The future of Westport’s Pre-kindergarten and kindergarten programs could be in jeopardy, if Westport Community Schools don’t receive the $1.6 million the school committee is requesting for the 2024-25 fiscal year.

That was one warning from school committee chairwoman Nancy Stanton Cross, who told finance committee members Thursday evening that there is literally nowhere else to find money in the school budget.

“We’ll have to tell all the parents that your pre-K kids are going to have to go to some private daycare or somewhere else,” she said. “That’s option one. Option two, we don’t have to do full day kindergarten. We can do half day kindergarten and lose two or three of our kindergarten teachers. Again, we’ll have to go to the Town of Westport, those parents, and tell them they’ll have to find alternative sources of full day care for their children.”

Stanton Cross also suggested changing the 56/44 school/town funding formula, to give the schools a greater percentage and the towns a lesser percentage of total funds, this coming year.

“That’s what it’s coming to,” she said. “We need to be a little bit more flexible with our school/town distribution. I know everyone likes to stay with the formula. But sometimes ... maybe this is the year we make a slight adjustment so that the impact isn’t so hard, and then the following year we go back.”

Stanton Cross’s predicted impacts aren’t set in stone, as it will be months before a proposed 2024-25 budget is prepared, and before voters decide the matter at Town Meeting this Spring.

Still, she said, the numbers are clear: School expenses, particularly those for special education, are going through the roof, while much of the department’s budget is contractually obligated and is thus untouchable.

“These are obviously very unpleasant options,” she said. “But when you asked us what we could get rid of .... this is it. There’s nothing else.”

Stanton Cross’ comments were met by some skepticism by finance committee members and other town officials, who said those same spending constraints apply to every department in town.

Following the failure of the town’s $3 million override vote last July, they said, all departments are at risk, not just the schools. What’s crucial now is living with the money that exists, regardless of what department one advocates for, chairwoman Karen Raus said.

“The bottom line is the budget is barely balanced now. If more money goes to the schools, then less money goes to the town. So however you want to creatively allocate ... somewhere along the line, a town department has to get cut.”

Bemoaning the override’s defeat, Stanton Cross said that personally, “I think we need to try for a 2.5 (override) again.”

But “the voters have spoken,” Cindy Brown said. “If they don’t want increased taxes, then there is a price to pay. That price has to be borne by some of the areas that can least afford it, unfortunately. Every $1 million or $100,000 that comes out of that small pot is going to very deeply impact some other department. That’s just the way it is.”

And she made a dire prediction of her own:

“If we eliminated the Council on Aging, the Recreation Department, the library and the transfer station, it would not be enough to satisfy the request of the school department. We have finite amount of money and we have to learn to live with that — we all have to learn to live with that.”

They’ll do their best, school superintendent Thomas Aubin said, and it will require cooperation from everyone in town.

“There’s a real interest in bringing everyone in this community together. Because the financial implications of not doing it are going to be profound.