Board of Ed. Discuss Previous Year's Finances

New Suffield Superintendent Karen Baldwin noted fluid employee salaries helped keep the town's Board of Education within its $30 million budget for the 2011 fiscal year at the board's meeting Tuesday.

The board's budget made up more than half of Suffield's overall budget, about $50 million during fiscal year 2011. The group managed to stay within its allotment during that fiscal year.

Employee salaries accounted for the majority of the board’s budget; of the approximately $30 million spent, about $19 million was spent on salaries.

But Baldwin, who started her position as superintendent little more than a week ago, said the employees’ salaries and benefits helped the board remain within budget.

"As is typically the way, salaries and wages and personnel is a very fluid account, and because of that, that also helped the board remain quite solvent in 2011," said Baldwin.

The second-highest expenditure for the school board was employee benefits, which amounted to $4.85 million.

Baldwin mentioned the were several challenges pointed out in the report from Ed Basile, the school system's director of fiscal administration. The challenges he cited involved special education instruction and transportation, but the town was helped by grants from the state and federal government.

Following the discussion of the budget data the board discussed increasing communication between the Board of Education and the Board of Finance.

Board member Michael Smith raised the question of how a near $200,000 shortfall in the budget was covered, which Baldwin confirmed was covered by an education grant from the state.

Smith said the board should look to communicate with the Suffield’s Board of Finance because he believes if it weren’t for the state grant the town would have had to cover the shortfall.

"I think we’ve been very good at absorbing things within our own budget for a number of years at no cost to [the board of finance], but I think it would be important for [the board of finance] to understand how we are doing that," Smith said.

Other large expenditures for the school board were in the form of transportation and tuition. In fiscal year 2011 the board spent $2.464 million on transportation and tuition, with $1.127 million going to student transportation and another $1.06 million spent on out-of-district tuition.

Many expenses were broken down into smaller groups and there were areas where the small expenses added up.

The supplies needed to run the school were made up of many small expenditures but there were several large expenditures related to fuel and electricity. The board spent more than $750,000 on fuel oil, natural gas and propane, and electricity last year.

Following the slow months of July and August, Baldwin said she plans to address where the school system is at in terms of the budget every month starting in September.