RIDGEFIELD — Recent financial reports show that a months-long budget freeze and savings in personnel costs have likely closed the schools’ projected year-end deficit, which just three months ago was estimated to reach $1.3 million.

Acting Superintendent Robert Miller told the Board of Education this week that based on an unofficial report of finances as of March 31, the district’s business department is projecting to end the year on budget or with a slight surplus.

The board had planned to decide in Monday’s meeting whether it would need to ask the Board of Finance for a special appropriation to close the deficit, but after hearing Miller’s report decided not to vote on that agenda item.

“Unless something unexpected happens out of left field, we should be in a position to end the school year without having to ask for a special appropriation,” Miller told board members.

Outgoing Superintendent Karen Baldwin first told the school board about a potential $1 million deficit in September, when she enacted a spending freeze on all “controllable accounts.” The deficit was largely caused by unexpected special education costs and the hiring of three additional elementary school teachers after a summer enrollment bump.

By January, the projected deficit had jumped to $1.3 million due to weather-related emergencies, increased electricity costs and further special education costs. But by February, the spending freeze and better estimates in personnel and healthcare began to drive that number down.

During the freeze, staff across the district have deferred or declined items like instructional materials, teacher trainings and planned repairs, Miller said.

“We’ve been very, very cautious and conservative on what’s been passed through,” Miller said. “A lot of credit goes to the leadership and the teachers across the board who have gone without resources and repairs and supplies over the course of the year and have just made do.”

Based on the March projections, the freeze will save a combined $953,000 by the end of the year.

The report also projects that personnel accounts will be under budget — by $132,000 in salaries and $448,000 in benefits — largely because the district has been able to better estimate those costs as the year goes on, Miller said.

“The budget is constructed well in advance, back in the fall, around the number we’re anticipating will be the number of employees signing on to our health benefits,” Miller said. “Fewer signed on at the beginning of the year.”

He added that some employees came off the insurance plan as the year went on — either because they retired, died or switched to a spouse’s plan — and there were lower claims than in previous years.

Miller said these savings should be enough to offset the causes of the deficit, like the $1.53 million excess in special education costs.

The $1.53 million includes unexpected settlements in lawsuits, a higher number of students with special needs placed outside the district than budgeted and a $166,000 shortfall in reimbursements from state special education aid.

Staff will still closely monitor the budget over the next few months, Miller added.

“There are some unknowns within this,” he said. “It is not an exact science, unfortunately, but it is a best-faith estimate of what we believe at this point that we will end the year with.”

aquinn@newstimes.com