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Date: 4/19/2022
GRANBY – A budget of $9.1 million was passed unanimously by the School Committee during its April 12 meeting and now will go to Town Meeting later in the spring.
Superintendent Stephen Sullivan opened the public hearing for the fiscal year 2023 (FY23) budget with a presentation of this year’s focuses on the budget and the reasons behind some decisions made. He added that the schools worked hard with their leadership team as well as the town in making sure they had better communication in the budgeting process.
Sullivan started the budget presentation by going through the strategic priorities they developed to drive budget costs. He cited the schools’ priorities as making sure to provide the best for teachers and students, resources for staff, equipping the schools with 21st century tech and focus on providing the proper social and emotional learning and support for students.
The superintendent continued and explained that they worked to identify a zero base budget in order to best identify the needs in each school. He added this information comes down to services, operations and maintenance of facilities.
When going into more detail of the expense drivers for the FY23 budget, Sullivan said one impact was inflation and collective bargaining agreements that always are an automatic driver within the budget. He noted that the latest collective bargaining agreement has alone accounted for a 2 percent increase in the budget. Sullivan added that about 80 percent of the budget as a whole was devoted to personnel.
Another expense driver that was noted was in special education services. With an increase in the number of students needing a high level of special education support the school district has committed to continuing development of a continuum of services in the Granby school system.
Sullivan noted based on this information that the schools are educating a different demographic in many ways than the town has in the past. He added that there has also been an 11 percent increase in low-income families within the district.
When moving on to proposed reductions for FY23, the superintendent said these were not all encompassing as they asked their director of pupil services to build a budget, they felt would be needed to provide high quality instruction to all students and to make sure teachers have access to resources to meet those needs. The biggest reductions would come from office supplies, building substitutes, English Language Arts materials and textbook replacements.
When looking at proposed cuts for FY23, Sullivan explained that due to the budget being built on projections, some of this could change but with their current budget this would be where cuts would be made. He added that many variables can change areas of the budget and for example, noted that fuel costs had a significant increase this year.
“It could change again potentially, but that’s the info we have now,” Sullivan said.
The biggest cut will be $62,614 for a kindergarten teaching position as the schools plan to reduce the number of kindergarten classrooms from three to two. There was also a notable cut of $43,259 for a full-time nurse position, as well as $29,549 for curriculum and instructional materials.
Sullivan said the cut to a nursing position was entirely COVID-19 related and he would’ve liked to keep in the position for one more year but ultimately could not. With the final proposed FY23 budget number sitting at $9.1 million, Sullivan said this would be a five percent increase from last year.
When opening up for more discussion among committee members, School Committee member Jennifer Bartosz asked why the East Meadow school budget was noticeably higher than Granby Junior-Senior High School. The budget for East Meadow sits at $3.3 million, while the budget for the high school is at $2.8 million.
Adam Tarquini, director of finance and operations as well as a member of the senior leadership team assisting in creating the budget, said the higher costs at East Meadow could be credited to the difference in paraprofessionals working at each school. He added there were about 15 more paraprofessionals at East Meadow than the high school.
Sullivan felt the budget was ready to be voted on and approved during the meeting and that he felt it had the potential to get on the Annual Town Meeting article and not have any major issues in getting passed. He also mentioned this was not necessarily the budget any of the committee wanted or hoped for, but that progress was made through this project and they had a solid proposal in place.
“There are likely to be unanticipated costs and I think we learned from the town we are better off going to them for those unanticipated costs. We tried with good intentions to our detriment to absorb costs,” Sullivan said. “I’m emphasizing our budget is built on projections. What we know in April and then in August may change. The position we are in when it is built from a snapshot from the year prior, there are so many variables to it.”
School Committee member Stephanie Parent said during closing remarks that she appreciated the creativity and effort that went into the budgeting process this year. She added she was happy to see there was nothing that jumped out or was cut where students were going to be drastically impacted, such as sports or music.
The FY23 budget now goes to the Town Meeting in May for an official vote of approval from the town.