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Guilford BOE Passes Proposed Budget, Up 5%, to BOF for Approval

The Board of Education (BOE) last week passed a 2022-’23 budget proposal to send forward to the Board of Finance for consideration before going to referendum. The budget proposal calls for a 5.18 increase over current spending.

BOE Chair Kathleen Balestracci said the budget increase is larger than in previous years but is a necessary step to address long-standing issues the school system is facing, especially in light of the chaos created by the COVID pandemic.

“The BOE carefully considered the draft budget for the academic 2022-’23 year brought to us by the Guilford Public Schools administration. A considerable increase in medical benefit costs for our BOE employees (and our town employees), representing a 2.4 percent increase, is impacting this budget in a manner that we haven’t seen in my 10 years on the Board,” said Balestracci. “Additionally, we seek to appropriately address our students’ instructional and mental health needs, which have been dramatically amplified by the pandemic.

“Given these needs, and the information from the Board of Selectmen (per their Feb. 7 meeting) regarding the increase in the Grand List that will offset a substantial proportion of the increase, the board is forwarding a budget to the Board of Finance that responsibly supports our students, accounts for required costs, and does so with the support of our community in mind,” Balestracci said.

Superintendent of Schools Dr. Paul Freeman said he was happy to see the budget get approved, but was also mindful of the increase to taxpayers.

“We are enormously pleased that the board passed what we consider to be a complete, and reasonable, and responsible budget that is going to meet the needs of students moving forward,” Freeman said. “We also recognize that it is a more significant increase than we’ve asked for in some time, but that is a condition of some non-discretionary cost increases we are experiencing and we feel that now is not the time to start cutting services to students. I look forward to meeting with the Board of Finance as they begin looking at the budget.”