Director of Business and Finance Tanja Gouveia presented a year-end financial report for Fiscal Year 2025-26 to the Board of Education (BOE) at its Tuesday, September 1 meeting.

Gouveia said it was "quite a year” for the district, adding that they had an unexpended year-end balance of $181,787, representing 0.2% of their budget.

According to Gouveia, they recommend this amount be deposited into their non-lapsing account. However, she said the district will need to use $40,500 from the non-lapsing fund to address an overpayment that was identified through a federal audit.

This, Gouveia said, was for the Tax Excise Fuel program and was an overpayment that came in the 2024 and 2025 years.

For their salaries account, Gouveia said they ended with a favorable balance of just under $176,000. She noted that their salaries are made up of two accounts: certified and non-certified.

In certified salaries, Gouveia said they realized savings of just under $42,000. She noted that the majority of this came from summer school teacher salaries, as they had to reduce the Extended School Year (ESY) days in June because of the late ending of the regular school year.

This meant instead of six days, they reduced it to two days, according to Gouveia.

For certified staff turnover, Gouveia said they beat their turnover number of $550,000 by $12,000. This, she said, is a "built-in negative number" for their budget that accounts for the resignations and retirements of around 15-20 certified staff members.

Gouveia continued by saying they budgeted $175,000 for homebound tutors and spent about $150,000. She called this a "very tough area" to budget because they never know what kinds of services students will need.

Staff and program development saw a remaining balance of just over $26,000, due to them moving towards a more efficient and centralized training model, according to Gouveia. This was the first year they implemented coordinating and managing all the district's professional development and having it run through the curriculum office, rather than at the school level.

Non-certified salaries ended with a positive balance of over $134,000, which Gouveia said can be mostly attributed to their paraeducator line.

While in past years the district has had between eight and 12 positions open on this line item, Gouveia said the $56,000 surplus in this line item only reflects two unfilled positions.

Special education services saw savings of $22,000. This, Gouveia said, is very similar to the certified savings for the shortened ESY days. She noted that, in all other accounts, they saw a turnover in unfilled positions, which drove a $55,000 surplus.

"This was all throughout the various accounts — custodians, education personnel, paras, and even in our supervisor accounts," Gouveia said.

The benefits category had a deficit of just under $28,000. Gouveia noted they had to do a recalculation of the district's Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) Medicare and pension. She said they recalculate it every year to account for staff turnover.

They saw an early deficit of $37,660 in FICA Medicare because the actual staffing costs were more than the original budget, according to Gouveia. She said the same thing happened with their pension.

"When new employees are hired, they are automatically enrolled into the 401, so that does cost the district a little more money. And that, again, is hard to budget for a year ahead of time," Gouveia said.

Unemployment and other medical accounts saw savings of $33,795. Gouveia called unemployment a tough area to budget for; last year, she said they spent $30,000, so they budgeted $30,000 for the 2025-26 school year. This led them to have a favorable balance in that account of over $19,000.

In addition, they had savings of just under $7,000 in employee assistance and tuition reimbursements, and a favorable balance of about $6,800 in all other accounts, which consists of medical and dental.

The professional services category, split into general accounts and educational services, ran a deficit of $25,196.

Gouveia explained that professional services covers all their legal, and that the district spent a lot in its legal accounts this year.

This was driven entirely by negotiations, which cost a total of $192,000, according to Gouveia. The district had six negotiations, two of which were completely unanticipated, and one that is still ongoing.

For professional educational services, Gouveia said they had a small deficit of $2,400, which accounts for staff training and professional development at the school level.

She then moved on to the purchased property services category, which accounts for building and equipment repairs, site and improvement, and emergency repairs. It ran a deficit of $39,950.

Gouveia noted that emergency repairs typically exceed the budget every year. She added that they were "so close" to not exceeding the budget until May, when they had to expend $58,000 on a chiller that services Newtown High School's F-Wing and gymnasium. The chiller is scheduled to be replaced in the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) come March.

It needed to be repaired because of the imminent cooling season and summertime, according to Gouveia.

Further Discussion

Gouveia then showed a table chart featuring the average full year cost and budget for building, site, and emergency repairs throughout the district.

Their total expense for the school year was $521,704, and their total budget was $474,300.

Gouveia moved on to the other purchased services category, which had a surplus of $119,733 despite pressure from the contracted services and transportation line items.

She said they fell short in contracted services by around $98,000, as the district had to utilize an outside service to pay for its behavioral therapists and backfill its open positions.

As Gouveia explained, these positions are required to provide services to students in the district that are one-to-one support under their Individualized Education Programs (IEPs). Gouveia said they spent $313,826 on contracted behavioral therapist services this year compared to $357,780 last year — around $44,000 in savings.

Transportation saw a negative balance of $202,318, which has been ongoing since the beginning of the year, according to Gouveia. In previous BOE meetings, Gouveia said she spoke about how the district had to add runs to its local in-district runs. She added that they also had to add a preschool run, so they now have five preschool buses running that service in the entire district.

Gouveia said the "winner" in the other purchased services category was the out-of-district tuition line item, which had a surplus of $399,913. This, she noted, is very abnormal in this area, because it is where all the districts’ special education outplacements and excess costs live.

However, Gouveia said they can mostly attribute the surplus to the Excess Cost Grant, which reimburses the district for the qualifying, high-cost special education placements.

"So our budget was originally at $1.6 million, we received $1.9 million, showing a favorable variance of just about 19%, or $290,000," Gouveia said.

She added that they did budget a reimbursement rate from the state of 68%, and received just under that, 67.59%.

Supplies saw an overall deficit of $2,859. Although, Gouveia said the winner in this category was electricity, which saw a surplus of $220,633.

She continued by saying the district saw a much lower public benefits charge compared to the previous year. Gouveia said the district was in the hole around $350,000 in electricity due to the charge, which caused them to build a budget based on last year's costs.

"We didn't know when that was going to end," Gouveia explained. "This year it was lowered quite a bit, and our virtual net metering also went up quite a bit, so we had a double whammy effect."

She continued by saying they had the opposite in the natural gas line item, which ended with a deficit of $124,026. Gouveia said this was unprecedented, and that she has never seen natural gas swing like this.

"We saw an increase of about 73% come in through December, and it never really went back down," Gouveia said.

The majority of this increase was in the district's demand, although Gouveia said the supply costs were quite high as well.

The vehicle and equipment fuel line item saw a deficit of $76,299. Gouveia noted this is entirely to do with the fuel excise tax program that was discontinued this year. She said they were anticipating receiving about $75,000 in this account, but that the district will not be receiving it this year or next year.

Gouveia said the property and equipment category ended with a deficit of $18,047, primarily due to the purchases of ViewSonic interactive boards at the high school, along with some weight room equipment that had to be replaced.

Afterwards, Gouveia pulled up a slide that showed the district’s unexpended balance over the last five years. She said the data showed the district has stayed between .02-.03% of its total budget, and the average surplus is about $200,000.

Gouveia added, “So I do think it’s worth noting that coming within about half a million percent of a $90 million budget really demonstrates good fiscal management and a strong alignment between our budget and our expenses.”

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