With little said beyond praise for the process, the Board of Education unanimously adopted a $96,968,334 budget for FY 2026 on Thursday night, Feb. 27.
The budget, meeting the suggested guidance from the Board of Finance, represents exactly a 4.0% increase over the current year’s BOE budget of $93,238,159, with no changes made to the proposal Superintendent Kevin Smith presented.
“This has been one of the smoother budget seasons that I can remember,” BOE Chair Ruth DeLuca said, “but it took us a lot to get here, so I want to recognize everyone.”
DeLuca took the opportunity of Thursday’s meeting to put a plug in for bonding in order to fund as much work on facility repair as possible.
“I … fully support and encourage the town to fully use our current bonding capacity,” DeLuca read in a statement after the budget was approved, “bonding up to our current debt service (and) tax level, allowing us to advance our large infrastructure needs at current tax levels.”
In what might have been a response to First Selectman Toni Boucher and other Board of Selectmen members who have expressed frustration about school facility maintenance expenditures being paid for out of the town-side operating budget, DeLuca made a distinction.
“We take our role as tenants seriously,” she said, “providing the best possible physical and technological environment possible, given our resources and ability.”
“The district does not own the buildings,” she said. “We cannot bond and we cannot carry multi-million dollar, multi-year expenditures.”
DeLuca also expressed support for a municipal infrastructure fund, which was originally proposed by former First Selectwoman Lynne Vanderslice and appears to have the support of the BOF.
“This new fund can carry over annually for the purpose of addressing needed improvements in school and municipal infrastructure,” DeLuca said. “Funding the account would fall under the purview of the Board of Finance and the (Board of Selectmen) would oversee the spending.”
Just last week, as they struggled to complete their own budget proposal, more than one BOS member expressed a strong interest in the creation of this fund, despite Boucher’s concern about who would be making the spending decisions.
On Jan. 15., Wilton’s Town and School Needs Assessment Priorities Committee arrived at a prioritized list of recommended proposed capital projects for FY’26, with the top 10 bondable items totaling $8,970,460. Seven of the 10 projects were school-related.
While BOF Chair Matt Raimondi, who served on the TSNAP committee, has expressed support for a $9 million price tag with regard to next year’s bonding, DeLuca pointed out that the BOF would be disseminating its annual budget survey next week.
“I encourage all citizens to fully engage in the budget process,” she said, calling the survey an avenue for public comment on the budget.
Unanimous Support
Along with all BOE members voting in favor of its new budget, several shared brief thoughts about it as well.
“It’s a good budget,” BOE member Pam Ely said. “It’s a very clean one and it certainly addresses a lot of what we need to get addressed.”
“But there was a lot of things that didn’t get in it,” she noted. “I think the whole facilities thing, I think, is really the tricky one because we just keep kicking it down the road, and further down the road that’s probably gonna come to bite us, eventually, if not pretty soon.”
BOE Vice Chair Nicola Davies also expressed concerns over facilities and equipment, especially at the Clune Center for the Arts.
“As someone very attached to the fine and performing arts, I just have concerns that the capital improvement plan is not gonna work fast enough for certain things in the Clune Center,” she said, “sound and lighting, engineering that’s going on in there.”
“We’ve managed yet again to do so much with hardly any more dollars, it seems … However, I have concerns about the aging of some of our facilities and equipment,” Davies said.
In her statement, DeLuca noted that while the BOE would have preferred a higher increase than 4%, it was cognizant of fiscal constraints facing the town.
“While guidance was set slightly below where the BOE would have preferred, it was done with transparency and understanding of both our current tax environment and education commitments,” she said.
DeLuca also called it “a budget that I think we can feel works for us and advances our priorities in a fiscally disciplined and responsible manner at the same time.”
BOE member Lori Bufano praised the process and team behind it.
“It was a highly collaborative, insightful and informative process,” she said, “and I just want to say ‘Thank You’ to everyone.”
Perhaps referencing another difference between the BOE and the Board of Selectmen, DeLuca noted that the limited comments from BOE members on Thursday night reflected the time they’d already spent reviewing a budget that was presented to them meeting the BOF guidance in January even then.
“Sometimes when we get to this point, it kind of gets quiet just because we’ve spent months on it now,” she said, “but I don’t want anyone out there to think the silence reflects kind of like a lack of diligence.”
“We’ve just been living with this for a very long time,” she said.