Dr. David Hopson
As we move into the new year, and the midst of the budget process for schools, municipalities, and the state, it’s evident that the economy is not moving forward as strongly as we’d all like. We’ve heard mixed reviews from state officials – that the expenditure and revenue sides of the budget are mismatched by a roughly one billion dollar shortfall, yet tax revenue is increasing and we anticipate significant additional revenue from the recently enacted gambling legislation. As preliminary district revenue won’t be available until the House I Budget (the so-called Governor’s Budget) comes out in late January, we’ve opted to begin work with the school committee’s finance subcommittee, the entire school committee, and the towns by looking at the expenditure side of the district’s budget.
I’ve also modified the budget process with the school committee. In the past, the school committee received a budget that was already significantly pared down from what was requested based upon an overall recognition that we had to do our best to control town assessments. Remembering this year’s budget process, this didn’t appear to work as well as it did in past years. Therefore, we are starting with the requests, the recommendations, and the opportunity for members of the school committee to spend significantly more time with the development, understanding, and reasoning behind budgetary decisions and recommendations made by the Gateway administrative team.
As I have already shared with the school committee, we have significant initial budget requests that total nearly $1,000,000 in new spending. I will point out that much of these are capital and infrastructure requests, some of which we’ve been discussing with towns for several years (such as the middle school roof). Over the past years, we’ve also taken out of the budget request—at the recommendation of town finance committees—money earmarked for a stabilization fund. If small amounts of money are appropriated towards this fund every year, the one time impact of major projects on local taxes can be minimized and we can potentially move forward with meeting our long-term capital needs. Since our first request for a stabilization fund (which was approved by all of our towns), our capital needs have grown significantly. These additional items include addressing the concerns that the DEP has with Gateway’s water supply (which you’ve all read about over the past several months), our telephone system (which is now beyond the time that it’s supported by the manufacturer), HVAC system (despite being fairly new, the required ‘lowest bid’ process did not yield a satisfactory end result), and the ever-present need to update technology hardware to meet the new requirements of software that we must have to meet state mandates.
However, there are still significant requests to address the needs of our current and future students, including supplies, equipment, and staffing. Although our student enrollment continues to decline, the needs of our students, and the severity of some of these needs, require that student to staff ratios in some cases be as low as one to one. As some of these specialized needs have been met (and they are not just the needs of students receiving special education services under 504 or individual educational plans “IEP’s”) we’ve had to reduce course offerings and opportunities for the overall student population. This is clearly shown by the recent report on the deficiencies in Chapter 70 Funding (the state’s portion of the cost of education our children) that total billions of dollars across the state and well over a million dollars for our district alone. For further information, please look under school committee/presentations on the district website (www.grsd.org).
I hope that everyone takes the opportunity to review the budget as it’s being developed; each step’s results and presentations by and for the school committee will be posted to the district’s website. We want to answer questions, help people understand, and provide for a reasoned decision by voters at annual town meetings. By providing additional, and detailed, information throughout the process, it should be easier for all of our constituents to follow the process, review the needs, and see the numbers well before any final decisions are made. It will be a long process that I hope will result in a budget that’s understood in its relationship to meeting student needs.
