The City Council's Finance Committee is half-way through our hearings on the FY15 City Budget. The Finance Committee makes initial recommendations for all departments, including Amesbury Public Schools, on Thursday, June 5th. The City Council takes its final votes on all department budgets and line items on Tuesday, June 17th.
I want to talk about the proposed FY15 Public Schools budget and lay out my thoughts on it. At the start, let me state that I share the concerns of many parents and other residents that the FY15 Schools budget, as it currently stands, includes reductions that will:
- limit the ability of graduates to enter most colleges and universities, through the reduction of foreign language offerings to 2 years only (most require 3 or 4 years);
- eliminate the option for high school students to earn college credit through the Early College program at Northern Essex Community College;
- eliminate technical education classes at the middle school and high school; and
- eliminate consumer science education classes at the middle school.
- increase the number of study hall blocks;
- strain our capacity to meet the Commonwealth's 'Time On Learning' requirements, requiring us to upgrade 'Curriculum Enrichment Blocks' to creditable time, to substitute for the loss of actual class time with a full curriculum; and
- require our already strained administrators to spend more time monitoring study halls and cafeteria blocks, rather than performing their duties as administrators.
- potential increase in 'choice out' students as school quality declines, which would be a net loss; and
- potential decrease in house values (and related rise in property tax rate), as school quality has been shown to be a primary determinant for home buyers (investment in schools tracks increases in home values).
The options for restoring these positions at this point in the budget process are very limited.
- At the present, the City Council has no authority to increase the school budget (under MA law); we can only accept it as proposed or reduce it.
- There was slight hope that the State Senate might increase the amount of local school aid (aka Chapter 70) in the Commonwealth's own FY15 budget, but the Senate passed a budget last Friday that kept the Chapter 70 revenue estimate that we already had baked into our budget cake.
- The City Council could debate and vote on a higher amount for the Schools IF the School Committee takes a new vote and approves a higher amount before our final June 17 vote.
- The Mayor could bring one or more 'supplemental' budget requests to the Council outside of the normal budget process for our debate and approval.
In fact, in just the last 10 days, a petition with this request was drafted, organizing house parties were held around town, 40 'petition captains' volunteered to gather signatures, and over 100 'I Support Amesbury Schools' signs were distributed around Amesbury. As of tonight, over 800 signatures have been gathered, with a goal of 1,000 by next week, for submission to the School Committee.
I wholeheartedly support this effort and have been happy to lend my time and energy to it.
Let me be clear about a few things. I think that Mayor Gray did his job as Mayor in looking at Amesbury's total financial picture and giving the School Committee and school administration a set number to develop a budget within. Then the School Committee (with Mayor Gray as Chair) did its job in developing and approving a budget within that parameter. And, with the budget submitted on May 12 to the City Council, it is now the Council and the public's turn to 'do its job', which is responding to the budget and advocating regarding it. In that spirit, I join lots of residents and parents in saying, 'We can do more.' I'm hopeful that we'll find a way to make this work and avoid these impacts.
Also, asking for these positions to be kept in the budget is not asking for a 'level services' budget. That would mean keeping a facilities coordinator (to manage our building assets at 4 sites), a transportation coordinator (to manage transportation services across the system), and a central office assistant (to, among other things, more than pay for itself by handling Medicaid and other insurance billing to help cover SPED costs). Instead, all of those responsibilities now fall on the Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent directly (in addition to their many other responsibilities).
I believe that Amesbury has the ability to cover these needs (it will cost about $52 to the average single family house owner) and I think that it is reasonable to let the City Council debate and vote on this budget amendment. But this will only happen if the School Committee takes a new vote. If you have not already, please consider signing a petition. Write to the School Committee, the Mayor and the City Council about this. Come to the next School Committee meeting on Monday, June 2 at the High School.
One last note: the Senate Budget passed last week DID include an amendment by our State Senator Katie O'Connor-Ives directing money to Northern Essex Community College, funding an area-wide Early College Program for local high school students. It stands a good chance of surviving the 'conference committee' process with the House and becoming a part of the Commonwealth's FY15 budget. This is great news and would resolve one of the areas of concern.
Posts
