Shelton superintendent asks aldermen to restore reserves, warns of Title I cut and rising special-education costs

Shelton Superintendent Ken Saron told a special budget meeting of the Board of Aldermen on April 10 that the Board of Educationis seeking an operational budget that maintains current services and preserves previously established reserves to cover rising contractual and special-education costs.

Saron said the districtis asking for funding to meet legal and contractual obligations rather than to expand services. "This budget is about needs, it is not about wants," he said, and urged aldermen to re-establish reserve accounts that were used this year to avoid a $2,000,000 deficit.

The superintendent outlined several specific pressures that drove the request. He said the district faces roughly $2.3 million in contractual obligations for staff and a $20,000 increase for building equipment and services. He also said a midyear federal Title I funding cut reduced the districtallocations by about $411,000 for next year, money that currently supports bilingual teachers and targeted reading and math interventions. "We are looking at $411,000 of that funding lost for next year," Saron said.

Saron detailed fast growth in the district's pre-K population, saying pre-K enrollment has approximately doubled year over year and that the district now serves roughly 140 pre-K students. He noted state rules for pre-K that limit class size to 20 and require three adults in each full pre-K classroom, which will force hiring of additional certified and support staff if enrollment continues to rise.

The superintendent also flagged rising out-of-district tuition and special-education costs. He said tuition for out-of-district placements often increases with no local mechanism to constrain it and cited a requested increase of roughly $550,000 to cover anticipated placements. Saron described reserve accounts established in the current fiscal year as a safeguard: he said the city previously set aside $1.3 million for special education and $2.0 million for health care, and asked that similar reserves be maintained in the coming year.

Paul Hillard, the city finance official on the call, gave projections on health-care costs and said the boardwas already at risk of exceeding its health-care budget. "This year's budget for the Board of Education has basically $8,200,000 for health care," Hillard said, and noted an estimate that costs could reach about $10,073,000, adding that the existing $2,000,000 reserve may be inadequate.

Saron also described modest program-level savings the district says it has achieved. He pointed to the Shelton Pathway Academy (the modulars at Perry Hill) as an example, saying the program cost the district about $65,000 to set up and that, through March, it had produced about $328,005.97 in savings by bringing back students previously placed out of district and by reducing expensive homebound tutoring costs.

The superintendent said the mayor asked the Board of Education to add $200,000 to the transportation line to cover charges from the city-run bus company; he said that increase was not originally in the board's draft but was included at the mayor's request. Several aldermen questioned the presentation and asked for more detailed breakdowns, including line-by-line projections to the end of March and clearer separation of city in-kind services versus amounts shown in the district's state-reported totals.

Board members and staff agreed to provide more detailed object-code projections and to circulate March close numbers the following week. The meeting concluded with aldermen noting several follow-up budget sessions and scheduling dates for continued review.

Votes at the meeting: none recorded. The presentation was discussion and a request for funding; formal appropriations or votes will occur in later aldermanic proceedings.