Gateway staff have spent much time since Chester defeated the budget for the 2017-2018 school year (despite the fact that their assessment was actually lower than in 2010) looking for ways to reduce the budget from its current 1% increase. The goal in these deliberations is to keep the reductions as far away from student services as possible and to avoid laying off staff (thus avoiding unemployment costs). These reductions were made more difficult because costs in several areas have increased since the line item budget was developed last December. The end result was that we are recommending reductions of nearly $106,000, and offsetting town assessments by using an additional $20,000 from the district E & D account (excess and deficiency) to the school committee, which results in just over $24,000 in town savings. To reach the reductions requested by the towns who voted no (Chester, Huntington and Russell) would require additional reductions of approximately $200,000. If approved by the school committee, this new budget would see overall town assessments average less than 2.5% while the total budget increase remains at less than 1%.
We reviewed the basic reductions at this week’s school committee meeting, although these could change as needs dictate over time. It is important to note that the first draft of reductions do not result in any staff being laid off but do reduce staff time that had been put into the budget to address a variety of needs. Examples of this include eliminating an additional half-time nurse that had been proposed to meet the increasing medical needs of students at Littleville; eliminating an additional 5 days of work for two secretaries; a reduction in security hours for the main complex; a decrease in anticipated substitute costs for teachers, paraprofessionals, and clerical staff; reducing copier use by a third; not replacing a secretary who is planning to retire mid-year; and reducing stipends for curriculum facilitators. The complete list is published on the district’s website (www.grsd.org/ under Information>Budget).
We all recognize that the state budget has not been finalized at this point and that changes in state aid to education or regional transportation reimbursement will also impact the budget and therefore town assessments. In some respects this could prove beneficial to the towns (for example a large increase in state aid would likely drive down assessments) but could also negatively impact the towns (for example a large decrease in state aid without a corresponding decrease in the budget would increase town assessments).
The school committee did approve a letter seeking matching town funding to hold a facilitated meeting between the towns and the district to discuss and seek resolutions to some basic communications issues surrounding finances. This is the second item from the MARS study regarding financial issues that the school committee has addressed and we’re hopeful that this outreach effort will result in a clearer understanding of the financial issues and pressures that both the school and our towns face. We hope that we’ll be able to forward a new school committee budget to the towns within the thirty day window allowed by law.
