Stonington - Just six months after they saw their proposed 4.5 percent budget increase cut to 1.5 percent by the Board of Finance, school board members got some bad news about the proposed 2015-16 budget.

Superintendent of Schools Van Riley told school board members last week that they are facing a more than $1.2 million increase because of fixed costs such as utilities, health insurance, special education and employee raises. That would account for a 3 percent increase at a time when the Board of Finance has told town and school officials to propose budgets with no more than 2 percent increases.

Riley said it would take an additional $438,000 to hire six more teachers to preserve current class sizes in grades kindergarten through eighth. He said another high priority new item is to hire a middle school assistant principal so each middle school has one. He said other critical needs are $100,000 to begin replacing old textbooks and other materials, make computer technicians full-time employee and create a personnel database.

In all, this would increase the proposed budget by $2.1 million or 5.8 percent.

"It's important we present a budget to the town that will provide the educational service our students are entitled to," said school board member Craig Esposito. "Otherwise we're shirking our duties and not telling people what education should cost."

Board member Alisa Morrison said she loved Esposito's attitude.

"But its unrealistic to present a budget with a 5.87 percent increase. We know we'll have to cut it," she said.

Board member Terry Stefanski said the school board should talk about "what it costs to educate our children" and let the finance board cut the budget.

"I don't think the Board of Finance understands what it costs to run the school system" he said.

Riley will present updated fixed costs to the board at its December meeting.

j.wojtas@theday.com

Twitter: @joewojtas