Keeping strictly to the Board of Finance‘s recommended guidance, on Thursday, Jan. 8, Wilton Public Schools’ Superintendent Kevin Smith presented the Board of Education with a $100,459,485 budget proposal for 2026-27 — a.k.a. Fiscal Year ’27 — representing a 3.6% increase over the current year’s operating budget.
Wilton Public Schools’ approved FY ’26 budget is $96,968,334.
“In truth, I’m actually feeling very pleased with where we’ve landed,” Smith said. “As you’re well aware it’s always a serious challenge to try to meet both the needs of the district and the desire to constrain spending and tax growth as much as possible. I think this budget does that.”
As always, salaries and benefits account for the greatest piece of the budget, with 80%, or $80,679,000 allocated in this category. Smith said the assumptions included a 4% overall increase in teachers salaries and a 3% increased in administrator salaries. He said that other contracts, including those for paraprofessionals, custodians and secretaries, are still out for negotiation.
“Those increases are to be determined,” he said.
He said that annual staff attrition, which results in some higher-salaried staff retiring or leaving and being replaced with newer people who begin lower on salary scales, will potential account for a $400,000 offset in the salary line overall.
The next largest areas are transportation costs totaling $5,307,943, which represents a slight decrease despite an increase in the bus contract, and private tuition costs totaling $3,036,732.
Smith outlined how his district continues to make what he called “cost avoidance” moves to reduce these areas, especially with regard to out-of-district placements of students with special needs.
“I want to take a couple of minutes to talk about the magnitude of the financial impact,” Smith said of existing programs aimed at special student services, including Genesis and Community Steps.
“Consider outplacements for a moment,” Smith said. “The range of current out-of-district tuition costs run from about $76,000 to about $160,000 on average. That doesn’t include the tuition cost for students who require residential services. Those tuition costs can run well north of $200,000, even close to a half-million dollars,” with transportation for these students, he said, ranging from $55,000 to $160,000 annually.
“Our current per-pupil expenditure at Genesis is about $41,317 and our current per-pupil at Community Steps is just about $49,000. Our current in-district transportation cost is about $240 a day,” he said. “When compared to out-of-district and transportation costs, I calculate a cost avoidance for Genesis students within a range that runs from just about $69,000 to about $145,000, and the cost avoidance for Community Steps I see is about $61,000 to almost $145,000.”
Smith said similar programs are run throughout the district but that savings are harder to calculate because they involve full-time building staff.
With the district already experiencing transportation savings by having bought its own van this year and hiring a designated driver, Smith said Wilton will realize further savings with another van purchase next year and onboarding another driver.
Despite an overall decrease in enrollment, Smith said the district is expanding its full-time employee count (FTE) by 7.6 FTE.
“The majority of those positions are offset by reductions in other lines and don’t represent that new spend necessarily,” he said, explaining that some salaries that were already allocated in the current budget are now going to be switched around.
New positions will include a new dean position at Wilton High School, funding a social worker position at Miller-Driscoll School that previously was subsidized by grant money, adding both a “Certified Orton-Gillingham teacher” and a Board-Certified Behavior Analyst at the elementary level, adding a special education paraprofessional, a varsity boys volleyball coach, and a part-time payroll and finance support position, and turning what are currently two coordinator positions into administrator positions.
In presenting, Smith drew on comparisons between Wilton and other similar nearby districts that are part of its District Reference Group (DRG), and includes Darien, New Canaan, Ridgefield, Weston and Westport. He noted that Wilton has a much higher student-to-administrator ratio than the others among other points.
Per pupil expenditures were comparatively lower to the DRG towns, he said, with Wilton only 59th in the state in per pupil expenditures.
Meanwhile, he lauded the many successes of the districts — its students and schools, which have received national praise in some instances.
“That’s some of the context for this budget proposal,” Smith said. “With every budget we ask how can we maintain and build on our success.”
BOE Chair Ruth DeLuca praised Smith and his team for the budget.
“I think that this represents a tremendous amount of work, so I want to say thank you to you and the staff … I think that it’s really tremendous that you were able to stay with the guidance that was given by the Board of Finance,” DeLuca said.
“We’ll have lots of time to live with this … Any questions that you have starting today, send them in to Kevin and myself,” she told board members. “They do get formally logged on a sheet. That log becomes public record.”
The BOE has a joint meeting with the BOF to discuss the budget on Feb. 10.
Unusual Public Comment from a Selectman
The lone public comment came from Wilton’s Second Selectman Ross Tartell, who was in attendance at the meeting. He praised Smith for the budget, noting that he was envious because his own board was “not as advanced as you in the budget process.”
Tartell also went on to offer Smith various suggestions on how he could better present the budget, including offering more of an explanation on why the FTE has increased and more directly linking budgeted initiatives to what makes the district successful.
“We live in a town that doesn’t believe it has two nickels to rub together … and we are very careful with our dollars,” he said, indicating Smith needed to craft a better argument to sell the budget to the public.
Tartell also made an off-camera remark to individuals in the room, which was picked up by the microphone, telling them, “It is gonna change.”
The interaction was an unusual one. It’s not typical for a town official on one board involved in the budget proposal and setting process — the Board of Selectmen — to appear at the meeting of the other board that takes part in that same process — the BOE — and critique the proposed budget. Also atypical is that the individual to whom Tartell was giving feedback — Smith — is an employee of the BOE, and not an employee that reports to the BOS or another elected official.
What added to the surprising nature of Tartell’s comments was that he did not identify himself as a private citizen before making his comments, nor did he note that his remarks did not reflect the views of the Board of Selectmen — something Town officials are recommended to do by Town Counsel to avoid FOIA and ethics complications. Blurring the lines even further was his referral to his own board’s budget process, potentially giving an impression for any residents who might have heard his comments that he was speaking as a member of or on behalf of the BOS.
Asked later by GOOD Morning Wilton whether he was there speaking on behalf of the Board of Selectmen, Tartell wrote in an email that he was at the BOE meeting as a private citizen and offered “apologies for not making that clear.”
As for his ‘hot-mic’ “It is gonna change” remark, Tartell said it referred to Smith’s proposed budget. “I was offered a copy of Kevin’s presentation — which I obviously thought was excellent. I made my comment as I turned down the offer,” he wrote, adding that “… this is early January and at this stage in the budget cycle there are still public meetings, meetings with the BOF and other unforeseen events.”
Tartell explained why he “felt comfortable” making the comments: “The BOE budget has never been discussed at the BOS and as a selectman I have no influence on the schools,” he said.
Is someone able to confirm the number of Full Time Employees (FTE)? I’d be interested to know what the per-person average cost of employment is based on the $80,679,000 allocated for salaries and benefits / # of FTE’s