Trumbull school board OKs $121.6M budget for 2023-24
TRUMBULL — If Superintendent Martin Semmel classified his original 2023-24 budget request as “lean,” then the one the school board approved during its recent budget hearing is downright skinny.
The board unanimously passed a $121.6 million budget proposal that, although nearly 5 percent higher than the current budget, is still about $800,000 less than Semmel requested last month.
Still, Semmel cautioned that the schools had not yet finalized a contract with the town’s transportation vendor.
The budget, according to Semmel, was a balancing act between the desire to have a lower budget hike and the impact on programming, staff and activities that would result from greater cost cutting.
“But we do believe we can reduce our budget by $814,496, given that pending bus contract,” he said.
Semmel said the budget spares the schools serious cuts to programming and other resources, but does mean some new initiatives wouldn’t happen.
“We did not budget for late school start or elementary world language, or a full science of literacy expansive materials, which I think we’ve heard can be $500,000 to $700,000,” he said. “We weren’t able to go bringing down kindergarten sizes back to 20. Middle school electives, weren’t able to add them or eliminate the band fees.”
Semmel said further cuts would have put on the table some cost-cutting moves such as increasing class sizes, reducing staff, cutting extracurriculars and increasing sports participation fees.
The final school board budget proposal does include the four teaching positions Semmel requested in January, but eliminates four other positions for a zero net staff increase.
Semmel also is holding out hope that the district’s health insurance costs could see a lower-than-expected increase. The budget proposal includes an 8 percent increase in insurance costs.
Despite the lower increase, Semmel said he was proud of what the district could accomplish with its budget.
“We’re proud of where we’ve come, we’re proud of where we’re at at this point coming out of the pandemic,” Semmel said.