Westport Schools Superintendent Colleen Palmer today sent parents an explanation for her proposed 2018-19 academic year operating budget — $119,170,202, a 4.19 percent increase.
Colleen Palmer: cites increased medical claims. Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com
She first disclosed the budget figure at Tuesday night’s Board of Education meeting and will discuss it in detail at an all-day budget work session Friday beginning at 9:30 a.m. in the Town Hall auditorium.
Her budget, $4,792,855 more than the current year’s, is due to increased medical claims that “are trending unfavorably for the district,” Palmer said.
“The current FY 2018 operating budget was able to be set below 2 percent with the infusion of one-time funds from a robust health insurance reserve last year,” she said.
“However, now that the medical claims are trending unfavorably for the district, the impact of two years of increases in medical costs are hitting our budget for FY 2019,” Palmer added.
According to the superintendent, salaries and benefits represent 81.5 percent of the total budget and 99.2 percent of the $4.8 million request for new funds.
In the wake of that, Palmer said she targeted a number of cost savings and cost avoidance initiatives.
They include: the reduction of two buses to the Coleytown Elementary School and Coleytown Middle School; effective management of building maintenance; competitive bidding; the “reallocation of existing staff to address high priority needs and increased reliance on data for decision making.”
Palmer’s proposed budget also calls for offsetting custodial costs with $200,000 from the cafeteria fund, permissible with the exit this year from the National School Lunch Program and the “strategic deferral of select nonessential building needs,” such as carpet replacement and interior painting.
She said that the increase “for all cost except health insurance is 1.6 percent.” Palmer also stressed her proposed budget will ensure the school system can implement its “strategic plan of continuous improvement.”
“Through our comprehensive listening tour to create the goals for our strategic plan, we have developed an ambitious agenda to move our District to an even higher level of educational excellence,” Palmer said.
“Without a significant financial impact, we can reallocate, re-imagine, and rework how we serve the children and families of Westport to ensure that every student has a personalized pathway of success that is rigorous, engaging, and purposeful within a healthy learning environment,” she added.
— James Lomuscio
