At its March 11 meeting, the Essex Board of Education (BOE) unanimously approved a proposed $7,861,407 budget for the 2021-’22 (’22) school year, which will be presented to the Essex Board of Finance (BOF) on Tuesday, March 30 at 7 p.m.

The proposed budget represents a $152,975, or 1.98 percent, increase from current year. It was developed through budgeting workshops on Jan. 26 and Feb. 11.

A separate request totaling $232,938 in capital items will also be presented to the BOF. These items include $25,000 for an update to the Essex Elementary School’s Verkada security camera system, which includes 10 cameras; $42,868 to resurface the rubber flooring in the gymnasium; $12,500 to replace the furniture used in 2nd grade classrooms; and $152,570 to replace a folding door partition in the gymnasium.

The proposed budget funds the district’s contractual obligations for salaries and employee benefits, the two categories that account for most of its spending, with salaries at 58 percent and employee benefits at 23 percent of the budget.

Overall, the category of salaries will increase by 0.90 percent, or $40,933 over current year. A more significant proposed change in this category includes funding a new teaching position at the 3rd-grade level, which would help the school maintain its compliance with class size guidelines.

The new position comes despite a leveling off in the school’s student population. For Essex, K to 6 enrollments has steadily decreased from 477 students in the 2012-’13 school year to 280 students in the 2020–’21 school year, according to the proposed budget document. The data also shows enrollment projections at 275 students for the ’22 school year and 264 students for the ’23 school year.

“We’ve hit that point now where we’ve leveled off and we’re going to be constantly struggling between having two and three sections in different grades throughout the course of our existence now for at least the next couple of years,” said Lon Seidman, chair of the Essex BOE, at the Feb. 11 workshop.

“So, I would say, absent all the other considerations we have to make, I think we need to follow our guidelines and our guidelines here are pretty clear that this [3rd grade] class is a little bit too large, and we have a real risk of having more people show up in town because we’re seeing a lot of real estate movement,” he continued.

The class size guidelines provide a range of students for each grade level, with a class size of 14 to 16 students for grades K to 3, a class size of 16 to 18 students for grades 4 to 5, and a class size of 16 to 20 students for grade 6, according to information from the BOE’s policy document.

Under the category of employee benefits, there is a proposed 2.55 percent, or $44,960, increase over current year. The district plans to make a $33,524 contribution to the health insurance reserve fund, which is no change from current year, but is meant to replenish the fund after it was severely underfunded in prior years.

The costs associated with out-of-district transportation and tuition, communications, travel, and conferences saw a 6.84 percent increase, or a proposed change of $42,958. There was also a 192 percent increase, or a $6,079 proposed change from current year under the category of property, which is for equipment in the areas of physical education, science, special education, and the cafeteria. Other budget categories saw modest increases or reductions.

Pending adoption or modification by the BOF, the BOE budget will join the proposed town budget at the budget public hearing on Thursday, April 22 at 7:30 p.m. followed by the annual budget town meeting on Monday, May 10 at 7:30 p.m.

A copy of the proposed budget is available on the district’s website www.reg4.k12.ct.us under District, Budget Information.