RON RIX
WESTFIELD – After months of deliberation, the Westfield School Committee has approved a budget to present to the City Council for the fiscal year 2015.
During a short special meeting last night, Director of Technology and Business Services Ron Rix stood before the committee with his new $56,693,417 budget request, which was subsequently approved by the committee.
“That budget level is $935,445 less than what we had brought forward in our original budget of need,” said Rix. “(We’ve) worked with the Human Resources and the Superintendent and the Mayor’s Office to identify offsets that we can bring forward that, at this point, do not hurt the district.”
Rix added that the cuts included no layoffs due to budgetary reasons, and that severance pay reduction is something his department has worked with Mayor Daniel M. Knapik on extensively.
KEVIN J. SULLIVAN
Offsets for the new budget include $535,445 in severance pay, $253,923 in staff attrition and changes, $77,633 in additional retirement savings, and $68,444 in reduced contract expenses.
“The $253,923 in attrition are movements that we can make. What this is, is that our staff realize that we don’t need the positions, or we’ve got some retirements or juggling in Human Resources that can cover that,” Rix said, adding that the timing of the new budget is ‘perfect.’ “Monday, we processed additional retirements but, projecting the savings of the current salaries of what we budget coming in, saves another $77,633.”
“On the expense side, we have some contracts and contracted services we can reduce by $68,444 because of contributions on the city side and some changing of programs,” he continued.
DIANE MAYHEW
Finance Chairman Kevin Sullivan asked which contracts would see reductions, to which Rix responded that combining some school and city functions will enable them to save that money.
“We’re looking at some of our maintenance issues as we move to a citywide HVAC or facilities system that can reduce some of the supplies in there that need to be covered,” Rix said.
Committee member Diane Mayhew was curious about the staff attrition savings, and asked Rix for an example of what could possibly happen with those cuts.
“We have some special eds where we’ve identified it, folks whose kids are moving on,” he said. “Because of a retirement somewhere else, we can move that person into another position rather than bump somebody or lay them off.”
DR. SUZANNE SCALLION
“It’s the juggling, a natural flow of teachers coming and going,” Westfield Superintendent Dr. Suzanne Scallion said. “You might have a regular teacher that’s taking a position in the eastern part of the state because of a family move, so we take a teacher at another site who teaches that grade level and we move them.”
“If you save $50,000 because a teacher has left us, it’s not a layoff,” she said, stating they have identified five positions which fit this situation. “If somebody retired now, going forward we’d have to replace them with a new employee. It’s a slight savings because the salary of the new employee will be lower.”
MAYOR DANIEL M. KNAPIK
Mayor Knapik, who does double duty as school committee chairman, said that he has spoken with Rix and Scallion at length to reach a number he was comfortable with.
“Within the last week we were able to meet a few times on this, with the Superintendent and Ron, to reach a point which we could guarantee that the city side would support,” he said. “It ends up being an increase of $1.1 million (from FY14).”
Rix added that a $142,000 increase in Chapter 70 funding and local contributions have been instrumental in helping increase the budget.
After the approval of the budget, Sullivan spoke of the process of getting the budget where it needed to be.
“After the presentation at South Middle School, we had a hole to fill and we knew we had a hole to fill,” he said. “As I’ve learned the past seven years, doing a budget this time of year is a moving target. When it gets into May and early June, you never know what the state’s going to come down with.”
“Kudos to the administration, to the Mayor’s office, and everyone at City Hall. There was great communication between us, all the parties involved, to get us to this point.” Sullivan said. “Hopefully, as we move this off to the city council side, we can continue the discussion and make sure we have their questions answered for them.”
“This was probably the hardest budget for sure,” said Knapik. “But the ease in which the conversation has gone back and forth, the expediency of the new calculations, the general overall functioning of the school department has been much to my satisfaction.”
Knapik stated that this approved budget will be presented to the City Council at their next meeting in two weeks.
