Board of Education (BOE) members approved the 2026-27 education budget adjustments, along with a one-year renewal of Newtown Public Schools’ contract with Chartwells for food services, at its Tuesday, June 2 meeting.

This comes after Newtown voters denied the initial $96,000,000 education budget at referendum on April 28, with 1,798 no to 1,504 yes votes. After additional adjustments from the Board of Finance (BOF), the education budget later passed at the May 19 referendum by 1,938 to 1,897 — a margin of 41 votes. This brings the education budget for the 2026-27 school year down to $95,561,919.

Superintendent of Schools Anne Uberti said she tried to give BOE members a broad overview of the adjustments in the private notes she sent them. Many of the recommendations that they were going to be making were things they had already started looking at in anticipation of potential further reductions.

In turn, Uberti said they tried to make buckets of potential areas they could scale back on.

"And so this is something we've been working on for quite awhile," Uberti explained.

She then said they could walk through these items, adding that these are very reasonable cuts that do not really affect students.

"Some of them are a little trickier than others, and we'll address them when we get to them ... and then we can answer any questions or provide more explanations to certain ones that we're thinking of removing and want to fill in the gaps a bit," Uberti said.

Director of Business and Finance Tanja Gouveia briefly reviewed the history of the 2026-27 education budget, before detailing the adjustments from the BOF along with additional technical adjustments.

The BOE-approved 2026-27 education budget originally came in at $96,086,919 — a 4.73% increase over the previous year. There was a reduction of $125,000 from the BOF made early on in the process, bringing the budget down to $95,961,919.

Right off the bat, Gouveia said they addressed the BOF reduction in their Other Post-Employment Benefits (OPEB) contributions. This is a fund that is kept on the Town side and is used as an extra safety net for retirees, according to Gouveia.

"Being that our retirees do not cost so much, we do throw all their costs through the self-insurance fund, so we don't touch this [OPEB] fund right now," Gouveia explained.

Finance Director Glenys Salas said they will not be funding OPEB this year, and she has recommended that they reduce this amount. This would equate to $100,000 in savings.

BOE member Shannon Tomai wanted to understand what the purpose of the OPEB fund is, and to get a better understanding of what it exactly is.

BOE Chair Alison Plante said to think of it as a reserve fund that could be used to pay medical claims for the district's retirees should they incur lots of medical claims outside of the normal Medical Self-Insurance Fund (MSIF).

"So usually, the first protocol would be paying claims out of that fund for retirees who are covered under that plan. But if, let's say, they incurred a disproportionate amount of claim that we had to cover, we could dip into this reserve fund should we need to," Plante said.

Gouveia provided some additional details on OPED. She said the fund was developed and put in place around 2009, and that it is put under Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) rule. Under GASB, Gouveia said they open up this liability, and it does strengthen their bond ratings.

Gouveia noted that they have been funding it since 2009, adding that the finance director at the time probably brought it up to 50% to put it into good standing.

"So if you're at 50%, GASB will look at it, see it's a well-funded trust fund, your bond ratings go up — again, I don't know all the intricacies behind the Town side," Gouveia clarified.

After some additional discussion on the topic, Gouveia noted something Salas told her earlier that day, that she would rather have the $100,000 go towards the MSIF.

Additional Adjustments

Beyond that, Gouveia said they also have a $26,100 reduction in cyber insurance. Now that Newtown Public Schools District is with a new broker, USI, she said the group went out and looked for some new policies for the district. The one USI came up with, Gouveia noted, costs even less than the current year and runs through July 1, 2027.

"So we were able to reduce the budget, even eliminating an entire line item, for next year's budget," Gouveia explained.

She said there was some carryover from the cyber insurance adjustment towards the technical adjustments category. The other two line items in this category include additional reductions of $75,300 to maintenance — contracted services and $30,000 to energy accounts.

Most of the adjustments fell under the equipment and repairs category. Gouveia noted the first one, labeled "Radio Refresh," which concerns the emergency handheld radios that they use internally at schools. It has been discussed as a potential reduction in past years around budget season, but has always been taken off.

Gouveia said it is an older system and they do recognize that it has to be replaced. She added that it is probably four years outside of its useful life, but as it is a very important piece of equipment, they can rely on their non-lapsing account for it going forward.

Uberti said this will have to be done at some point because they really do not want the budget to fail. She added that they spent a lot of time talking to the Director of Technology Dennis Colclough, trying to learn more about it.

"There is also a possibility that we could do a phase-in, so we wouldn't have to replace the whole thing at the same time ... so we need to do this, but we're going to work with Colclough to figure out what is the best way to do it," Uberti explained.

Other reductions in this category include: for Hawley Elementary School, replacing broken blinds ($12,000) and replacing carpet ($4,000); for Middle Gate Elementary School, sidewalk ($25,000), replacing doors (two counts of $16,000), and café ceiling tile ($7,500); for Reed Intermediate School, sidewalk repairs ($14,000); and for Newtown High School, math flooring replacements ($16,800), room A102 flooring replacements ($15,300), and room B219 flooring replacements ($4,500).

These reductions are covered by the District Repair and Improvement Project (DRIP) funds, a program created last year during legislative session that is designed to help districts repair school buildings.

Gouveia said Newtown Public Schools was awarded $165,475.

"We just received this funding a few weeks ago, so we have decided that we could use $131,000 on the projects that already have in the budget," she explained.

Uberti clarified that this fund was meant to be used for smaller maintenance projects that districts cannot support with their budget. She added that there could be a small amount from the fund, around $30,000, left over.

Regardless, all these adjustments to the 2026-27 education budget are what bring it down to $95,561,919.

Chartwells Contract Renewal

BOE members voted to unanimously approve a one-year contract renewal with Chartwells for food services. This is a contract through Chartwells’ parent company, Compass Group USA, Inc.

The initial agreement of Chartwells approved services was dated August 23, 2022; the one-year contract renewal is effective as of July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027. As with the extension last summer, the terms and conditions of the original agreement, as amended, will apply.

Gouveia said this is the final year of their contract with Chartwells. She added that there are several things when a contract gets renewed, because they have to add mandates into the addendum. They also have to look at the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is set by the state, and does increase management fees.

Gouveia said she negotiated with Chartwells a bit last year, when they talked about the CPI, among other topics.

"Next year, we get to go out to bid, so start thinking about it now, if you want to be involved in that process," Gouveia said.

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