No big-ticket items; modest school budget hike driven by payroll

As published in the Record Journal Sunday January 20, 2013

By Eric Vo
Record-Journal staff
(203) 317-2235
evo@record-journal.com
Twitter: @ericvoRJ

WALLINGFORD - Teacher salaries and employee benefits are the main factors that led School Superintendent Salvatore Menzo to request a 2.54 percent increase in the 2013-14 school budget, Menzo said last week.

“Salaries and benefits are the bulk of the increase,” he said.

Teacher raises for the next two school years under the terms of a three-year contract with the Wallingford Education Association amount to $2.75 million in additional spending.

Within Menzo’s proposed budget increase for the next school year, $1,527,524 will go to personnel services, such as salaries, and $608,663 will go to employee benefits.

Board of Education Chairwoman Roxane McKay said she was “all in all pleased” with Menzo’s budget request.

“I was happy to see his request in the 2.5 range,” McKay said. “I was happy to see that it is lower than it has been in prior years.”

Chet Miller, a member of the Board of Education, said Menzo’s low proposal is a positive sign that the district is saving money through various factors, such as the retirement of teachers.

Due to of retirements and a decline in enrollment at the elementary schools, Menzo was able to create 12 new positions.

“These positions were reduced and reallocated based on the enrollment at the elementary schools,” Menzo said. The levels of enrollment “did not allow for these positions to be maintained,” he said.

Since the district made significant investments during the current school year, Menzo said the next school budget does not contain large purchases for things like technology. While a majority of the budget will go to salaries and benefits, the rest of the moneywill be used for utilities and fuel, transportation, tuitions and dues and fees.

Menzo also presented a separate number for his “strategic plan budget” — $97,603,899 — which represents the cost of funding everything the district wants to accomplish in the strategic plan. Menzo described his strategic plan budget as an “enhancement budget that is based on the strategic plan, which includes all the mandates and federal guidelines” the district has to follow. It is revised by school personnel, board members, parents, students and community members, Menzo said.

Now that Menzo has presented his budget for the next school year, the next step is for the Board of Education to go through it during the budget workshop on Saturday.