The school committee officially adopted the FY’18 budget at their March 8 meeting. The budget is identical to the one discussed over the past three months, except town assessments have changed slightly due to moving from the January 1 to the March 1 student census. Overall, the budget remains at a 1% increase and is able to build upon student services for the next school year in various areas. Town assessments show even greater differences with the March 1 student census, now ranging from a reduction of 6.92% to an increase of 9.6%.
This completes the first part of the budget process in a timely manner and allows the district to send the official assessment letters to the towns for warrants at annual town meetings. While there may be further reductions to town assessments based upon any increase in educational aid as the state budget is developed, this allows the next phase of the budget process to occur: namely, the approval of the 2017-2018 school year budget by the towns. As the state requires a two-thirds majority to approve an operational budget, this means that we need at least four of our six towns to vote in favor of the budget to set the budget for next year. We hope that we will not have to move into the third stage of budget development (the need for additional town meetings over the course of several months, or the final setting of the budget by the DESE Commissioner).
In addition, the school committee received an overview of the MARS (Massachusetts Association of Regional Schools) recommendations. It is important to note that Gateway was already working on items that became recommendations, including providing funding in the FY’18 budget for the ongoing implementation of several initiatives that would resolve many of the recommendations.
The school committee was also given a general overview of the MARS report noting where a number of recommendations were similar and could possibly be resolved by some changes in operating procedures. One of these was for the school committee to adapt their budget process to provide more information, input, and time for town officials to participate in the development of the budget by starting the process earlier and asking town officials to be part of the very initial developmental process. The committee will take this issue up over the next few meetings to make it possible to implement a new process for the FY’19 budget.
It’s also important to note that the MARS study had many positive commendations regarding the district that cover every aspect of operations. This includes the fact that the district “has done well to maintain the breadth of programs currently offered”; “that the District was conscientious about solving problems and addressing weaknesses”; that “Gateway has achieved an impressive level of technology access”; “Gateway is staffed by very caring and dedicated educators”; and “that the Gateway Regional School District is run quite efficiently.”
District staff members are rightly proud of their dedicated service to our students and our communities but we also recognize that we cannot rest on our laurels. We look forward to further improvements of the district based upon the MARS study and the assistance of our community partners.
