New London - The Board of Education continued its budget deliberations Wednesday night, this time meeting with the principals of the city's elementary schools and central office administrators.

C.B. Jennings Elementary School Principal Maribel Olivero said she began preparing the school's budget by engaging the School Governance Council, which set the priorities for next year's spending.

"We sat down, went over the budget item by item and prioritized," Olivero said. "We really looked at the essential components, our essential needs and the services we need to provide for our students."

Under the proposed budget, Jennings would receive $4,521,248 from the city's general fund and an additional $1,657,287 in grant funding. The school's total budget of $6,178,535 represents an increase of $648,427 over the current budget.

Olivero said the increase in her school's budget is due in part to adding a special education teacher to facilitate a new program for students with autism and adding a teacher to assist students for whom English is a second language.

For Winthrop Elementary Magnet School, the proposed budget calls for a general fund appropriation of $3,061,934 and an additional $3,638,902 from grants. The total school budget of $6,700,836 would be about $396,200 less than the current year's budget. Winthrop is expecting to enroll a total of 595 students next year - 414 from New London and 181 from outside the city.

"I think this is a good solid budget with really good programming," Winthrop Principal Michele Han told the board when she presented the proposed spending plan Friday night. "As a magnet school, we've submitted an operations plan to the state, so really that's our driving force whenever we're looking at our budget. We look at what kind of programming we said that we were going to offer both the New London and the out-of-district youngsters who are joining our school and make sure that is reflected here."

When asked where she would cut back if the Board of Education decided to reduce the proposed budget increase by 1 percent, Han said eliminating teacher or staff positions would be off limits.

"I try to be really careful; I'm pretty conservative and I want to be very careful with how I'm spending the money," she said. "We offer really high quality programming right now, so I would have to take a very close look at our supplies and the 'nice-to-haves' would be the first to go over the 'must-haves.'?

The proposed budget allots $3,632,603 from the general fund and $3,856,155 from grants for Nathan Hale Arts Magnet Elementary School. Its total $7,488,758 budget would be about $422,000 less than its current budget.

The full district budget recommended by new Superintendent Manuel J. Rivera last month would require from the city an appropriation of $43,722,280, which represents a 5.98 percent increase over the current fiscal year's appropriation from the city.

The district's total operating budget, which includes more than $20 million of revenue from grants, totals $63,749,691 - an increase of about $4.16 million, or 6.98 percent, over the current year's total operating budget.

The Board of Education will continue its budget deliberations tonight at 7 p.m. in the science and technology magnet high school's lecture hall. The board is expected to take a vote on its budget tonight and must pass a budget and submit it to the mayor by March 15.

c.young@theday.com

Twitter: @ColinAYoung