Rocky Hill Superintendent Proposes 4.75 Percent Budget Increase For Schools.

Rocky Hill Superintendent Dr. Mark Zito presented his first budget to the Board of Education, asking for a 4.75 percent increase, a dollar increase (compared to 2012-13) of $1,434,579.

Zito said he feels it is a very lean budget. He pointed out that in the PDF file attached, which he sent to Rocky Hill Patch, that most of the increase came from increases to teacher's salaries and benefits. 

On thing not in the budget was any money set aside for possible full day kindergarten. Zito has been asked by the Board of Education to come up with a pilot program for all day kindergarten in Rocky Hill. If that plan were to be implemented for the 2013-2014 school year, at least two teachers would need to be added. 

The two biggest drivers in the budget were:

• Salaries  $774,371  2.56%
• Benefits  $298,450  0.99%

One of the biggest drivers of the budget is tuition. Rocky Hill and all municipalities are responsible if a a student from their town chooses to attend a magnet school. The budget proposes the town will pay almost $1.2 million in tuition, an increase of more than $250,000 in this budget. 

Zito's budget also included a list of things he thought were needed by the school district but not included for a variety of reasons. The biggest being that if they were all included, the request would have been around 7.5 percent higher rather than 4.75 percent.

Some of those items the Superintendent thought were important were: Positions totaling 4.3 openings (almost $400,000). Included in that list of positions to add were Assistant Principals at two elementary schools. Also included were 1.5 FTE Kindergarten teachers, I-Pads, furniture, textbooks and additional tuition.