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01/25/2021 11:00 PMThe Supervision District Committee for the Regional 4 School District held its last budget workshop on a proposed budget for the 2021–’22 school year on Jan. 20. The total proposed budget of $8,257,430, with an increase of $278,720 or 3.49 percent over current-year spending, remained unchanged from the last budget workshop held on Jan. 12.
The Supervision District budget covers the shared administration costs for the Regional 4 District Schools. Unlike the budgets for the Chester, Deep River, Essex, and Region 4 boards of eduction, which are voted on by residents, the Supervision District budget is voted on by the member boards.
A new document highlighting the changes in the proposed budget as contractual, new spending, or a consolidation was included for the Jan. 20 workshop.
“This document demonstrates the major drivers that have gone into the 3.49 percent [increase] and it really does sort of separate out the consolidated ESY [Extended School Year] program so you can see the impact that that has along with some of the other areas,” said Superintendent of Schools Brian White at the meeting.
The document, titled ’21–’22 Supervision Change by Type, showed contractual increases in the salaries and benefits categories accounting for $115,805 of the total increase in the proposed budget, a 1.45 percent over current spending.
New spending accounted for $34,999 or a 0.44 percent increase. A stipend position for an English as a second language coordinator and an increase to the number of workdays for the district’s network technicians accounted for the new spending, according to the document.
The consolidation of the ESY program costs from the district’s school board budgets accounted for $110,000 or 1.38 percent of the proposed budget’s total increase.
At the meeting, White explained that the total cost of the ESY program is $133,000, as the current Supervision District budget already contained $23,000 for the program.
“One thing worth noting with the consolidations, the total figure that we are talking about is actually $133,000 for the ESY program,” said White. “The reason why it’s represented here as a $110,000 increase is because it essentially discounts the $23,000 that is already in the supervision budget currently for ESY.”
Other changes in the proposed Supervision District budget accounted for $17,916 or a 0.22 percent increase. These changes were related to a contractual increase for transportation costs and savings in other budget categories.
After reviewing these major budget drivers, White explained that consolidation of the ESY program costs accounts for a significant amount of the 3.49 percent increase for the total proposed budget.
“You can see that that actually accounts for 1.3 percent of the 3.49 percent increase and so if you were to pull that out, what you have is a proposed budget that is well under 3 percent,” said White.
Other new information reviewed at the workshop included detailed information on the budget allocations for Chester, Deep River, Essex, and Region 4.
“You can go through each object code by line and see the item and then see what the split looks like, where it’s a four-way split, a three-way split or based on usage,” said White.
The grand total for each of the districts were provided in the draft budget document for the Jan. 20 meeting, after accounting for any revenues received.
The proposed budget will now move to a public hearing, slated for Monday, Feb. 1 at 7 p.m. A vote on the budget by the Supervision District Committee and the joint Board of Education is planned for Thursday, Feb. 25. For details, visit www.reg4.k12.ct.us.