School Budget Cuts Felt Across the Board

Next year's trimmed education budget means Milton school administrators will have to do more with less, spreading out the workload of eliminated positions among the remaining staff.

At the second session of Milton's Town Meeting on May 4, a $33.4 million school budget passed that will cut 17 employees. Though none of the positions eliminated will be classroom teachers, and overall the budget is a small increase over current spending, several key positions will be lost.

"Every single cut means that someone else will have to pick up the slack," said School Committee Chairwoman Lynda-Lee Sheridan. "These are significant changes."

Among the losses is the guidance director at the high school. School Business Administrator Matthew Gillis said in an email that this means reduced information and services for parents, though students will be affected less because the school will maintain a "manageable student to counselor ratio" by shifting responsibilities and increasing the workload for some administrators.

An impact statement completed in January on the potential cuts warned that eliminating the head of guidance would reduce the time counselors could spend with each student selecting courses, setting goals and preparing for college. But Gillis said the reassignment of duties will stave off that result.

"We do not anticipate a direct impact on student access to guidance counselors," Gillis said.

The cuts came after a multi-stage decision process involving a leadership team consisting of school principals, department heads, the superintendent and the business office. Sheridan said those involved were forced to weigh the goal of keeping classroom sizes down by retaining teachers versus the benefits of more administrative positions, such as extra support for kindergarten teachers. Thirteen kindergarten aides will be reduced from full-time to part-time under the budget, affecting students up to 50 percent of the time, Gillis said.

Additionally, Pierce Middle School will lose an assistant principle, after having already reduced the role in years past. The elimination means one less person to coordinate classroom initiatives, maintain visibility in the hallways and communicate with teachers about student concerns. The school will go from having 2.5 administrators for every 850 students to 1.5 for the 870 expected next year.

This will "undoubtedly have a negative impact on communication, discipline and student teacher support," Gillis said.

A potentially more severe reduction of 40 positions was headed off, in part, by the use of $1.5 million in federal stimulus funds. Depending on economic recovery in Massachusetts and next year's local aid distribution, Milton may face a difficult "funding cliff" for the 2012 budget without further stimulus money.

"Without that, next year is going to be a very different picture," Sheridan said.

Milton is not alone when it comes to making difficult education decisions.

Quincy, facing its own budget problems, may have to eliminate more than 200 school employees over the summer, including 90 teachers. In Weymouth, the school superintendent told the town meeting that as many as 30 teachers will lose their jobs and all school sports and extracurricular activities may have to be cut.

Phillip Flaherty, assistant director at the Massachusetts Secondary School Administrators Association, said there is no standard fix when budget crunches force towns to cut important administrative posts.

"It's a very individual problem," Flaherty said.