Dr. David Hopson
The revised school budget for FY’14 was voted down by the three remaining towns which failed to ratify the budget during annual town meetings (Chester, Russell, and Worthington). What these votes did is to reset the clock for approving a budget, essentially giving the school committee 30 calendar days from Chester’s rejection of the budget on August 10 to adopt a new budget to return to the towns. As indicated in previous articles, once the school committee adopts the budget, towns have 45 calendar days to schedule a special town meeting to once again consider the revised budget.
I’ve also written in the past that the school committee has three basic choices in revising a rejected budget. They may return an identical budget to the towns, or they may choose to either increase or decrease the budget before sending it back to the towns. As we’ve seen over the past 8 months that the budget has been worked on, the items that make up the budget vary considerably based upon changes in staffing, changes in actual costs verses anticipated costs, changes in staff insurance participation, and changes in revenue/expenses from the state. What this essentially means is that even in the time the school committee takes to review and ratify a budget, the numbers are changing. From the time the school committee adopted version 3.0, the changes in state charges put that budget in the red meaning that returning a budget with identical student services to the towns would result in higher assessments to the towns and to keep the town assessments the same would require reducing the budget or using additional reserves as revenue.
No matter what the school committee decides to do with the budget, the delay in getting a budget approved by the towns creates much uncertainty in district operations and the question in the minds of staff regarding what will happen and how potential changes may impact their positions. While this may be the new ‘normal’ in many private endeavors, it is still disrupting to the notion of being able to focus on what needs to be done rather than on what cuts may occur.
While I understand that each town is different and therefore may have very distinct reasons for rejecting the budget, the reality is that the district budget has been reduced by over a $1,000,000 since FY’09. This has impacted towns differently based upon two major factors – the percentage of students represented by that town in the district and the amount of the state required minimum contributions. In the case of our three towns that have not approved the budget during their last two opportunities, we can easily see that impact. In Chester, the required state contribution has increased by $4,186 but their town assessments have decreased by $115,340 since FY’09. In Worthington, the state contribution requirement has decreased by $132,774 yet their town assessment decreased by $318,965 since FY’09. In Russell, the state’s required contribution has increased $158,677 and, due to having a greater percentage of students in the district, despite an overall reduction in the district’s budget, their town assessment has increased $197,011 since FY’09 – less than $50,000 per year of which nearly $32,000 is mandated by the state.
We can all discuss the various differences and commonalities between school and town budgets, between these budgets and a household budget, and whether it’s possible to have any increase in budgets at all, yet the reality is that the cost of living does not normally decrease over time thus, for a household, a town, or the district, holding a budget level essentially means decreasing services. Therefore the final choice is in what we decide are essential services and whether we are willing to pay for said services or that we determine to forgo those services despite the potential harm to our communities and the common good.
