WESTFIELD – At last night’s School Committee meeting, Chairman Daniel M. Knapik announced that a special meeting will be held tomorrow evening at 6 p.m. to unveil the budget for the fiscal year 2015.
“I think we’ve accomplished a lot over the last few years,” he said. “In fiscal year 2009, state aid, local aid, and Chapter 70 was $41,114,619. This year’s proposed unrestricted local aid and Chapter 70 was $38,816,381.”
“Interestingly enough, ’09 was the highpoint for the city. ’10, ’11, and ’12 were three sliding years. ’13 it started to click up.” Knapik said, calling it a “very disturbing trend.”
“The amount of year-over-year growth before the rececession was typically four to six percent,” he said. “Today, it’s barely a fraction of a percent, and that’s likely to be the forecast for the future.”
Knapik said that, based on this year’s projected numbers for local aid and Chapter 70, it will take 10 years or more to reach 2009 numbers.
“If state was just simply what it was in ’09, things would be a lot better for the city,” he said. “And it’s not just Westfield. It’s everywhere.”
Knapik urged city residents to call their legislators and ask them to “pound on the Speaker’s and Senate President’s doors” regarding local aid.
“It’s awful, and that’s the one thing they would not hear this year was anything on local aid,” he said.
While Knapik wouldn’t go into detail about how the proposed $57.6 million budget’s $2.3 million deficit was closed, he did say that the details would be rolled out tomorrow night.
Westfield School Superintendent Dr. Suzanne Scallion also took the opportunity to address a “misrepresentation” regarding a budget presentation she made several weeks ago.
“I made a reference to other communities in the Commonwealth that were in a similar situation as ours, one of them who is seeking a $13 million override,” she said. “At that very moment, I said that was out of reach for us, and I want to be clear: In no way, shape, or form am I suggesting that we seek an override.”
Scallion stated that the district simply is not in a position to take such action, and urged people to “assume positive intent” and that people will “do fact-checking before they run with it.”
