Marblehead Schools Chart 3-Track Course To Navigate Budget Crisis

MARBLEHEAD, MA — As the Marblehead School Committee awaits the town's next move and guidance on how to deal with the looming structural budget deficit and ensuing tax override requests, the administration has prepared three spending tracks depending on how much money is available based on the presumed override request outcomes.

The May 1 annual town meeting warrant indicates an Article 31 general town override that School Committee Chair Sarah Fox said she understands would support what was called a "keep the lights on" budget designed to meet the town's structural budget deficit for one year, and Article 32 that the School Committee called an "aspirational" or "optimal" budget that would fund what is considered the true educational needs of the district.

"That's where my frustration is because to me if we are doing an override it needs to be to meet the needs of our students," Fox said. "We can keep debating it but at the end of the day it is what it is and we need to proceed. So what we're proceeding with are three budgets."

Superintendent John Buckey said Thursday night that the "aspirational" budget is a version of the original $49.3 million budget that represented a 12.17 percent increase over last year before the Town Administrator Thatcher Kezer's "State of the Town" address outlining the town's anticipated budget crossroads.

Buckey said he has worked with school administrators to cut the 12.17 increase to under 8 percent to minimize the ask of residents. That would eliminate desired programs such as free kindergarten, and equity counselors necessitated increases in professional development and include what Buckey called "significant reductions in supplies."

Still included in what will likely become the Article 32 override includes an increase in mental health counselors required based on the aftereffects of the COVID-19 health crisis, requested curriculum counselors, permanent substitute teachers and overdue investments in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics) programs.

"Not that any of (the original proposals) weren't priorities," Buckey told the School Committee. But that's where we find ourselves."

The "keep the lights on" budget resembles one presented on Feb. 9 to the School Committee meeting that was $4 million less than the full budget request, and included not filling open positions, eliminating new staff requests, a $556,517 decrease in school supplies and a $584,000 calculation correction.

Buckey said that at the time the revised budget still leaves a $643,651 gap between the town target and the budget request.

That leaves the "austerity" budget that would be required without any override approval and includes the drastic cuts outlined on Feb. 16 that includes about 34 positions cut, along with corresponding programs, which represent about 5 percent of all staff. About half of the reductions would come from retirements and not filling currently vacant positions but the remainder will have to come from existing staff.

A $3 million school supplemental budget override request last spring failed by nearly a two-thirds vote in a townwide vote after easily passing through town meeting.

"I still stand by our request last year," School Committee member Sarah Gold said. "I think we did the right thing moving forward. It was really unfortunate that we weren't able to wait (until this year) and go in with the town (override) because I think historically that has been the way we have done it. If you look at other towns, that is the best way to do it. But last year we found ourselves in a place where we had to move forward on our own.

"It does feel a bit punitive where we are under separate warrant articles (on May 1) at this point."

School Committee member Alison Taylor, who pushed for the School Committee to request the town to use some of its remaining American Recovery Plan Act funds to pay for some of the school programs and positions related to mental health, said she hopes the town will continue to work with the schools on adequate funding for all educational and municipal programs.

"It's increasingly frustrating the lack of working together," she said. "We're just not going to be successful. We're not going to get where we need to be. We're going to have to lay off these teachers.

"Next year, after collective bargaining when, of course, we're going to want to ask for something because our teachers deserve the world, we're never going to get there unless we all work together."

Marblehead's less successful general override vote came in 2005.

(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.)