Overcame Very Challenging Budget Conditions
I write to bring perspective to the voters in advance of the Tuesday, May 14, budget referendum. While I serve on the Board of Education (BOE), this is my personal outlook based on public budget development sessions.
Towns face difficulty passing budgets during state-mandated property tax revaluation years. Town leaders worked hard this year to dampen the revaluation’s impact through staffing cuts, operational savings, contributions from the town’s ample reserves, and by adjusting the mill rate to achieve increases on par with a typical tax year. Collaborating in public sessions, the BOE, Board of Selectmen, and Board of Finance (BOF) overcame very challenging budget conditions to minimize proposed spending admirably.
For example, the BOE faces an 8.4% increase in health insurance costs, which comprises its second-largest budget line item. The largest line item under general education is increased contractual personnel costs, and that line increases the proposal by 2.1%. Projected special education cost increases drive a .65% impact on the total budget increase percentage. Despite these challenges, the BOE and BOF produced an education budget that calls for merely a 3.03% increase, easily the lowest increase in Madison’s district reference group and among shoreline towns, and well below the state average of approximately 5% this year. And it is built on a low budget basis from the previous five years averaging only 1.24% in annual increases.
Madison’s education budgets consistently drive amazing value. Madison Public Schools is currently rated the number one district in Connecticut in the State Schools Accountability Index, and all our eligible schools are State Schools of Distinction.
While voting to support the school budget, I will be thankful for the administration and my fellow taxpaying volunteer board members who help maintain educational excellence and high property values, even as they continually develop very tight budgets.
Seth Klaskin
Madison