School Committee Approves FY13 Proposed Budget; Looks to Hire More Future Staff

Led by a presentation from Arlington School Committee member Diane Johnson and Superintendent Kathleen Bodie, the School Committee examined and then approved the proposed FY13 budget for Arlington Public Schools (APS).

“It's a different age of school funding,” expressed Johnson as she led the discussion, “with revenue flat and grants not growing, we are really re-inventing the wheel now-a-days.”

The biggest re-invention to the FY13 budget comes from conditions proposed by the Arlington Educational Association's (AEA) contract with APS, which calls for additional staffing requests and other expenses.

Based on projected numbers generated by Johnson, there will be a 3.9% increase to teacher's salaries for FY13. This doesn't mean a hike in teacher's salaries across the board, but instead, simply puts room in FY13 for the standard yearly salary raises for returning teachers and those who manage to achieve higher levels of education.

School Committee members saw the creation of up to 15 new teaching positions for the year as one of the big improvements with the FY13 budget. This upward trend of hiring will continue in FY14 with up to 10 new teachers, and into FY15 with up to 11 new teachers, as projected by Johnson.

“There is a great deal of interest right now in hiring new teachers due to class size, overall demand and other factors,” she said.

Money for non-salary expenses (supplies, professional development, etc.) will also increase by 2% each year which Johnson equated to “positive overall growth” in the APS system.

Kindergarten Tuitions To Decrease

Kindergarten expenses will also go through some changes according to the proposed FY13 budget. As part of the approval process, the School Committee moved (and approved) to decrease the Kindergarten Fee expectation in the budget to $970,000 (down from $1,334,353 generated in FY12).

To offset this revenue loss, the FY13 budget calls for a change to Arlington's LABBB Credit Expectation, which Vice-Chair Kristi-Allison Ampe summed up as, “less money going into the special education reserve for the end of the year.” This was a move the School Committee was pleased with in order to lower Kindergarten costs.

“We had this motion because of the complaints of parents over high kindergarten tuition fees over the past few years,” said Ampe, detailing the spark for the Kindergarten tuition change.

Athletic Expenses Continue to Decrease

Another positive the School Committee singled-out was the fact that athletic expenses will continue to drop in the FY13 budget from a high of $674,137 in FY11. The FY13 projection is down to $561,877, which includes an extra $22,000 for more safety measures and equipment per the request of the High School Athletics Department.

Overall Projections

The School Committee seemed exceptionally pleased with Johnson and Superintendent Bodie's projections for FY13. A key element with the new contract with AEA was summed up by Superintendent Bodie when she stated, “No proposed scenarios [in the FY13 budget] put us in a deficit by 2016.”

The School Committee saw this as a good sign despite the fact that the APS budget continues to inflat growing from $48,778,194 in FY12, to the new, projected high of $50,534,524 for FY13.

For those interested in more information, the School Committee mentioned that the proposed FY13 budget will be up shortly on the APS website.