Public hearing held for proposed Ledyard school budget
Ledyard — Superintendent Jay Hartling presented a $33,671,969 school budget for the 2021-22 academic year at the Board of Education's public hearing Wednesday, a 1.45% increase from the current budget.
The budget, which originally was presented to the board in January, will be further reviewed at the Feb. 17 finance committee and general board meeting before being sent to the mayor and Town Council. There were no public comments at the meeting, though any comments would have been taken into consideration with further discussions of the budget.
The bulk of the $482,549 hike over the current budget comes from contractual salary increases for faculty and staff, with about $92,000 for additional special education placement and tuition increases and about $27,000 for social, emotional and behavioral intervention professional training.
The district also is proposing to add a full-time special educator for students in kindergarten through second grade in the social emotional learning program at Gales Ferry School, a full-time preschool educator at Gallup Hill School and a full-time math interventionist.
The district is anticipating some salary savings associated with the retirement of five teachers, though those positions all will be retained.
As required by the 2018 town charter revision, the Board of Education also prepared a contingency plan that would be put in place if state funding was cut after the budget was prepared. The plan, approved at the Jan. 20 board meeting, states that the board would evaluate the budget to identify line items that could be modified to absorb cuts, such as the reduction or elimination of programs. What specifically would be eliminated, however, would be determined by the board based on the targeted budget reduction established by the Town Council at that time.
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