A week and a half ago, I wrote about the petition that was
circulating among Amesbury residents, asking the School Committee to issue a
new FY15 School budget recommendation.
Doing so would allow the City Council to debate and vote on a higher
amount, an amount that would let us avoid some or all of these planned reductions:
- 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
The potential impacts include:
- increase the number of study hall blocks at the Middle School;
- 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
In the 2 week period from May 19 – June 2, almost 2,000
Amesbury residents signed a petition asking the School Committee to make a new
recommendation. The petitions were
presented to the School Committee at their June 2 meeting last week.
We already knew that the MA Senate had taken up Sen. O’Connor-Ives’
request for funding of an Early College program through Northern Essex
Community College. Chances seem good
that it will remain in the final budget that comes out of conference committee
with the House and will be available in the fall to area high school students,
including from Amesbury.
The bad news is that on June 2, the School Committee did not
take up the question and reconsider the issue.
The good news is that the Mayor and the administration have been working
to mitigate some of these reductions by other means.
Specifically:
- Free up $45,000 by moving the cost of the School Resource Officer out of the School budget and into the Police Department budget
- Requesting $35,000 in ‘Free Cash’ from the City Council
- Identifying $40,000 in new savings and/or revenue within the School budget
The Early College addition to the Commonwealth’s FY15 budget
and the re-allocation of the SRO officer takes care of about $90,000 of the
$330,000+ needed to avoid these reductions.
Regarding the use of Free Cash for funding on-going expenses
such as personnel, I believe that it is usually bad policy. On principle, I would not normally support
its use in this way. Funding personnel with free cash essentially
compounds the real cost of that position. We add the future personnel
costs to our operating budget base, without allocating corresponding revenue to
fund that base this year and beyond. It’s like finding a $10 bill and
deciding that you can therefore add HBO to your cable, which works great until
month 2 comes and you don’t actually have the cash flow to cover it. That said, the proposal has the virtue of
being a very low amount in the big picture ($35,000), not even the value of one
teaching position, so the committed sin is minor and progress is often
comprised of such choices.
Finally, regarding the $40,000 that the administration will
be aiming at finding, it is fair to say that this amount is speculative and a
'work in progress.' Assistant Superintendent spoke about a potential
$20,000+ from rental fees to Lesley College, which would be great. No other substantive revenues or savings have
been identified yet.
We have confirmed that the APD will be absorbing the cost of
the School Resource Officer and I am sure that Mayor Gray will make good on his
word and will bring a $35,000 Free Cash request to the Council very soon.
That would get us $80,000 firm towards the list of 4
positions set to be eliminated.
An additional $40,000in revenue/savings would get us to
$120,000, or not quite 2 positions.
I met with Mayor Gray last week to discuss these
proposals. While neither of us was
pleased with the reductions and the impacts, we agreed to disagree on the solution. He was firm that he did not support
increasing the School’s proposed FY15 budget beyond the current amount and I,
that I did. As I wrote in my last blog
post, the City has very healthy excess capacity under our Proposition 2 ½ levy
limit and could absorb an increased budget and still be fiscally responsible.
What’s next?
The City Council will watch for Mayor Gray’s Free Cash
request and the School Administration will continue to work on freeing up
money.
I also believe that there is real energy among parents and residents
to look forward and push for better outcomes for next year. We’ve had too many Groundhog’s Day
experiences with the School budget – costs outpacing revenue, the steady march
downwards in terms of offerings, and the displacement of other municipal needs
by school budget pressures.
I think that to improve our outcomes for next year, we will
have to look outward to the state context (Chapter 70 funding formula, un- or
poorly-funded mandates, costly testing regimes) AND look inwards (improved financial
reporting from the schools, earlier and long term anticipation of budget
dynamics and the formulation of strategic responses).
If even a fraction of the energy that I’ve seen in the past
month can be focused forward, that will be a great start.
Posts
