At its March 13 meeting, the school committee adopted Version 2.1 of the Fiscal Year 2014 budget on a 12 to 1 vote. In a nutshell, this budget shows a minimal increase of 2.5 percent, does not cut teaching staff, but does require a reduction of staff that will impact student services across the district. As everyone may realize after the experiences of the last decade, a 2.5 percent increase in the budget yields a very different assessment to the towns, due to state and federal support of education. This year is no different and, based upon preliminary numbers from the state and federal governments, it looks like a 2.5 percent increase in the budget yields an average assessment increase of 4.33 percent.
I think everyone also understands that the average assessment increase is not reflected across all seven towns. Based upon the state’s formula for the minimum contribution required of towns (driven by a town’s property values and median income; essentially the town’s “ability to pay” for education) and the state’s desire to ‘equalize’ this minimum contribution, this year we see an 18.85 percent reduction in Worthington’s minimum (-$162,594) and the biggest increase of 6.24 percent in Huntington ($79,082).
Towns also pay above minimum and non-foundation assessments based upon their percentage of students in the district. This year’s changes in student population, coupled with the loss of federal aide, have changed percentages greatly with Blandford seeing the largest decrease in student percentages (nearly 8 percent) while Middlefield sees the largest increase in student percentages (over 16 percent). Needless to say, these changes also impact each town’s funding for education.
I believe its important to recognize that the school budget, even with next year’s 2.5 percent increase, is still $1,027,135 less than it was in FY’09 and the overall assessment for next year is $73,090 less than it was in FY’09. If we look at the loss of educational aid from FY’09 to FY’14 (-$852,795) it’s easy to see that the district has fully absorbed all of the losses in educational aid—and reduced assessments—by cutting the budget, which has had a negative impact on student opportunities.
While we have been diligent in our budgeting decisions, and minimized the impact on students wherever possible, we have reached a point where significant additional reductions will have a much larger impact on student opportunities. We’ve also used the majority of our excess and deficiency (E&D) funds to reduce assessments over time (similar to a town’s free cash and stabilization accounts), increased student fees, and offset costs in many ways. As we move through this budget season, it may be interesting to note that the district is mandated by law to have no more than 5 percent of its budget in E&D while the towns in similar accounts have up to 69.5 percent of their total budgets in reserve (as of 6/30/11).
For more details on the budget, the budget process and the budget presentations to the school committee, please visit the district’s website (www.grsd.org).
