$2.5 Million Budget Reduction Looms For Greenwich Board Of Education

GREENWICH, CT — The Greenwich Board of Education will convene during its regularly scheduled business meeting on May 15 as members continue to try and find reductions in the 2025-2026 operating budget.

The Board of Estimate and Taxation reduced a little over $4 million from the district's operating budget during its budget deliberations last month.

But the amount the school district needs to cover is actually $4.6 million when factoring in the salaries for positions that were previously funded by the town, and an anticipated 18th pre-K class next school year.

On May 8, the six Board of Education members present at a special meeting made several reductions to both personnel and non-personnel areas, totaling $2,078,651:

Programming (23.2 positions)

• Reduction in physical education (2.0): $265,000
• Central MS cross team (2.0): $156,000
• K-12 media assistants (8.7): $386,826
• Reorganization of K8 evaluation team (3.0): $200,000
• Restructure adult education (.5): $72,201
• Eliminate print shop (1.0): $84,167
• Reduction of administrative assistants (6.0): $420,000

Non-Personnel

• Lowering the per pupil allocation in non-Title I schools: $99,993
• Curriculum and instructions materials: $100,000
• Middle & high school learning facilitators stipend: $162,464
• Eliminating professional development consultant: $100,000

"None of the options presented were beneficial for our district, and this process has been extremely difficult for the entire school community," Superintendent of Greenwich Public Schools Dr. Toni Jones said last Friday in her weekly note to families. "While it might seem easy to put reductions down on paper, these are real people holding these jobs. As we are all aware, losing a position, of which some people have been in for 15 years or more, is stressful and heartbreaking. These reductions in no way diminish the great work that they do for our students."

Roughly $2.5 million in reductions remain. According to Greenwich Time, among the items scheduled to be considered during the May 15 meeting include changing school start times in order to find savings, and restructuring administrative houses at Greenwich High School.

The May 15 meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Central Middle School.