Highlights From Three Board Meeting on Budgets

If you missed the Three Board (School Committee, Board of Selectmen and Finance Committee) meeting on March 2, here are some of the highlights:

1. Board of Selectmen Chair Moira Miller opened the meeting saying it is the time of year when the three boards come together to put together a budget “in a manner that is very thoughtful, responsible and respectful” and to “update each other on where each of us is at in that process.”

2. Town Manager Daniel Morgado gave a brief overview of the current FY 2011.  “All in all, fiscal 2011 is shaping up pretty much as we projected it would last May, “said Morgado. He mentioned some potential health insurance cost savings, with the latest yearly increase of 7 percent, compared to the predicted 10 percent.

Morgado also said the town recently had to order salt and spent nearly $200,000 in snow removal from school and municipal buildings. Morgado presented his recommended FY 2012 budget, including Additional Spending Considerations, or items that were cut in attempts to balance the recommended budget. These Additional Spending Consideration included fire and police personnel, counseling and educational services, some capital projects as well as a $2.5 million dollar gap between his recommended budget and the school department’s projected 2012 budget request.

3. Dr. Joseph Sawyer, superintendent of schools, summarized the school department’s budget development report for year 2012. As previously reported, Sawyer said there is currently a projected budget gap of about $1.8 million dollars, about 3.9 percent more than what will be available given level funding. Sawyer said that some of the figures presented will change, for example vocational tuition reduction and enrollment, numbers in flux currently.

In the current 2012 projected school budget, the projected cost increase is about $4.3 million dollars and the projected cost savings is roughly $2.5 million dollars.  The difference between the Town Manager’s Initial Recommendation and the School Department’s Initial Projection is about $2.5 million dollars.

The 2012 budget report slide show is available on the school district homepage. There were several questions regarding the technology improvements in the school budget, currently budgeted for $455,000 increase. Sawyer and Jon Green, Director of Technology and Media Services fielded questions, explaining that the district is currently replacing computers about once every 15 years, and roughly 2/3, or 66 percent of district hardware is unable to run on the current operating systems.

Sawyer said teachers report they aren’t as likely to use existing technology in the classrooms because the older systems tend to be unreliable, slow or obsolete.

“We have significantly underfunded that category over the last few years and it’s getting to the point where it’s compromising our educational program, ” Sawyer said.

He and Green said the $455,000 increase would be the first in a series of investments, part of a strategic five-year plan, with regard to technology in the schools.

4. “I’d like to see those gone,” said Selectman Ben Tartaglia of the current bus fees. He referenced $525,000 raised by bus fees and suggested the three boards direct money from their individual budgets try to eliminate the fees, calling the fees “onerous, regressive and selective.”

Selectmen Miller responded and cautioned that any additional money would first be directed towards the Additional Spending Considerations items in Morgado’s report.

“No one wants to have to pay fees… as a School Committee we don’t want to impose fees but the other side of that is additional potential cuts in programming and teachers…something else would have to go,” School Committee Chairperson Sandra Fryc said.

Selectman Maurice DePalo addressed the "selective" term and clarified that all tax payers are essentially paying for the buses as the fees pay for only about 25 percent of the costs. “The 75 percent is being paid for by the taxpayers. Everybody is paying,” DePalo said.

“I find this conversation to be somewhat disingenuous. We would all love to have no school bus fees…but as we sit here in March, we don’t know enough about how the revenue is fully maturing,” Selectmen Vice Chair James Kane said.

“I think its totally irresponsible to throw this out right now. They can’t even balance their budget, and we are talking about something that’s not going to happen because we don’t have the resources to do it just because it a good sound bite,” said DePalo again addressing Tartaglia’s suggestion.

5. Finance Committee member John Campbell briefly reported from the Finance Committee, saying the budget is “a work in progress.” He said the committee will meet again March 3 to work on the budget. Currently challenges in the budget include increases in pension costs and health care insurance, said Campbell.

6. Selectman John Lebeaux closed out the meeting thanking School Committee member Mark Murray for 15 years of service. Murray announced earlier that he will not be seeking re-election this coming Spring.

The next School Committee meeting is scheduled to be March 9.