On June 9, 2015, the Amesbury City Council voted on the city's annual budget. The vast majority of the discussion around the FY2016 operating budget was regarding the budget for the Amesbury Public Schools. There was a packed house in attendance. A good number of citizen's spoke during the budget's public hearing, all on the school budget and almost all in support of the budget approved by the Amesbury School Committee back in April.
At issue with the school budget was the difference between the budget
amount proposed by the School Committee and the lower amount included by
Mayor Gray in his total city budget. I joined At-Large Councilor Anne Ferguson in voting in support of the School
Committee's amount and against the Mayor's number. (The School Committee's approved budget failed 2-7.)You can watch the video of the public comment and the Council's debate HERE on the Amesbury Community Television website. [Link will open up a browser-based video player.]
For FY16, Amesbury public school budget will represent about 55% of the total operating budget for the city. The School Committee had approved a budget of $29,247,025. Mayor Gray proposed $28,957,496. The difference between the two budgets was $289,529 (or, 0.9%).
As I've already written about (HERE, HERE, and HERE), the building Principals and the Superintendent were asked to put together planning documents, identifying needs for FY16 to be backed up with data. They were asked to narrow it down to top two priorities each, for a total of 10.
The Mayor's budget would cover about 3 of the 10 requests.
We were all provided a packet with extensive information about the requests and I'd also taken the opportunity (along with some of my colleagues) to talk directly with the Principals and the Superintendent.
Here's why I fully supported the School Committee's budget request and why I voted against the Mayor's.
At Amesbury Elementary, voting for the Mayor's request meant choosing between having 30 student size classrooms in Fourth Grade OR not hiring an additional Special Education teacher to work with a growing SPED population (107 out of 446 students, that's 25%) next year. (Or none at all, since at least one building won't be able to fund either of the 'top two' priorities.)
At Cashman Elementary, voting for the Mayor's request meant choosing between adding partial time hours to the 0.8 teacher we have for ELL (English as a Learning Language) students just to come near the basement of recommended teacher per ELL student ratio OR also an additional SPED teacher in response to numbers and need. (Or funding none at all.)
At Amesbury Middle School, voting for the Mayor's request meant choosing between adding an EAST (Exploratory Arts, Science, and Technology) teacher (so that the school could stay above the minimum 990 hours 'time on learning' requirement) OR an additional SPED teacher to handle a rising cohort of students from the elementary schools who require educational interventions. (Or, funding none at all.)
At Amesbury High School, voting for the Mayor's request meant choosing between full-time Math teacher (in order to offer 4 years of math at AHS, per MA standards) OR a full-time Tech Ed teacher (cut last year), so that offerings in STEM curriculum could be expanded (including support for the Robotics Team). (Or, funding none at all.)
Finally, in the Central Office, voting for the Mayor's request meant funding neither of the Superintendent's requests for additional staff: one Administrative assistant for the Superintendent AND one 'Special Schools Accounts' Bookkeeper, under the Assistant Superintendent. Regarding the former position, we currently have what must be the highest paid minutes taker in the Commonwealth, since it falls to the Superintendent to take and produce official School Committee minutes. Regarding the latter, given the uproar that resulted from the unpaid electricity bill affair earlier this year AND given the findings of the DESE report that noted the inadequacy of our financial and central office book and record keeping staffing, supporting these positions and certainly the bookkeeper was about as obvious as could be to me. But my colleagues were essentially unanimous (with the exception of Councilor Ferguson) in being clear that no new admin positions were supported, in terms of the budget request.
The requests were data-driven and most strategically valuable to the City in order to actually save the City money. The concentration of professional special education resources in the lower grades is part of an explicit and long-term strategy to provide in-district educational opportunities to students, to retain them within our district and to avoid (often very expensive) out-placements.
'Penny wise, pound foolish' was the phrase that kept going through my head about all of this. In the end, I could not vote for a budget that I felt wasn't fully responsive to the conditions and needs that exist in our schools. And for any of these new positions, we're not talking about fancy programming, we're talking about bare basics to keep afloat.
It's an election year and you'll hear a good bit in the coming months about how there were no reductions in positions in this year's budget and that we should be satisfied with that. I am in fact pleased that neither the Mayor's nor the School Committee's budgets reduced positions. But as one citizen who spoke at the budget hearing put it, after a decade of (almost) continuous and dramatic contraction of positions, offerings, and programming at the schools, this is a bit like going to the doctor after having most of your toes cut off and the doctor says, "Good news! I'm not taking another toe off this year!"
During his remarks at the hearing, the Mayor addressed me directly and asked, "Councilor Sherwood, do you think that your colleague next to you doesn't support the schools [because she was not supporting the School Committee budget]?" I replied that "No, of course I don't think that she did not support the schools, just because of that."
But, I will say that in the end, I had very clear differences of opinion with most of my colleagues and the Mayor about what was and was not acceptable for our schools next year.
To me, the devil's choices listed above were not acceptable; to most of my colleagues and to the Mayor, they were. I say that knowing that my colleagues acted in good faith but also knowing that I disagree with their choice in this.
During this budget season, I heard from A LOT of neighbors, constituents, and friends about the Amesbury school budget. Outside of the budget hearing (where three people spoke in favor of the Mayor's budget), every single one asked me to please support the School Committee's request.
To close, I'd like to share a story and comment shared by a friend with substantial connections to the community (shared here with permission). It should stand as a cautionary story for all of us.
My son saw the budget battle last year and the seemingly careless way in which the HS almost cut foreign language so far that its graduates would not be attractive to competitive colleges. So he led the effort to look for an alternative. I tried several times to encourage him to have an open mind about Amesbury High School or to consider Whittier. He applied to [several other schools] and was accepted at one with financial aid that makes it feasible for him to attend. So that's what he's doing. Don't think that our kids aren't paying attention to the ways in which our schools are supported or not supported by the community.++++++++++++++++++++
Voting for the School Committee's budget request: Councilors Ferguson (At-Large) and Sherwood (District 6).
Voting against the School Committee's budget request: Councilors Sickorez (D1), Bartley (D2), Moavenzadeh (D3), Lavioe (D4), McMilleon (D5), McClure (At-Large), and Bezanson (At-Large)
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