At its February 24 meeting, the school committee reviewed steps Gateway could take to further reduce town assessments (which currently stand at an average increase of 2.11%). Darlene McVeigh read a letter from the Huntington selectboard indicating they could not support their assessment increase and requesting more reductions. In a memo to the committee, I outlined my concerns about further reductions to meet a goal of lowering town assessments, including the fact that the past 10 years of town financial records maintained by the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, reveal the average increase in town (non-education) expenditures was 2.3%. Over that same time, Gateway decreased its budget by 8.6%, showing that the school budget has truly absorbed the significant decreases in state funding for the district, while minimizing its impact on the towns.
It was also suggested that Gateway use additional money from revolving accounts—or even take money from funds set aside to finally begin addressing the district’s liability for unfunded retirement costs—to lower assessments for this year. In recent years, some town finance committee members indicated they thought we were taking too much money from these accounts to fund operations, yet now others want us to take more. The reality is that we’ve already increased the amount of money from revolving accounts to offset town assessments in a manner that we had hoped would be sustainable over time. Instead, we are seeing an overall reduction in these accounts because we are withdrawing funds more quickly than we’ve been able to return money to these accounts. While this could continue for a couple of years, we would be putting the district and towns in a more perilous situation by creating a fiscal cliff; i.e., when the money is no longer there, you now have to make even more cuts to make up the difference. For example: if we used $100,000 from funds set aside for retirement liabilities to reduce town assessments this year, next year that money would be unavailable making town assessments significantly higher because the district is unable to cut retirement expenses by $100,000 and now doesn’t have the $100,000 to offset those costs, resulting in a $200,000 increase in assessments.
Reductions the district has made to date have involved long-term savings and cost avoidance while doing our best to maintain services – those for students and those needed to provide support to staff working directly with students such as budgeting, personnel services, reporting, and managing facilities. As examples, let me highlight our success in lowering costs by constantly bidding for supplies and utilities, energy conservation work that has cut energy use/costs significantly, the consistent review of and reductions in bussing routes, contracting for solar energy, changing maintenance practices, and the fact that we’ve cut administrative salary costs by over $330,000 in the past 10 years. However, we’ve reached a point of diminishing returns where any further cuts in staffing will have a major impact on both operations and student opportunities.
The underlying problem is state revenue. Despite significant recommendations from a state level Chapter 70 Review Commission, the Governor’s proposed budget essentially ignores the majority of those findings. We’re hopeful that the legislature will remedy this oversight as the state budget process continues, which would allow us to meet the towns partway in reducing assessments without laying off staff or creating a fiscal cliff by using what is essentially one-time money. It would be extremely helpful for everyone to know that just having transportation reimbursement at 85% (still less than ‘mandated’ by state law) would eliminate the entire increase in town assessments for this year. It would be an enormous help if everyone would contact their state legislators and request an increase in regional transportation reimbursement for fiscal year 2017.
