Newton Schools Are Too Costly!

From William Heck

I read Geoff Epstein's guest column (“Post override engagement, progress,” page B02) in the Newton TAB. You should read it too. It reinforces the Newton Taxpayers Association’s case against the culture of fiscal lassitude in the city, and particularly in the Newton Public Schools.

Epstein excuses the fact that the Newton Public Schools’ budget surged from $65.8 million in 1995 to $187.7 million in 2014. Perhaps taxpayers could tolerate this spending surge if the School Committee used these dollars to maintain and improve buildings, but they didn’t. The School Committee didn’t use the dollars to institute foreign languages in our elementary schools, either. And, the School Committee didn’t use the dollars to institute tuition-free full-day kindergarten or to create cutting edge 21st century technology programs that improve education and reduce costs.

The School Committee did, however, spend the money “elsewhere” to feed the status quo. Compensation costs within Newton Public Schools now represent 84.3 percent of its $187.7 million budget, and that is too much. Mr. Epstein and his colleagues at the School Committee, including the Mayor, flail in the status quo because they have no vision, expectations, or discipline in their process.

Taxpayers are committed to excellence in education, but let’s remember that we live in a city, not a school district. The NPS budget represents 56.7 percent of Newton’s entire budget. But, when we add millions of dollars of school-related costs that are buried in the city-side budget, and not reflected in the school budget, Newton schools consume 64.2 percent of Newton’s resources.

The bottom line is that Newton Public Schools cost too much. Newton taxpayers pay too much for public education due to ineffective and inefficient management -- management that flails in the status quo because it has no vision, expectations, or discipline in its process. The taxpayers expect more, much more.