Budget
Understanding the School Budget
The school budget is a plan for how we educate about 2,500 students, with over 500 staff across 6 campuses, and run the buses, buildings, and services that make it all work. This page explains how that plan gets built, who decides what, and where you can weigh in.
Two Budgets, One Plan
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The year-to-year cost of running schools: salaries and benefits, special education services, transportation, utilities, insurance, supplies, curriculum, and technology. Roughly 80% of it is people.
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Longer-lived investments: roof and boiler replacements, vehicles, technology refresh cycles, and major building work. Large school construction projects are typically financed through bonding.
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- Negotiated salary and benefit obligations under multi-year collective bargaining agreements
- Health insurance and other benefit costs
- Special education services, including outplacement and related transportation, which can change mid-year as student needs change
- Transportation, fuel, and utilities
- State and federal grant levels, which shift year to year
- Enrollment, program needs and state mandates
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Most of the budget is a local appropriation from the Town of Branford, funded through property taxes. The rest comes from state grants such as Education Cost Sharing and the Excess Cost grant for high-need special education students, federal grants such as IDEA and Title programs, and program revenue including tuition and fees.
How it becomes a budget
Fall. Principals, directors, and department leaders build requests around student needs, enrollment projections, and known cost drivers.
January. The Superintendent presents a proposed budget to the Board of Education. This kicks off the public process, and every version is posted here as it moves.
January–February. The Board holds budget workshops open to the public, works through questions, and takes public comment.
February. The Board of Education adopts its budget request and forwards it to the Town.
March. The Board of Finance reviews the request and issues its recommended budget.
April–May. RTM committees work through the recommended budget, and the full Representative Town Meeting adopts the Town budget in May. The Board of Finance then sets the mill rate.
July 1. The new fiscal year begins.