MONROE, Conn. — Board of Education members heard from principals about their schools’ budgets, while reviewing Superintendent Joseph Kobza’s $78.55 million spending proposal for fiscal year 2026-27 Monday night. In his presentation at the previous meeting, Kobza told the board the vast majority of the requested 5.16 percent increase is for existing salaries and benefits.
“This budget does not ask for a lot. This is truly a needs based budget,” he said.
Kobza’s proposal includes three new requests: an assistant principal at Stepney Elementary School, a 0.2 full time equivalent for a math skills teacher at Jockey Hollow Middle School and a 0.3 FTE for a speech language pathologist at Fawn Hollow Elementary School. The hours of the last two positions would go to existing staff.
The $78,553,993 budget proposal is $3,853,230 higher than the current $74,700,763 spending plan.
Kobza said the three new requests account for $191,997 or 0.25 percent of the 5.16 percent increase in his proposal.
The superintendent said built-in costs of the operating budget — salaries, health insurance, transportation and special education increases — account for 5.05 percent of the requested increase. He said the rest of the budget actually decreased by $106,987 or 0.14 percent.
The projected hike for health insurance is 15 percent.
Kobza said he understands taxpayers’ frustration over costs rising very year.
“I live in town. I have a mother on a fixed income,” he said. “I understand all this stuff. These are the numbers that we are dealt. It’s just math and I want people to understand that.”
He said Monroe Public Schools is a “Human Resources business” which relies on people, so costs are driven by salaries and benefits.
“I wanted to show what a massive enterprise this whole school system is, so I pulled some numbers,” Kobza said.
Monroe has 3,465 students, including 693 special education students and 101 (2.9 percent) multilingual learners. Kobza said 620 students indicate English is not their first language. In 2024-25, 417 students were on free (325) and reduced (92) lunch.
The district has 585 employees working in 568,540 square feet of buildings on 88 acres and has 31 buses traveling 487,846 miles per year, according to Kobza.
Thinking outside the box
Kobza said the school district has been thinking outside the box to find ways to do things more efficiently to save money.
For example, when a janitorial position opened up at Masuk High School last year, Director of Maintenance Dan Krofssik met with the head custodian, Dustin Perkins, to create a “Maintenance IV” position, which was filled by a former contractor who is skilled at maintenance, making repairs and completing small capital projects, according to Kobza.
Since he started in late September, Kobza said the in-house contractor installed new doors and hardware at Fawn Hollow and built a system to store chairs under the school’s stage. He also put in a pocket door in the conference room at Monroe Elementary School.
Kobza said these are all projects recommended by Silver Petrucelli and Associates, the consultant for the Board of Education’s facilities study, in its assets and deficiencies report.
He said the district’s employee will tackle a list of $1,708,420 worth of recommended projects. Though the district is paying for the salary and supplies, Kobza said the town will realize significant savings over what it would cost to hire an outside contractor to do the work.
Chairman Dennis Condon praised Krofssik for making changes without increasing his department’s budget.
The new requests
Kobza said the Board of Education budget is guided by the mission statement to maximize the potential of all students in different academic areas and the Vision of the Graduate, to equip them with certain life and academic skills by the time they leave Masuk.
He identified the district’s goals of high quality instruction, student achievement; student, family and community engagement, and facilities and operations.
The 0.2 FTE teacher at Jockey Hollow ($16,600) will allow for an increase in instructional time for math for sixth graders. Kobza said districts that have outperformed Monroe in math have more instructional time for the subject.
Kobza said the change would allow sixth graders to alternate an ELA skills and strategies class with a math skills and strategies class every other day.
The hours for the 0.2 position would go to an existing teacher.
The 0.3 speech and language pathologist at Fawn Hollow ($33,000) would increase two existing positions from a combined 1.5 FTE to a 1.8 FTE. Currently, one-and-a-half positions handle a caseload of 94 students, according to Kobza.
“It’s just too much for them,” he said, adding the additional hours will help staff to balance caseloads, ensure compliance with IEP (Individualized Education Program) service time and enhance consistency of intervention.
“That’s a ridiculous case number,” said Chrissy Martinez, a board member. “Are we even in compliance?”
Martinez asked Kobza if the district could go to two full time positions and he said they definitely could.
Director of Student Support Services Jennifer Parsell said the staff members have a speech pathology assistant, so moving from a 1.5 to a 1.8 will be “a huge help for those caseloads.”
“Okay, I feel better now,” Martinez said.
The request for an assistant principal at Stepney Elementary School ($142,397) was proposed last year, before being removed when the education spending plan had to be reduced. Kobza said this new position addresses all of the district’s goals.
Kobza said Stepney currently has 491 students, 93 of which are in special education compared to 121 at Fawn Hollow and 59 at Monroe Elementary School.
Stepney has 23 multilingual learners, accounting for 4.6 percent of its student population compared to the 2.9 percent district average, Kobza said, adding 93 students (19 percent) participate in the free and reduced lunch program compared to 12.6 percent for the district.
Last year, when Stepney had over 500 students, the district found 16 of the 17 elementary schools with 500 or more students in Stepney’s district reference group (DRG B) have an assistant principal — and the one school that does not have one would see its enrollment drop to below 500 students after redistricting.
Of the 66 DRG B elementary schools with less than 500 students, 38 have assistant principals, according to the district.
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