Board of Education’s CIP/Facilities/Finance (BOE CFF) Subcommittee reviewed May Itemized Estimates and Transfers, and discussed facility updates, an increase to lunch prices, and more at its Monday, July 21 meeting.

Director of Business and Finance Tanja Gouveia said she had a May Itemized Estimates and Transfers put together because they had a lot of their final balances in from June.

Before fully detailing her report, Gouveia had good news to share: FEMA recently reimbursed the district with an additional $47,000 for the severe flood that happened last August.

“[The reimbursement] was totally unanticipated,” Gouveia said. “I had no idea it was coming.”

She said the district spent $40,000 in flood recovery, so FEMA actually reimbursed them a little bit more than what they spent. This is on top of what the district already reaped from its insurance, according to Gouveia.

Moving on to the itemized estimates and transfers, Gouveia said they are looking to land somewhere around a year-end balance of $220,000 — spending just about 99.74 percent of the 2024-25 school budget.

She said the anticipated obligations column shows a negative number due to the Excess Cost Grant from the federal government. The district received the final payment for it in May, hence why it is included in the report.

As for specific categories, Gouveia said certified salaries looks “pretty good.” She said they are in the hole by $177,000 due to the district not hitting its anticipated turnover number.

She explained how the district has a turnover number included in the report each year that accounts for all changes in certified staff. However, the district did not have as many changes as expected.

Gouveia said certified substitutes came in a little bit higher than expected. She elaborated by calling the line item “a very difficult number to predict,” particularly at year-end, since they do not know who will be taking off work and when.

The district has a pretty decent balance for certified staff, which Gouveia said was mostly driven by paraeducators. She also said they hired a few paraeducators between May and June and that, going into next year, the district is only short by one.

“So as of now, I don’t want to jinx us, but as of now we are fully stacked for the 2025-26 year,” Gouveia said.

She continued by saying the employee benefits category is looking pretty good. Gouveia said they adjusted the FICA and Medicare line items as discussed in the May 20 BOE CFF Subcommittee meeting, and that those numbers did not go up.

Gouveia also talked about the unemployment line item, calling it difficult to anticipate since they never know who is going to fall off, who will get a job, or who will stay on. She originally anticipated that line item to pretty much break even, but said they have a $16,000 balance there.

As for professional services, Gouveia noted a small dip in legal fees. She said she originally anticipated a $20,000 or 30,000 balance. However, Gouveia said they have a lot of negotiations coming up, including those with two new unions — one for behavioral therapists and another for security — as well as some for paraeducators and teachers.

Gouveia said they have a very healthy balance for purchased property services. According to Facilities Director John Barlow, the budget for this category comes from the former director of facilities Bob Gerbert.

Barlow said the budget this year is his and, between negotiating their contracts and looking at savings, added that they tightened things up.

Right now, Barlow said there are over-expenditures on that, about $20,000 versus $80,000.

He called the line item hard to judge since they set the budget well in advance of going out for contracted services.

“So we don’t know what contracted services are going to come in, especially in this economic climate,” Barlow explained. “We anticipated it coming in higher, but we’re still going to have a surplus in that line item for this upcoming year.”

Gouveia moved on and said tuition is at a really good place. She also said the district reconciled all of its athletic trips, and that they billed All-Star Transportation where they were outsourcing and using coach buses.

Under supplies, Gouveia said everything has been reconciled at the school level. She called the electric line item interesting as they are waiting for May and June to come in.

Gouveia continued by saying some of the schools are really behind because they have what is called a “manual bill.”

“Schools with a solar on top come in much slower than any of the other bills, so we’re just waiting to reconcile those,” Gouveia explained.

She said the propane line item did really well, adding that CCFs were much lower than anticipated and that the district’s usage was down.

Overall, Gouveia said everything is in pretty good shape.

She continued, “I honestly didn’t anticipate the balance going up this high, but due to the FEMA funds coming in, and some of the electric potentially reversing out, I think we’re going to be over $200,000 [for the balance].”

Facility Updates

Barlow shared that a new playground was built behind Reed Intermediate School. Gouveia said they have had a daycare program at Reed for a number of years, and that all district employees will take their kids there for daycare.

Gouveia said it is its own operating program. While the program does have revenue, she said it is like a special revenue account, meaning anything that goes into the account has to be used for the program.

She noted they have been in desperate need of a playground, adding that the playground equipment the program had was old and run down.

Since the playground needed to be compliant with the American with Disabilities Act, Gouveia said they discussed it with the program director during their annual meeting.

Superintendent of Schools Anne Uberti said the playground was funded through the program’s account and that it will be shared with the preschool, which is also moving to Reed.

Barlow also shared an update with the Hawley AC system. He said they had a meeting with the engineers, design team, and contractor on site, and that some additional adjustments were made to the programming.

These adjustments, he said, were made because they were looking for energy efficiency. However, due to the amount of infiltration of heat and humidity into the building, energy efficiency alone “just wasn’t going to work.”

As such, Barlow said they made some adjustments to the humidity controls. He added that these changes have made a significant impact on the building and the AC seems to be working better.

Barlow said he believes they are “about 90 percent there” with the school’s AC, and that there are two, maybe three, rooms they are playing around with the controls for.

He also said there is no expense to BOE funding because there was still money in the original construction account, which is paid for any needed work that goes above and beyond the initial cost of construction.

The subcommittee moved on to discuss updates regarding Newtown Middle School’s AC units.

Gouveia said they initially looked at putting in AC units in the building’s upper A-Wing, as it takes the most direct sunlight and is the warmest part of the building.

Temperatures in upper A-Wing would typically reach 88, 89, or sometimes even 90 degrees on hot days, while temperatures in lower A-Wing were only one or two degrees less.

However, further discussion between the subcommittee prompted them to want to implement AC units throughout the entire building.

Gouveia said they hope to hold a meeting about it “as soon as they can,” as the expenses for it have to come out of their non-lapsing account.

An electrical load study done on the building revealed that the middle school can handle more than a few months of units for the entire school, according to Barlow.

He said they also installed a test AC in one of the corners of the building and monitored that through hot days toward the end of the year.

“We typically would see the units run 75-76 degrees with a full load of students, where classrooms next to it were in the mid and upper 80s,” Barlow said.

He continued by saying it would cost about $600 per unit, with some ancillary material costs on window panels, braces, and brackets to hold them in place.

Barlow said they would be able to do all of the installation in-house with the maintenance department, which would save a “tremendous amount of money.” The only caveat, he said, is that they would need to analyze how much electrical work needs to be done.

Lunch Increase

The subcommittee also talked about increases to the district’s lunch prices. Gouveia said they are proposing to increase prices by 15 cents across the board.

This would result in the following increases across the district: $3.10 to $3.25 for the elementary schools, $3.35 to $3.50 for the intermediate and the middle school, and $3.60 to $3.75 for the high school.

Middle school and high school breakfast would go from $2.45 to $2.60. The high school also has a plan for the premium stations, raising their price from $4.60 to $4.75.

Gouveia said that the State of Connecticut sends out a national average for lunch prices every year, and that districts are supposed to be within 15 cents of this average. The national average for lunch prices is $4.01, according to Gouveia.

The only way the district does not have to be in compliance with this is if they have a positive balance in the cafeteria account, which Gouveia said the district does.

After pulling up a history of the district’s lunch prices for the subcommittee, Gouveia said Newtown Public Schools has not had an increase in those prices since 2019.

“I think it’s important because we’re not really keeping up with inflation,” Gouveia continued. “I did a quick inflation estimate to see where it would be, and $3.10 from the 1920 year is $3.91 now.”

Gouveia said the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose around 2.7 percent, labor costs are going up, food costs are going up, and that all costs are going up around them, except for lunch prices.

Uberti noted if the district was ever in a situation where they did not have a positive balance, they would be required to eventually correct it. Gouveia said they would have a couple of years because they do not have to go right from the bottom to the top.

“I think it’s like 10 or 15 cents a year, so they could bring it up over time, but then we’d see an increase every year,” Gouveia explained.

The increase requires BOE approval, and will be further discussed in August. Gouveia also said they would get all the information out to parents beforehand.

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Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.