On Monday, March 4th, the South Windsor Board of Education’s 2025 Fiscal Year Budget was proposed to the Town Council. The proposed budget will play a role in funding the increasing enrollment in the South Windsor school district. Throughout the past decade, the rising price of living in South Windsor, Connecticut has been a common discussion among South Windsor residents, especially when it comes to budgets.
The Superintendent’s Budget for 2025 is $94,650,656, representing an increase of 7.29% over last year’s appropriation. The proposed budget largely reflects the cost of the increasing enrollment that’ll happen over the next decade. The district-wide enrolment between 2015 and 2023 has increased by 888 students, with a projected increase of 620 students by 2033.
The driving forces behind the budget increase are contractual obligations/maintenance of operations, special education, and strategic planning.
However, the main factor influencing the budget is South Windsor’s increasing enrollment, especially as South Windsor is the only town experiencing a 10%, or greater, increase in school enrollment in the state of Connecticut.
“South Windsor is an outlier, these factors dictate the budget presented,” Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Kate Carter, told The Prowl.
In the past 5 years, South Windsor’s Elementary school enrollment has increased by 21.9%, while South Windsor High School has experienced an increase of 14.8%. This dramatic increase requires South Windsor to make accommodations for an increasing number of students, thus increasing the overall budget.
The BOE’s budget explains that Elementary enrollment is projected to peak in 2026, and then remain stable until 2033, Middle School enrollment is expected to increase by an additional 276 students in the next 5 years, and SWHS is projected to increase by 463 students by 2033.
The budget will also provide salaries for additional teachers, funding for extracurricular activities, learning accommodations, special education programs, multilingual learner services, and various other programs and accommodations.
The budget will maintain the current standards South Windsor has for their schools; however, the presented budget will not bring any new programs or significant improvement throughout the school district. If the BOE were to make any large changes, other necessities may be neglected, lowering the quality of the school district.
Dr. Carter explained the intricate process of constructing the yearly budget, and all schools in the district are included in the process, ensuring that all needs are being met.
“We involve the principals and curriculum leaders, they have the opportunity to identify their needs moving forward and bring those requests to us as we look at the whole landscape as a team,” Dr. Carter explained.
Dr. Carter expressed her team’s rationale behind the 2025 budget increase by comparing South Windsor’s budget to neighboring districts in Connecticut.
“Our increase over past years is very consistent with what we are seeing across the state, yet those districts aren’t experiencing the increase in enrollment, that is part of the rationale of why we feel this is a reasonable increase,” Dr. Carter said.
Dr. Carter noted that the increasing budget is proportional to the rise in enrollment and “is a reflection of our cumulative growth in enrollment since 2015,” convincing town residents that their budget has taken past trends into account.
As the 2025 school term approaches, some residents will question the reliability of the 2025 Budget. However, based on Dr. Carter’s success throughout her 15 years as Superintendent of Schools, South Windsor residents will likely remain committed to education as the next chapter of our town begins to unfold.
