Milford Board of Education proposes $118.95M budget, cites salaries, special education and utilities as main drivers

Milford City officials presented a proposed Board of Education budget of $118,952,091 on Feb. 19, a 4.328% year-over-year increase, which administration representatives said is driven largely by personnel costs, special-education expenses and rising utilities and contracted services.

Doctor Putayo, the superintendent-level presenter, said about 77% of the proposed budget funds salaries and benefits. The administration highlighted key drivers: negotiated pay increases for staff, increased retiree health insurance costs, an almost $1.3 million increase tied to special education, and roughly $243,000 of increased transportation and contracted services. Putayo said those contractual costs account for the vast majority of budget growth and that less than $100,000 of the total increase is attributable to items outside those four areas. The presentation also noted nearly $1,750,000 of savings, efficiencies and deferments the administration identified to help mitigate rising costs.

The proposal preserves certain safety and literacy investments while deferring some capital and instructional items: musical instruments, classroom desks and chairs, computer-equipment refreshes and some professional-learning days were listed among items pushed to a later year. The district said it is pausing larger facilities and grounds investments pending completion of a long-range facilities master plan expected this spring.

Administrators reviewed several programmatic elements: the potential reinstatement of a high-school after-school program (budgeted at about $30,000); investments in literacy and the "Right to Read" compliance work, including digital-adoption costs (Project Read AI cited at $15,000 and NoRedInk at $27,000); and a shift in some Chromebook provisioning to grade-level device sets rather than universal kindergarten 1:1 devices.

Officials also described pressures on state and federal funding. Budget staff said Milford currently receives about $9,672,523 in state education aid and that a phase-out for districts considered "overfunded" is scheduled to affect the district beginning in fiscal year 2028; they warned that reductions to federal Title I or IDEA programs would create immediate shortfalls (Title I was described as roughly $600,000 in current funding).

On transportation, staff explained a recent multi-year bus contract produced a large first-year increase (presenters cited roughly a 19.75% initial bump followed by four years of smaller increases), and that some transportation costs are spread across multiple accounts rather than appearing under a single headline line. The administration also discussed network-infrastructure deferrals, noting that many school network closets and wiring were decades old and that replacing switches and cabling is a deferred capital need.

The session closed with board members asking for more granular line-item costings and priorities; a procedural motion recessed the meeting to Monday for follow-up. No budget adoption vote occurred Feb. 19.

Next steps: administration will return with requested line-item clarifications, finalized facility-plan timing, and, if approved by relevant bodies, detailed cost models for phased implementation of deferred items.