Montville ― The first draft of the proposed 2023-2024 school year budget calls for a 5.1% increase, the highest increase for the district in the last decade.

That’s before the school board considers $525,500 in additional recommended expenditures from Superintendent Laurie Pallin including five additional special education teachers, an athletic trainer, two part-time custodians, a middle school physical education/health teacher and a full-time instructional leadership coach.

The Board of Education met Tuesday night to listen to Pallin’s presentation of the $43.2 million budget.

“People say ‘Well you’re asking for a lot,’” board Chairman Wills Pike said. “No, we’re asking for what we need and there’s really no wants in this budget.

He said he made it very clear to Town Council Chairman Tom McNally that the budget is based on needs and not wants while trying to plan ahead.

Montville is not alone, as surrounding school districts such as Waterford, Groton, East Lyme and Stonington have all projected hefty budget increases as well.

Superintendent recommendations

Pallin said that though she did not ask for any additional budget items a year ago, she could not do the same this year.

“We’re looking at needs in our students, and in particular, our special needs students,” she said.

Pallin explained that the district has seen an increase in special education students over the last three years and currently has 397 students, which accounts for 19.7% of the student population. She said without adding more special education teachers to help offset the increasing workloads of the current staff, she is afraid of losing staff members.

Twenty new special education students entered Tyl Middle School this year with another 15 in the process of identification.

Tracy Zurowski, a Pathways special education teacher at Murphy Elementary School, addressed the board about the staffing shortages in special education. While she understands the district is not the only one in the state facing this issue, the town has lost six special education teachers at the elementary level and three from the middle school in the last year.

She said she has kept in touch with three of the teachers who have left and each has found a district with lighter and more manageable case loads. Zurowski said if a first-year teacher was hired into her position, “they probably wouldn’t stay.”

“The needs are very different, the emotional needs,” she said of students now compared to when she started her career 20 years ago.

The district does not have an athletic trainer of its own and has rather contracted trainers as needed for the last three years. Trainers have not always been available, however, and the district has relied on EMTs to attend games in those cases.

A state Department of Public Health licensed athletic trainer is required to safely run sporting events for the 200-250 student athletes the district has in a given season.

Pallin also proposed to add an instructional coach for English and Language Arts to partner with the current elementary coach and the part-time middle school coach as a way to promote revision of the current curriculum in kindergarten through 8th grade.

Pallin’s request to increase the custodial staff at Mohegan Elementary and the high school by one full-time custodian each comes after the district reduced the staff several years ago in a cost-saving effort.

She said adding the positions would not only allow the schools to be cleaned better and more efficiently, it would also reduce the costs of paying the current staff overtime, which the district is $20,000 over budget this year. The salaries for the positions would cost $56,000.

Director of Facilities Steve Carroll attested to the struggles he and his staff face in cleaning all the schools adequately each day. The struggle with the small staff intensifies, he said, when employees call out sick or take vacations.

The rest of the budget

The increase in staff salaries accounts is $751,872 or 35.6% of the overall increase. All staff, from administrators and teachers to custodians and bus garage workers, are set to receive raises. The overall number of certified staff will remain the same. There will be an increase in bus drivers to 22.

Employee benefits are projected to add $681,357 to the budget and are responsible for 32.2% of the total budget increase. Pallin said the numbers are based on a tentative quote from Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield and is hopeful the actual rates will not be as much.

Tuition and transportation for 29 special education students increased by $613,750, accounting for 29% of the budget’s overall increase.

The cost for school supplies and equipment increased $140,733 and account for 6.6% of the overall budget increase. Pallin said gas, oil, and fuel oil costs are based on current market rates and the district has not yet locked in rates. She added that natural gas costs have increased and account for most of the increase in supplies.

Electricity and phone services saw a $78,100 increase while liability and Workers’ Compensation increased by $53,406.

k.arnold@theday.com