CLICK CHART TO ENLARGE
Like all town departments, the School Committee and school administrators prepared their budget for fiscal 2015 under the Finance Committee’s direction to submit a “level-service” budget. That is, their budget could increase, but only by as much as costs are rising; no budget could include new programs or additional staff.
Operating within those limits, School Committee Chairwoman SusanMary Redinger and interim Superintendent Joe Connelly presented the fourth working draft of their budget to the Finance Committee last Saturday. They told FinCom that the amount the schools expect to request at the Annual Town Meeting in two months currently stands at $11,979,155.
Less than a 1 percent increase
That figure represents an increase of less than 1 percent (.71 percent, to be exact) over the schools’ request last year, Connelly told the Finance Committee. And it already includes the cost of the new teachers’ contract, he said.
The major factor that kept the increase so small, Connelly said, was an expected drop of almost $159,000 in special education costs next year. He explained that fiscal 2014 had seen what he called “a perfect storm of unanticipated special education costs.” The schools plan to meet those one-year costs through a combination of state “circuit-breaker” funds, which provided more money than expected, and $164,000 from the town’s reserve fund, part of which is set aside for just such needs. Next year, Connelly said, the state will reimburse the schools for some of this year’s unusually high costs, which “will keep Harvard on an even keel from year to year.”
A second source of savings, Connelly said, was a decrease in salary costs at Hildreth Elementary School (HES). The largest share of those savings came from dropping one section of kindergarten, coupled with two retirements. While new teachers will come in at a lower salary level than the retirees, Connelly said that the new budget allows for hiring teachers with some years’ experience, above the entry level.
Nothing from the ‘wish list’
While FinCom asked all departments last fall to limit themselves to a level-service budget, it also told department heads to include an item or two as a “wish list,” to be considered if town finances allowed. But FinCom member Bob Thurston told Connelly and the School Committee members that there was “no wiggle room” left for such items this year. “Right now, no department will get any of those requests,” he said.
Among the items that the School Committee had included on its wish list were an increase in staff hours and programs for the wellness program at both HES and Bromfield; a new library aide and a math coach at HES; new textbooks and library materials; and a part-time video-production instructor at Bromfield.
Devens money to fund wellness
At its own meeting Monday night, the School Committee discussed how it might salvage at least the additions to the wellness program. Superintendent Connelly said that the need to expand the wellness program had been under consideration for a long time and that perhaps those items should have been included as part of the level-service budget. But committee member Keith Cheveralls said any effort to convince FinCom to reconsider “might backfire.”
Instead, Cheveralls moved that the committee fund the expansions for the wellness program—about $47,000—from money received through the Devens contract to educate schoolchildren living within the boundaries of the former Army base. The motion was approved unanimously. While the change to the proposed budget will still have to get FinCom’s recommendation, the School Committee left that task to Finance Director Lorraine Leonard.
‘They’re out for you’
The School Committee’s decision on the wellness program highlights the importance of outside funds, particularly the Devens contract, in supporting the school budget. The schools are by far the largest item in the omnibus budget. Yet the amount of school funding raised through property taxes each year is by no means the full cost of running Harvard’s schools.
Money that comes from an outside source is called an “offset” in the school budget, as in other departmental budgets. For fiscal 2015, the schools are counting on about $2 million in offsets to supplement what the town pays. In other words, about 14 cents of every dollar that the schools actually spend next year will come from outside money.
About $435,000 of that sum comes from state circuit-breaker funds. Harvard takes in another $355,000 from the School Choice program. But nearly half of all Harvard’s outside funds—more than $800,000—comes from the town’s school contract with MassDevelopment, the state agency that manages Devens. And Harvard may face a challenge for that money in the near future.
At the Jan. 25 meeting, longtime Finance Committee member Steve Colwell pointed out that the contract with MassDevelopment is up for renewal next year, and it will be put out for a competitive bid. Referring to the Ayer-Shirley School District’s intent to compete for that contract, Colwell said, “They’re out for you!”
