Mansfield School Committee Contentiously Approves Budget

The Mansfield School Committee met last night and voted 4-1 to approve the current recommended budget. The committee got the budget to the amount that the town appropriates by trimming more positions out of it, totaling $286,000. This brings the budget to what town officials recommended for this year, which is $38,482,132.

The positions eliminated from the budget included a library media assistant, curriculum director/data analyst, a reading teacher and two elementary school teachers. The elementary teachers were eliminated from the budget because the incoming first and second grades do not have a significant increase in class size in the 2011-12 school year, and therefore would not be needed.

The exclusion of a new library media assistant was a point of contention, as it made Committee Member Jim Perry vote against the budget, and also made Jean Miller vote for the budget with the understanding that she wants to change it later on. Both Perry and Miller were concerned that because of budget constraints, currently students can only check out books from the library every other week.

"I feel like we're paying for a facility we're not using," she said.

She voted for the budget with the library position excluded, but wanted to work on other avenues for the library. Committee member Jim Perry was the only opposed vote because of the exclusion of the position.

With stimulus funds, many other new positions were approved in the budget for this year. The stimulus, and other one-time use funds, provided over $1.35 million for the 2011-12 school year budget, allowing for many new staff and faculty to be hired.

"The Qualters School is our top priority," said Superintendent Brenda Hodges. "The staff has worked very diligently to be able to manage with the staff reductions that we have had to put in place over the past couple years, and it's been very difficult. So we would recommend that we reinstate that staff."

New positions in the budget include 6.2 full-time equivalent teaching positions, an assistant principal and two intensive needs special education paraprofessionals at the Qualters Middle School.

Mansfield High School will have new social studies and math teachers to help alleviate class sizes, as well as a science teacher; an intensive needs paraprofessional and an English Language Arts teacher to assist with remediation. Jordon/Jackson and Robinson will be receiving reading teachers, and Robinson will also have an intensive needs paraprofessional.

Mansfield Schools' Director of Finance and Operations Ed Vozzella said that the committee has to be careful with these funds, as they may not be available next year.

"We have $1.35 worth of salaries that are being subsidized right now by the government," he said. "We have a funding cliff; these funds will not be there in fiscal year 13, unless they muster a new stimulus package."