$2.235 Million Increase Proposed In Danvers School Budget

DANVERS, MA — A $49 million budget for next year presented to the Danvers School Committee at its public hearing Tuesday night accounts for dramatic rises in transportation and out-of-district placement costs but also benefits from the town agreeing to absorb $1.5 million in rising special education costs for new district families.

Acting Superintendent Mary Wermers said the bulk of the $2.235 million — or 4.79 percent — increase that does not include the town's special education absorption is mostly fueled by about $1 million in contractual salary increases and $955,000 in transportation increases that she said represents a 143 percent jump over the previous budget.

She said those transportation costs are largely fueled by inflation and the limited transportation options available to the district for mandatory transportation costs, such as those for students traveling out of the district.

The budget proposal, which Superintendent Eric Crane called a "nuts-and-bolts budget" that is "extremely responsible," did not include about $1 million in additional spending that could have gone toward programs to try to transition some of the special education needs back to the district — which could eventually be much more cost-effective — and funding to increase public relations and improve the website.

Wermers also cautioned that the district continues to fund 11 positions — totaling about $851,000 —through pandemic ESSER funding, which will expire next year and have to be absorbed into the regular school budget if those positions are retained.

She said many of the new positions added in recent years have centered around student social and emotional health coming out of the COVID-19 health crisis.

"We are still recovering from the pandemic," she told the School Committee. "Really it is students learning to socialize with other students again. We're seeing challenges in our school with that and we're not alone. It's across the country. During the pandemic, a lot of people were at home, isolated, social media and computers were big, and technology was really big for families and students.

"Coming back to school, being face-to-face, and interacting and communicating with each other, we're really having to teach those skills more than we have in the past."

The budget includes a 14 percent state-mandated increase in out-of-district placements that jumped dramatically from increases of about 2 percent in most recent years — making what would have typically been an expected $104,106 rise in those costs instead an anticipated $582,995.

School leaders in both Marblehead and Swampscott — two North Shore towns that may be facing budget override proposals this spring — have also cited the 14 percent increase as a budget-buster this year.

"This is a challenge for every school district across the state," Warmers said, adding that town and school administrator associations are still pushing the state legislature nfor relief in that area.

Of the increased transportation costs, Danvers High Principal Adam Federico said the district is caught in a conundrum while seeking alternatives.

"Even if we want to buy more vans to run our own van lines they are not available for purchase," he said, adding that finding drivers has been a challenge both for the district and transportation companies as well. "It's a difficult cycle to break."

The School Committee is set to vote on the budget at its next meeting on March 13 and then it will be presented to the Finance Committee during the town's March 18 townwide meeting.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)