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Region 15 board hears budget presentation warning that health insurance and special education costs are driving next year’s increase
Summary
Superintendent Joshua Smith told the joint finance meeting that rising health-insurance and special-education costs are the largest budget pressures for Regional School District 15; board members debated risk tolerance, potential targeted cuts and smoothing the district's allocation formula ahead of a referendum and follow-up meeting on April 6.
Joshua Smith, superintendent of Regional School District 15, told a joint finance meeting that rising health-insurance and special-education costs are the biggest threats to next year's budget.
"This is the chart that keeps me up at night," Smith said, referring to a slide showing recent insurance trends and a district survey he described as averaging a 44% increase in health-insurance costs among 70 responding Connecticut districts. He said the district's own modelling suggests that, if current trends continue, insurance spending could grow faster than salary spending within about a decade.
Smith framed the proposal by explaining the district moved from a net- to a gross-budget presentation to make revenue sources and allocations more transparent. He said the technical budget increase is 5.48 percent while towns see a 5.3 percent change on the towns' budgeting metric, and identified three main cost drivers: salaries, benefits…
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