At its March 12 meeting, the Essex Board of Education (BOE) unanimously approved a proposed fiscal year 2020–’21 budget, which covers the cost of sending grades K to 6 students to Essex Elementary School in Centerbrook. The proposed budget is $7,708,432, an increase of $244,456 or 3.28 percent compared to the fiscal year 2019–’20 budget. It will come before the town’s Board of Finance on Tuesday, March 24.

A separate capital reserve fund with a list of items totaling $95,332 for fiscal year 2020–’21, which is separate from the proposed $7.7 million budget request, will also be brought to the Board of Finance on that date.

Of the BOE’s $7,708,432 grand total, 59 percent will go toward salaries for teachers, school administrators, and other key support staff. The $4,548,807 in salaries requested for fiscal year 2020–’21 represents a 2.70 percent change from the $4,429,390 in salaries for fiscal year 2019–’20.

The second-highest chunk of the budget, 22 percent, will go toward employee benefits including health insurance. The $1,765,568 in employee benefits requested for fiscal year 2020–’21 represents an 8.47 percent change from the $1,627,666 adopted for fiscal year 2019–’20.

Services performed by outside contractors in legal, consulting, or professional development capacities would decrease by four percent over last year’s budget, from $165,476 in 2019–’20 to a requested $158,457 for fiscal year 2020–’21.

The cost for upkeep and repairs of the school building, equipment and leases would see the largest percentage decline, by 11 percent from $483,226 in fiscal year 2019–’20 to a proposed $430,335 for fiscal year 2020–’21.

Funds for out-of-district transportation, communications, out-of-district tuition, travel, and conferences would increase by five percent, from $551,211 in fiscal year 2019–’20 to a proposed $580,464 for fiscal year 2020–’21.

Supplies would also increase by seven percent, from $201,463 in fiscal year 2019–’20 to a proposed $216,418 for fiscal year 2020–’2.

The Essex BOE budget was modified by $159 after inaccuracies in the data used to compute allocations for each of the three towns, Chester, Deep River and Essex, was discovered in the Region 4 budget on March 2. That data is derived from each town’s Average Daily Membership, or ADM, and the inaccuracies impacted the Supervision District Budget.

For Essex Elementary School, K to 6 enrollments steadily decreased from 379 students in fiscal year 2015–’16 to 298 in fiscal year 2019–’20.

Enrollment is projected to balance out in the next three school years, with 281 students projected for fiscal year 2020–’21, 278 students projected for fiscal year 2021–’22 and 265 students projected for 2022–’23.

After the vote to approve it, board members spoke favorably of the proposed budget.

Pending adoption or modification by the BOF, the BOE budget will join the proposed town budget at the budget public hearing on Thursday, April 16 followed by the Annual Budget Town Meeting on Monday, May 11.