Cheshire Superintendent Requests 5.1 Percent Increase for 2015-16 Schools Budget

The review of Cheshire Superintendent Dr. Greg Florio’s requested $69.43 million budget for fiscal year 2015-16, which represents a 5.19 percent increase, will begin Thursday night with a meeting at Dodd Middle School at 7 p.m.

Florio presented the budget to the Board of Education Tuesday at Dodd and said while the normal contractual obligations, employee benefits and special education costs were driving forces behind the 5.19 increase, the main factor is the district’s medical benefit reserve fund has been depleted over the past several years and the need to fully fund the board’s medical benefit liability “requires a significant increase in expenditure for next year.”

“This is certainly a large increase,” Florio said. “However, the reality is that this is the funding level required to maintain the current level of program and services in our public schools.”

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Florio stressed that the requested increase is not a result of the full-day kindergarten the district implemented last year. He said the implementation has gone very well and the program is “already demonstrating significant educational benefits for our students.”

Florio noted that the employee benefit accounts comprise almost 59 percent of the increase. He said the board must meet obligations for medical benefits based on employee contracts.

“While employees offset about 18 percent of the cost through cost sharing, the board has two other sources of funds to cover costs,” Florio said. “This includes the operating budget and the medical benefit reserve fund. Unfortunately, the reserve fund balance will be at or near $0 at the end of this fiscal year. That means that the total obligation for medical benefits after the employee share must come from the operating budget.”

Florio said the town and board relied on the benefits reserve during the past several years.

“While the intent of the reserve is to mitigate increases from year to year, over reliance creates the budgetary issue that confronts the town and board this year,” Florio said. “While using reserve fund dollars to reduce operating costs does create a savings for the given year, the downside is that it requires significant increases after the reserve fund is depleted.”

Florio said this has occurred numerous times in recent budgets.

“An almost 60 percent increase was needed over the period of 1999 through 2001, when the fund was depleted,” he said. “Again in the 2004 and 2010 budgets, large increase of 24 percent and 26 percent, respectively, were required to meet the obligations for medical benefit costs. This is the situation we find ourselves in again in the 2015/16 budget.”

Read Florio’s full budget presentation and message here.

Another public budget review meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 13 and a public informational meeting/Board of Education member responses to the budget is scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 20. The budget could be adopted by the board at that meeting, if possible, if not a special meeting will be held Jan. 22. All meetings will be held at Dodd.

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