the district won’t receive that full 70% that he’d budgeted for this year’s reimbursement. “That’s a problem for us,” Smith told the BOE, adding that it will likely push the district to “freeze” its current budget.

• Teacher turnover: Teacher turnover was around 6% this past year, higher than the historical average of 3-4%. Several late summer resignations (in June or July) revealed something new: many departing teachers said they were taking jobs closer to home. “Anecdotally, since COVID, people are making different life choices to spend more quality time at home… and the distance combined with the number of vacancies and what some districts across the state have done to make salaries more competitive, are factors that have impacted some of the resignations that we’ve seen,” HR Director Maria Coleman said.

• Restoring full-funding for clubs and activities: The FY’25 budget restores full funding for clubs and activities across the district to pre-pandemic levels, after administrators cut spending in this area for the current year’s budget. Smith increased that line item 57% year-over-year for next year, restoring the number of clubs to prior levels and factoring in a contractually increased stipend for teacher advisors. Administrators indicated that public interest in fully restoring clubs and activities was strong, especially at the high school. “We heard pretty clearly today from the community [conversation] we gathered around the budget that there’s there’s a real appetite to go back to 100%,” Wilton High School Principal Robert O’Donnell said.

• Finance office addition: Smith said the addition of a 0.5 FTE in the finance office (at $45,000) was “a priority,” especially to assist with pursuing private grants — a cost he expects will be recouped. “In thinking about how we might dedicate time to pursuing these grants, I would say it’s hard to measure what the return on investment could be, but I can easily imagine anywhere from one to 10x … From a granting opportunity $45,000 is not a lot to cover,” he said.

Differing Opinions on Whether to Reduce Spending Proposal

New BOE member Heather Priest asked to clarify what BOE members’ responsibilities were at this point in the budget process, especially since the superintendent’s proposed “first pass” budget had come in 1.5% above the BOF ‘suggested’ guidance of a 4% budget increase.

“If you say to me, ‘Find something, let’s dig in and find places to cut,’ that’s obviously a lot of work and… everything has value, right? We’re not going to make any friends cutting anything. If our task is to truly find places to cut, then we have to be willing to talk about everything. [But] if it’s, ‘No, let’s find a way to validate and justify and go back to the town and say… we really do need all of this,’ then that’s what we’ll do. I just want to figure out what we have to do,” Priest said.

Smith described what he felt was “the job” at hand in order for the BOE to vote on a final budget to present to the BOF and the town on Feb. 29.

“By that point, I’d hope there’s a budget you can feel good about. Ultimately you want a budget you can stand up and support in any forum. How do you come to that determination? You heard the presentation. You know the budget drivers, you know what the needs are. The administrators spent a lot of time [explaining] what’s in the budget and what they wished was here [but isn’t]. You have to come to a judgment: if this is overshooting a mark, it’s incumbent to raise questions in areas where maybe we need to reduce. Conversely, if it’s not meeting the mark, you should raise questions in areas of concern, where we might need to augment,” Smith said.

There wasn’t full agreement on whether any budget cuts should be considered before approving the budget and sending it to the BOF. Some members, including BOE Chair Ruth DeLuca, felt the BOF’s budget guidance was just that — guidance — and it was the school board’s job to determine the budget needed to meet the district’s goals.

“There’s a value component in terms of dollar value and the values of the district. And that might not meet the guidance number,” DeLuca said. “When we settle on a budget, it’s incumbent upon us to present why we think that is the necessary number. And then it’s the BOF’s job to deliberate and say whether they think that’s something the town can afford. And there can be a disconnect between those two things. And that’s a town discussion and a town conversation.”

Others felt more obligation to get closer to the guidance.

“I think it’s part of our job to look for opportunities. So if we did find an opportunity, we’d bring that forward. At this time, [let’s say] we can save $100,000 on office supplies by doing some kind of formula, we would bring that forward to our number, which will take it down. That’s what I think our work is,” new member Lori Bufano said.

Whether or not there was room in the budget to cut was also discussed.

“So do we do our due dilligence and say, ‘We can’t cut as much as you want us to cut?” member Pam Ely asked.

DeLuca said that decision hadn’t yet been made, but Smith interjected to answer, “I can say that.”

“I really, really had hoped that I would land at the guidance,” Smith continued. “It would make the whole process smoother and less contentious and be acceptable to more people in the town. But that’s not my first obligation. My first obligation is to present you a budget that I would consider responsible, that’s going to address our goals, meet our aspirations, and provide for what we view is the needs of our students. That’s the budget you have in front of you.”

He added that he had gotten to a 5.56% proposed increase after starting with 8%.

Suggesting Areas to Cut

New member Patrick Pearson suggested that if members had ideas about areas to cut, meetings before the Feb. 29 deadline to vote would be a good time to discuss what impact such cuts would have.

“Let’s throw them on the table and understand the real time implications of what those would be, and that there’s a trade off,” he said.

Priest agreed. “It would be important so we can actually have a target, have a goal, to come out the other side, showing everyone that we really have done our due diligence.”

Priest suggested looking at the instructional coaching positions as a place to potentially find reductions. She said the suggestion would be ‘unpopular’ but wanted to discuss it.

She noted that many teachers in the district have advanced degrees, and with department heads at WHS and instructional leaders at Middlebrook, it was reasonable to re-examine “paring down” instructional coaching positions — something she said other districts including Greenwich, Darien and Ridgefield have done in their secondary schools. Priest, who had previously been a Wilton teacher, reflected on her own experience.

“I love all those people, I’ve known some of those coaches for 20 years. And it’s not that I don’t find value in them. But if push comes to shove, if we have to cut, I would rather see a full-time STEM teacher at Miller-Driscoll. I would rather see more paras in the classroom supporting special ed teachers,” Priest said, arguing to at least have a conversation to consider it. “The more I just hear us talk about how much money we’re spending on these highly educated, highly talented, highly competent teachers and that we’re also spending all this money on coaches. I just think that we should take another look at it.”

Vice Chair Nicola Davies defended coaching.

“Kevin says that coaches are our capacity builders, and that really resonated with me. Especially in the elementary school, need that help. And fidelity of instruction [from coaching] — when my kids were in Cider Mill, there was much grumblings about different experiences that different kids got in different classrooms. That’s all gone away. So I am strongly in favor of holding on to the coaches as capacity builders as as insurance that every kid is getting the same experience at the elementary level,” she said.

Priest said she prioritized maintaining the student/teacher ratio, and that while she said coaches are valuable, there are choices between “absolute necessities” versus “really nice to have.”

DeLuca defended coaches as an absolute necessity. “I think about how much our staff needs to do and manage in the classroom, and how much the work and the support of the coach that then allows for the teacher to to have that space. I don’t think of it as a distinction between student-facing; it is part of what enhances the classroom experience for kids,” she said.

But if the BOF or the town voters send the message that the budget proposal must be reduced, Priest said, then something has to get cut. “Then everything’s on the chopping block.”

The board members agreed that the process would continue over the coming weeks before any budget proposal was finalized. Davies made an appeal for residents to pay attention and provide their input to the BOE.

“The budget as it stands versus the guidance from the BOF is $1.5 million apart. And I would like the residents of Wilton to be on notice that our budget may have to come down by $1.5 million. I hope everyone’s invested in this and paying attention to what’s at stake because the $1.4 [million reduction] was hard last year. If we’re looking at the same again this year, this is as tough as it’s ever been in the 18 years I’ve lived in this town. This is serious and I just want everyone out there to be paying attention and letting us know what they think,” Davies said, adding, “We haven’t had a public comment about anything for weeks. I would like feedback from people.

The board will continue reviewing the detailed budget data and questions over the next few weeks, meeting again on Thursday, Feb. 1, and then meet jointly with the Board of Finance on Feb. 8