It’s subject to change at this point, but Wilton Public Schools Superintendent Kevin Smith told the Board of Education on Thursday, Oct. 10 that he’s currently estimating next year’s budget to represent a 5.89% increase over the current $93.2-million budget.
“It’s not finalized yet, but I can paint you a picture in broad brushstrokes,” he said. “Today, bottom line, we’re looking at a year-over-year budget change of about 5.89% increase, if all things remain the same.”
“This is preliminary,” he said. “I anticipate it’ll probably come down some.”
Smith shared the projection with the Board of Finance last month, at which time the financiers were scheduled to discuss budget guidance. But because the town asked for additional time to prepare its own budget projections, the BOF decided to postpone that discussion until its Oct. 8 meeting, which ended up being canceled.
There is no information on whether the BOF will vote on budget guidance at its November meeting.
In January 2024, despite the budget guidelines the BOF gave Smith in fall of 2023 — that the school budget stay below 4% for 2024-25 — Smith initially presented a $94.1-million figure, representing a 5.56% increase.
At that time he said he was unable to find a way to reduce it further “without reducing existing programs and staff.”
By April, however — urged on by BOF concerns about the number — Smith was able to whittle it down to a 4.5% increase, finding various reductions.
Ironically, Smith has gotten flak in recent weeks from some BOE members and members of the public, about making a call to spend $80,000 on magnetic canvas pouches that will be used to augment his initiative to ban student cellphones at Wilton High School. He authorized the purchase prior to the board approving the policy upon which the initiative was based.
At Thursday’s meeting, BOE member Heather Priest once again questioned Smith’s decision, as well as his power, in allocating that money, which Smith said came from “some unexpected funds” that became available at the end of the last fiscal year.
Budget Drivers
Smith attributed a large part of the projected increase for 2025-26 to contractual wage increases, with total salaries going up about 4.1%.
“Medical is pretty modest,” he said. “We’re anticipating a just-under-6% increase, which is actually really good if you look at previous increases (and) increases experienced by other districts.”
All other benefits combined, he said, will increase about 5.77%.
“Utilities, we’re anticipating right now about a 3.25% increase,” he said. “That’s a number we have to go back and look at just (to) kind of zero in on diesel fuel.”
“We’ve been engaged in a study around all of our phone lines and so we’re hoping to get good news,” Smith said, regarding a small reduction there. “I think we have a number of lines that we may not need and so if we can eliminate those, it’s not gonna be hundreds of thousands of dollars, but like thousands of dollars we can save.”
“SPED tuition is forecasted to increase by about 14%,” he said.
“For total transportation, we’re forecasting just over 6%, so that’s STA plus all the private transportation,” he said.
STA, or Student Transportation of America, is the bus company Wilton has engaged for several years.
“We have a one-year contract with them right now and so we’ve got a meeting with STA,” Smith said. “We’ve invited them to come and present a proposal for us to consider, so we’ll see kind of what that looks like and then we’ll have to decide going forward — if it’s a very competitive proposal — (if) we want to stick with STA or do we want to go through a more formal bid process and go see what the marketplace looks like.”
“They’ve been a good partner for us for a long time and the last time we did this they were very competitive,” he said. “I’m optimistic they want to continue their service here.”
Smith said he had no other relevant information to provide.
“We’ll continue, as we refine leading into the budget process, as we get better inputs, we’ll come back and refine that number,” he said.
This is the same guy that just pissed away $80,000 on cellphone bags for the students?
Not a chance.
We could save 80,000 and return the Yondr pouches