Waterford Public Schools budget proposal adds multilingual tutors and IT hire as health costs surge

Tom, a district staff member, presented the Waterford Public Schools proposed FY26 budget and said it is oriented around three main drivers: state and federal multilingual service‑hour requirements, rising employee benefit costs, and technology demands from a one‑to‑one device model.

Tom described projected multilingual (ML) service hours by school next year, citing guidance from the Connecticut State Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights. He listed projected student counts and wide service‑hour ranges, saying, for example, "Great Neck next year 24 students who will require somewhere between 34 and 100 hours of service" and that meeting those totals with current staffing will be difficult.

To address that gap, the budget proposes repurposing existing FTEs toward elementary multilingual supports and adding two ML tutors (approximately $37,500 each, $75,000 total) to work alongside certified teachers. Tom said these tutors would "push into the classroom" and support in‑class instruction and pull‑out groups; he noted secondary scheduling limits clustering and thus makes ML coverage more challenging.

The proposal also includes a new IT position budgeted at $60,000 to support PowerSchool (the student information system), ClassLink (single sign‑on) and overall cyber‑security and device logistics. Mark, identified in the presentation as the district IT director, told board members that roughly "4,500 to 5,000" devices come online each day and that the district lost several shared‑service IT positions after the town/district split.

Tom flagged employee benefits—particularly health insurance—as a major budget pressure. "We're seeing over a 20% increase in the cost of health insurance year‑over‑year, roughly 1.66 million," he said, and explained the district is self‑insured. He added that stop‑loss insurance costs have risen substantially, saying stop‑loss premiums "have gone from 3 million to 4.8 million," which is a material factor in the increase.

On contracted services, Tom said the district brought school nursing in‑house after a vendor stepped away and now employs six nurses and four health aides, which lowered certain contracted service lines while increasing legal costs as union negotiations near. On transportation, he said the current bus contract ends this fiscal year and the budget includes a placeholder pending bids.

Other line items the presentation called out included moving Chromebook replacement into operating ($197,000), a $110,000 vape‑detector pilot at Waterford High School and Clark Lane (about 10 detectors), swimming pool diving‑board replacement ($42,000), and modest increases to support career and technical education.

Board members asked detailed operational questions. One board member asked whether the state provides offsets for multilingual staffing; Tom replied, "the answer is no." Members pressed on tutor certification (Tom said tutors are not required by law to be certified but the district will seek instructionally competent hires), transportation run length trade‑offs, and shared services with the town for maintenance and IT.

The meeting opened to public comment; the board scheduled a brief follow‑up meeting Thursday at 6 p.m. and concluded with a motion that was seconded and approved by voice vote.

The budget document and slides cited multiple specific line items and proposed reassignments; several figures (tutor salaries, IT hire cost, health insurance increases, stop‑loss figures and the vape‑detector pilot amount) were given during the presentation, while other details—such as final bid results for transportation—were described as "pending" or "not specified."