The proposed Supervision District budget for the 2021–’22 (‘22) school year was moved for a final vote to the Joint Board of Education (BOE) Committee on Feb. 25. But, due to the absence of a quorum on behalf of the Region 4 BOE, it did not gain full approval.

The vote by Region 4 is scheduled for the board’s next regular meeting, on Thursday, March 4, according to Superintendent of Schools Brian White.

The budget awaiting final approval by the Region 4 BOE is $8,257,430, a $278,720 or 3.49 percent increase from current year.

It represents the costs of shared services among the four school boards in the Regional 4 School District. This includes salaries for administrators, transportation, human resources, and elementary specials teachers in the areas of art, physical education, and library, as a few examples.

Salaries, which are determined by multi-year contracts with employees, will increase by $227,165, or 4.68 percent over the current year. This area is the bulk of the budget, at approximately 62 percent. Employee benefits, the second biggest budget driver at 21 percent of the total budget, will increase by $56,639 or 3.45 percent in the ‘22 school year.

In addition to salaries, the Supervision District budget has seen increases over the years as more shared services and staff are rolled into it. For the ‘22 school year, the budget will see an increase of $110,000 as a result of consolidating the costs of the Extended School Year summer program from the individual school board budgets to Supervision District.

A new position has also been added, an English-as-a-second-language coordinator. There is also an increase in the number of workdays for the district’s information technology network technicians to a full 12 months.

The recurring theme of declining enrollment was touched on briefly in a slide show presented by White, which noted a projected overall decrease of approximately 28 students across the Regional 4 school district for the ‘22 school year.

Valley Regional High School is projected to see the largest anticipated decrease, 34 students, in the ‘22 school year, according to White.

Work is underway at the administrative level to analyze staffing levels versus enrollment, particularly at the secondary level.

“That’s work that we...really started this year with the 10-year demographic study,” said White. “One of the things that we’ll do to take that work to the next level next year…is coming up with a report called a section analysis.”

This report would provide detail on class sizes and teaching staff at John Winthrop Middle School and Valley Regional High School, analysis that has already been completed for the elementary schools.

“One of the ways to understand whether or not you’re staffed accordingly, is doing that section analysis exercise and so that will certainly be part of our budget next year for R4…You can see with 34 fewer expected students we need to start scrutinizing those numbers a little bit more carefully,” said White.

White was asked at the meeting by a Joint BOE Committee member if there were other areas that the district would consider consolidating into the Supervision District budget in the future.

“I’m very sensitive to the financial considerations across the region relative to Supervision District budget,” said White. “There are certainly areas that I think over time are worthy of discussion, in terms of operational efficiencies and not just limited to staffing. I mean, there is probably, well I know, there are areas that we haven’t discussed yet as boards but over time that are worth considering.”

Once the budget is approved by Region 4, it will be split among the four boards of education based on student population and usage.

Chester’s share of the proposed budget is $1,687,772, a $145,113 or 9.41 percent increase over current year. Deep River’s share is $2,015,394, a $91,035 or a 4.73 percent increase from current year. Essex’s share is $2,246,991, a reduction of $6,474 or -0.29 percent. Region 4’s share is $2,307,272, a $49,045 or a 2.17 percent increase.