School Committee Approves $139M Budget; Onto Mayor

FRAMINGHAM, MA — After some more tweaks and adjustments the school budget sits at $139 million and has been handed off to Mayor Yvonne Spicer. At Wednesday's School Committee meeting, the budget was approved in a 6 to 3 vote. Under the approved 2020 budget, spending will increase by 4.57 percent or $6,078,872.

The total budget is $139,096,821 and was built from the ground up, as pointed out in the budget book, "For the first time, the district built the budget from scratch, requiring that every resource and every staff position be defended by principals and departments." In March, Superintendent Robert Tremblay and the district’s finance chief, Lincoln Lynch IV, presented a $140 million draft budget. It was a 5.66 percent increase or about $7.5 million over the current budget. The budget was trimmed down further to its current number after Spicer and Chief Financial Officer Mary Ellen Kelley voiced concerns.

One of the biggest changes made to slim down the budget was an increase in estimated turnover savings for the district — if a high salaried teacher were to retire and be replaced by a lower salaried teacher, the budget estimates $1 million in savings. The original savings were estimated at $350,000 but School Committee member voiced concern to Lynch at previous meetings that the number was too low.

Although the number is now higher, Lynch said over-estimating the savings can land the district in a tough spot. "If the turnover savings of $1 million does not come to fruition, I’m looking for that difference between a million and $800,000, $750,000, $650,000 -- I have to find $350,000 in the budget somewhere to make payroll," Lynch said.

Other ways the budget was trimmed down included reducing new position requests among other changes. The budget will focus on adding funding to programs like Sage, an expansion of the dual-language program and a rollout of a new 1:1 Chromebook initiative at King Elementary. Room was also made in the budget for a raise in teacher salaries who will be teaching an extra 15 minutes in elementary schools.

Despite the changes made, Spicer told the committee she still thought a 4.57 percent increase was unsustainable and would like to see a 2 percent increase instead. "We can't do everything we'd like to do," Spicer said, "The city has been very giving to the school department. It’s not sustainable, these kind of increases on an annual basis."

Spicer will review the budget and then pass it off to the City Council with the total municipal operating budget.

The School Committee noted in its message in the budget book, that the request does not fully meet the needs of the district, citing that Tremblay initially found that the district needs $10.8 million beyond the budget request. "This request does not fully meet the realistic need our large, complex school district requires. Fiscal realities are the main reason why this request is not larger," the statement read.

Members Adam Freudberg, Tiffanie Maskell, Geoff Epstein, Scott Wadland, Noval Alexander, and Beverly Hugo voted in favor of the request, while Gloria Pascual, Tracey Bryant, and Rick Finlay rejected it.

"This community has a long history of supporting and investing in our schools — that's been our trademark," Alexander said. "We're gonna do what's best for the kids in this city and be also mindful of what the city's overall responsibilities are."

The full budget book can be read here.

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