MONROE, CT — Superintendent of Schools Joseph Kobza is proposing a $75,767,629 budget to fund Monroe’s public schools in 2025-26. It is a $4,303,370 or 6.02 percent increase in spending over the current budget.
He presented his proposal to the Board of Education at its meeting Monday night.
“The large majority of it, 5.5 percent of it, is pretty much contractual increases,” Kobza said of the 6.02 percent increase.
Among the contractual obligations he discussed were a 2.31 percent increase in salaries for existing positions, making up 38 percent of the entire budget increase; a 1.75 percent increase in health insurance (29 percent), a 0.99 percent increase in special education tuition (17 percent) and a 0.36 percent increase from retirements, accounting for six percent of the total budget increase.
The proposal includes a total of 3.9 new certified staff to support the superintendent’s budget priorities: continuing to meet the complex needs of Monroe’s students, untethering shared staff to allow schools to run more autonomously, addressing technology infrastructure, and replenishing maintenance accounts that were reduced to cover a fiscal year 2025 adjustment.
“Our enrollment is anticipated to go up and I believe that is correct, but it does not look like we need to add any section sizes,” Kobza said, “so we’re going to get more kids, but at least right now, the assumption is we’re gonna run on the same number of sections this year as next year.”
The school district’s insurance broker projected an increase in premiums between 10 and 12 percent, so to budget conservatively, Kobza said he used 12 percent in the budget proposal — though that could change.
“I anticipate those numbers to tighten up as the process goes,” he said. “This is a five month process. We’ll wait to get more solid numbers when it’s before the Board of Finance and the first selectman.”
“This budget assumes our utilities and our winter expenditures will be kind of the same as they have been in the last few years,” Kobza said. “We’ve had some really nice winters, some warm winters the last few winters.”
He said the school district has trended well with utilities, though that could change if PURA raises rates.
If that happens and/or there is a bad winter, Kobza said the Board of Finance has a contingency fund.
“We’re still living in an inflationary period,” he noted.
The new positions being proposed include an assistant principal at Stepney Elementary School ($138,586); a math/science specialist ($82,629); a multilingual learner (MLL) teacher ($82,629); a 0.5 psychologist ($54,774); a 0.5 IT cybersecurity analyst ($49,653); a 0.5 IT inventory specialist ($31,309); and a part-time music teacher ($30,178).
An MLL teacher
There are currently 88 MLL students in the district, speaking 15 different languages, according to Kobza. He said the predominant language is Spanish with Portuguese a close second.
Two teachers are traveling to five schools and all students, no matter the language level, are receiving the same amount of support, though it is not meeting the minimum of state and federal recommendations, Kobza said.
He also said there are limited opportunities for current MLL teachers to coach classroom teachers, so they are equipped with skills and strategies to work with these students.
Kobza presented a chart illustrating the growth in the MLL learner population in town schools: 15 students in 2015-16, 28 in 2016-17, 32 in 2017-18, 33 in 2019-20, 41 in 2020-21, 55 in 2021-22, 91 in 2022-23, 95 in 2023-24, and 88 in 2024-25.
“We did have a dip this year and a lot of that is attributed to our MLL teachers doing a good job of getting students out of needing MLL services,” he said.
Starting in 2021, Stepney outpaced all schools in the number of MLL students, according to Kobza.
“The request was for two MLL teachers, so we’d have one at each of our elementary schools,” he said. “We’re trying to be as fiscally responsible as possible. That’s why we put one in the budget for now.”
Currently all of Monroe’s MLL learners receive 30 minutes of service per week, regardless of level. However, the recommended guidelines provided by the state and the Office of Civil Rights for newcomers is 150 minutes per week, Level 1 is 120 minutes, Level 2 is 90 minutes and Level 3-4 is 60 minutes, the superintendent said.
School board member Christine Cascella asked if the new MLL teacher could raise service for the town’s MLL students to one hour a week, and was told it may move it up to 45 minutes per student.
Elementary Math Specialist
Kobza said a 1.0 elementary math specialist is needed to improve math performances on the Smarter Balanced Assessment test, to increase coaching of illustrative math and for building thinking classrooms, to provide intervention support and to use data to address student outcomes.
“One of the biggest impacts from COVID was mathematics,” he said. “When you compare that to the support systems we now have for ELA, we are woefully lacking in math at the elementary level.”
Kobza said Roseanne Haughton, the elementary instructional leader for math, is doing a good job, but splits her time because she is also the instructional leader for science.
For ELA, there are reading consultants and specialists in every building, and all special education and regular education teachers are trained in instructional literacy programs.
By contrast, Kobza said math has classroom teachers and non-certified math interventionists.
“The request was for three math specialists, one at each building,” Kobza said of principals’ requests before he finalized his budget proposal. “Again, we’ve gotta be more fiscally responsible. We understand what our budget is carrying over from one year to the next.”
School Psychologist
Kobza said the school district has had a 73 percent increase in special education students over the past 10 years and has around 644 students right now.
Currently there is one school psychologist at each elementary school, two at Jockey Hollow Middle School and two at Masuk High School. The district also has a social worker and an outside contractor.
The current budget has approval to hire a 0.5 psychologist, but Kobza said they cannot find someone willing to work part-time, because in this market a school psychologist can pretty much go anywhere they want.
The 0.5 request would make this position full-time and easier to fill, reducing the need to pay the social worker and outside contractor extra to handle caseloads and evaluations, Kobza said.
He said the new psychologist would float between Masuk and Fawn Hollow.
Board Chairman David Ferris noted how savings from not paying extra money to the social worker and outside contractor can help fund the new position.
Assistant Principal
Kobza said an assistant principal is needed to help Principal Ashley Furnari at Stepney Elementary School, which currently has 512 students.
In Monroe’s District Reference Group, all elementary schools with 500 plus students have an assistant principal, and the majority of schools with 400 plus students have an assistant principal, according to the superintendent’s presentation.
Stepney has 83 special education students and Fawn Hollow has 97, Monroe Elementary has 58; and Stepney has 26 MLL students (Fawn Hollow 16, Monroe Elementary 13, Jockey Hollow 17, Masuk 18), and 19.5 percent of its students are on free and reduced lunch, which is higher than the district average, Kobza said.
Among an assistant principal’s duties are handling discipline cases, helping with teacher assessments, leading support meetings and playground, cafeteria and bus duty to name a few tasks.
Growing music programs
Kobza said a 0.4 music teacher is necessary for an anticipated schedule change at Masuk and growth of the Stepney and Masuk bands.
He said there is currently an inequity issue at two elementary schools, because Monroe Elementary gets band during the day, while students at Stepney and Fawn Hollow can only get a band teacher before the start of school.
Kobza said STEM Academy has no flexibility for scheduling its music classes, because of the loss of instructional time due to teacher travel.
Aside from teachers driving to different schools during the day, Kobza said the lost instructional time is compounded, because all teachers must have a half hour duty-free lunch, as well as preparation time.
“We are efficient to the point of inefficiency sometimes, and sometimes at the detriment of kids,” Kobza said.
He said every school principal asked for the new position.
IT, infrastructure
Kobza said the IT cybersecurity analyst and IT inventory specialist/tech II positions are both full time, but would be split between the schools and town.
The IT cybersecurity analyst would help with the growing one-to-one program and increased use of online assessments, and the IT inventory specialist/tech II is needed due to more severe and complex cyber security threats to safeguard school data.
The superintendent’s budget would also replenish the district’s maintenance accounts. The total emergency repairs line was $95,000 in 2023-24 and $20,000 in 2024-25.
Kobza said an adjustment was made to this year’s budget, taking money away from this line item to avoid affecting kids. “We were able to use some of the surplus over the summer, but don’t want to do that every year,” he said.
His budget proposal includes $90,000 for 2025-26.
Budget workshop dates:
- Jan. 6, 7 p.m., regular board meeting: Elementary schools, Jockey Hollow, Masuk/Athletics
- Jan. 7, 6:30 p.m., special education, curriculum and instruction
- Jan. 9, 6:30 p.m., IT, facilities, capital
- Jan. 13 and 22, 6:30 p.m., budget workshops if needed
- Jan. 21, 7 p.m., regular board meeting
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