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Coventry school leaders cite special-education, pensions and health premiums as principal budget pressures
Summary
Superintendent Cowart outlined school priorities and cost drivers — including special-education placements, transportation and a newly estimated $500,000 health-care increase — and discussed the districts deficit-reduction plan with councilors.
Superintendent Cowart presented the Coventry School Departments budget highlights and warned that special-education placements, transportation and rising health-care costs are exerting significant pressure on the districts finances.
Cowart said the district's portion included in the towns proposed budget totals roughly $87.2 million, a year-over-year increase of about $2.9 million. "Our current enrollment as of the day I printed this sheet was 4,210 kids," Cowart said while reviewing 10-year enrollment projections and per-pupil data.
He described several mandated and high-cost categories: out-of-district special-education tuition (roughly $2 million), career-and-technical-education (CTE) tuition, DCYF placements and charter tuition. Cowart also said a recent notice from the insurance trust raised the districts anticipated health-care costs by roughly $500,000. "We budgeted 7.5 for health, and it went up to 14.5," he said, summarizing the schools updated premium expectations.
To limit the immediate impact, the school budget as proposed includes use of an internal service fund and a planned appropriation toward the accumulated deficit; Savetti and Cowart said the administration expects to reduce the districts deficit by a multi-hundred-thousand-dollar amount in FY2027, but that the additional health-care costs will shrink the planned surplus unless other offsets are found.
The superintendent said the district has pursued cost-saving steps, including purchasing minivans to reduce statewide transportation contract costs and auditing transportation routes to identify duplicative runs. He also described efforts to expand revenue from Medicaid reimbursements and to manage out-of-district tuition spending.
Cowart and the council discussed the maintenance-of-effort requirement, where the town must appropriate a minimum local share for schools; council members asked whether some operating costs could be shifted to capital lines, and Savetti cautioned that shifting operating salaries into capital could create a structural deficit later.
Savetti said the town and school will continue to coordinate with the auditor general to formalize and monitor a three-year deficit-reduction plan.
