Math, science, special ed targeted for expansion
The School Committee presented a $10.7 million budget to the Finance Committee and Board of Selectmen for the 2008 Fiscal Year last Saturday. The new school budget is $882,500 higher than this year’s, an 8.9 percent increase. School Committee Chairman Paul Wormser told the boards that the committee “went through [the budget] item by item, dollar by dollar, penny by penny” and that the budget represents needs, not wants, for the schools. He also said that the committee voted unanimously to accept the budget as presented. The largest increase in the proposed budget was $381,190 for Bromfield, which includes two full-time math teachers and one full-time science teacher—or their equivalents. School Superintendent Tom Jefferson said that 71 students will be taking algebra next year, and “class size does make a difference.”
Proposed changes in special education raise the budget another $247,830—for two additional special education teachers, one at each school, a half-time school adjustment counselor at Bromfield, and a part-time out-of-district coordinator.
In the elementary school, the School Committee budgeted for one three-quarter-time English language learning specialist to meet requirements for new students and three half-time math tutors, to help students with math difficulties and close the gap between reading results and math results on test scores, Jefferson said. He added that Principal Mary Beth Banios set up an intervention system for reading that should work as well for math.
Finance Committee member George McKenna noted that all new hires were budgeted in the middle of the hiring range. “Is that a philosophy, that you’re not looking at teachers in the lower part of the range?” he asked. Jefferson replied, “We’re trying to bring in people who can do the job,” and added that the schools, “are trying to hire at the lowest possible step where they can.”
Salaries in the superintendent’s office and in maintenance were down $5,000, though expenses increased in all reported areas. The largest increase in the superintendent’s office—$87,980—came from consolidating 10 professional development accounts elsewhere in the budget into one, for a $76,000 increase in the department over last year’s budget. Expenses for electricity increased around $60,000 because the rate increased from 5.4 cents to 9.4 cents. Expenses in the pre-school increased $42,432, partly a result of the loss of an out-of-district student whose district was paying the cost of one teacher.
Cost-of-living increases from last year are included in the increase; any changes in the teachers’ contract are not. Increases or decreases in school-employee benefits, such as health insurance and town-matched savings for retirement, are reported in the town budget, so are not part of the school budget.
Finance Committee Chairwoman Debbie Ricci asked the School Committee to provide some information not available at the meeting, such as the total number of employees with benefits that the FY08 budget adds and what reductions would have to be made for a level-funded—no override—budget.
