Board hears first presentation for 2025-26 school budget

By JEFF MORRIS

At the Bedford Central Board of Education Jan. 15 meeting, the board was given its first presentation regarding the 2025-26 school budget.

Tom Cole, assistant superintendent for business and operations, said he expected the district to be able to use a portion of reserves to remain below the tax cap.

Cole discussed the economic landscape surrounding the new budget. He said for the third consecutive year, inflation significantly outpaces allowable budget growth — the 2 percent tax cap.

“As inflation continues to grow, it puts pressure on our commodities costs in particular,” said Cole. “The method to pay for that is to reduce elsewhere in the classroom, so ultimately that will become a larger and larger problem.”

Cole said Medicare Advantage premiums increased by a “staggering” $1.2 million, which was a surprise and almost entirely due to new federal mandates. He said it impacted the current year by $100,000 a month over six months, which was not expected.

On the other hand, Cole reported health insurance costs are expected to rise about 3.4 percent, which he said is a significant improvement over the prior year’s 10 percent increase.

“Hopefully, based on last year’s experience with our consultants, with participation rates continuing to decline, those costs will come down, but for now we’re working from the worst case scenario, which in total is about a $3 million increase between Medicare Advantage and the premiums for health insurance,” he said.

Another significant investment will be required for the Bedford Village Elementary School wastewater treatment plant that is now the obligation of the school district (see story on Page 1). Cole said a significant portion of the necessary funding has already been set aside, but it will be part of the budget discussion.

Elementary Coordinators, who were added in 2024-25, will increase the budget by approximately $650,000. Cole said they were added last year without increasing the budget, and they have been managing that within the confines of the existing budget.

Cole said enrollment projections, as they stand right now, show no pressure to add new sections at the elementary level. He said there will be some changes in sections between grade levels, but overall he sees no need to add additional staff.

There are a number of unknown variables at this stage. One is state aid, which they are assuming will remain unchanged. “If state aid does increase, that would help our tax cap calculation,” Cole said.

The district is also anticipating a report next month from Public Consulting Group, which is conducting a comprehensive review of the district’s special education programming. “We don’t know if there’s going to be recommendations in it that might impact the budget, but that’s a variable that is yet unknown,” Cole said.

Also ongoing are contract negotiations with CSEA and administrators; Cole said those have both gone well, but have not yet been settled.

“We expect to be over the cap, based on our experience with the medical costs, the health insurance costs in particular,” Cole concluded, “but we do believe that our district reserves are plentiful enough to be able to handle whatever we encounter here.” He said they ended the 2024 fiscal year with just under $28 million in total reserves. “We expect to be able to come to this board and make a proposal to use some of those reserves to mitigate the impact of the tax cap,” Cole said.

Upcoming BoE budget sessions are scheduled to include Athletics, Co-Curricular, Debt Service, Revenue, Transportation, General Support, and Employee Benefits on Feb. 5; State Aid, Cash Reserves, and Tax Cap on Feb. 26; Enrollment Projections, Curriculum, including General Ed, Special Ed, and Technology, on March 12; and the superintendent’s budget presentation March 19. There are then budget deliberations scheduled for March 26 and April 9, and budget adoption by the board April 23.