Final tweaks made to Region One budget

FALLS VILLAGE — There is one more budget workshop Thursday, March 24, but the draft budget presented March 7 to the Region One Board of Education is, for the moment, unchanged.The Region One budget has three component parts: Housatonic Valley Regional High School, the Region One central office, and Pupil Services (which includes special education).The budget is voted on each May in a districtwide referendum. Voting is at town hall in all six Region One towns (North Canaan, Falls Village, Salisbury, Sharon, Kent and Cornwall).The bottom line for the 2011-12 fiscal year, so far, is a total of $14,679,097, which is an increase over this year’s budget of $282,771, or 1.96 percent. The new fiscal year begins July 1. The proposed high school budget is $8,514, 844, an increase of .46 percent ($39,920). Region One Business Manager Sam Herrick said that significant savings — some $127,000 — were realized in the health insurance line, with veteran teachers taking early retirement and being replaced by younger faculty with more modest health insurance requirements.More faculty are opting for a high-deductible plan, Herrick said, and two temporary administrative positions — interim hires for assistant principal and principal — did not take insurance at all.Plus, Herrick said, the previous budget proposal overestimated the health insurance costs.Herrick said that health insurance “has been trending down the last couple of years. We hit a spike but I think that’s over.”The Central Office budget (which includes the superintendent’s office) is just about unchanged at $909,539, up $3,535 (.39 percent) from this year. Pupil Services is up, although not as much as in recent years. The total proposed for Pupil Services is $5,734,033, an increase of $167,592, or 3.01 percent.Transportation costs are expected to rise sharply, up $104,744 to $439,744, an increase of 31.27 percent. The transportation line for the current fiscal year was $335,000, but actual expenditures as of the March 7 meeting were $448,876.Herrick said the increase reflects unanticipated transportation costs for two students.An additional expense was for education paraprofessionals to ride along with certain students, to handle contingencies that the bus driver is not trained for.Out-of-state tuition, for students attending special programs not available here, is down $83,162 for a total of $750,000 — a decrease of 9.98 percent.Herrick made his annual observation: “Pupil Services drives the Region One budget.”The next (and most likely final) budget workshop is Thursday, March 24, at 5 p.m. in the Housatonic library.

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