School District Budget Forum, Thursday Evening

A public discussion with the Board of Education is scheduled for 7:00 pm on Thursday, January 20, as the Board continues developing a budget that will be proposed to voters for fiscal year 2022-23.

The Board has until the end of the month to submit its request, which winds its way through the Board of Selectmen and Board of Finance before going to a Budget Referendum in the spring.

Thursday evening’s meeting will be held virtually. Hearing from the public in an online setting is technologically challenging and less than ideal, but the school board has a mechanism.

Where it stands

Those following the school district budget discussions, beginning with the superintendent’s initial presentation on January 6, already know much of the fiscal picture. We will publish a summary early on Thursday.

At the bottom line, cost pressures, in addition to an inflationary economy at the moment, come from the usual places: rising prices for benefits such as health insurance, and special education needs and costs that remain difficult to predict. The salary line increases very little, and several positions have been eliminated.

At the moment, the projected operating budget increase comes in at about 3.5 percent, at least until the Board of Education completes line-by-line scrutiny in a series of budget workshops and the full Board votes on a final request, which goes through the Selectmen to the Board of Finance.