The School Committee unanimously approved a budget for fiscal 2024 at a very brief special meeting Thursday, Dec. 15, and sent it on to the Finance Committee and Select Board for review. But even as they did so, School Committee members acknowledged that further revisions were likely, because the money requested from the town is up 5% from last year. FinCom had proposed an appropriation for the schools that allowed for a 2.47% increase.
Committee member SusanMary Redinger said of the budget, “This is a draft.” She said there was no indication from either FinCom or the Select Board whether those boards would support “an override we clearly need.”
Since 1980, a state law called Proposition 2½ has limited the amount towns can increase property taxes to no more than 2.5% of the previous year’s tax levy plus the value of taxable property added by new construction (called new growth). Any larger increase requires that voters approve an override with a majority vote at both a town meeting and an election. Harvard’s last override was in 2009.
“The pressures on the budget were unprecedented this year,” School Committee member Suzie Allen commented, adding that the schools’ fixed costs had gone up almost double the 2.47% increase proposed by FinCom.
The fiscal 2024 budget calls for only one added teaching position—a new special education teacher at the Bromfield School “to meet the needs of our increased number of special education students in the least restrictive environment,” according to the narrative submitted to FinCom with the budget.
The budget proposes keeping several positions that were previously funded by Elementary and Secondary Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds, federal money that was passed on to the schools by the state. Those positions include a middle school health teacher and an additional custodian.
In the narrative provided to FinCom, the School Committee also pointed out needs its members considered crucial but left out of the budget to avoid a larger increase. Those included a full-time athletic director and a full-time coordinator for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Currently, both positions are part time.
Other listed needs were for instrumental music instruction and world languages at Hildreth Elementary School. At Bromfield, the narrative cited a need for more computer science classes and the return of psychology and other social studies electives to the curriculum.
In sum, the narrative states, “We recognize this [budget] is over the provided town guidance, but this is the budget we require to fully support our students given the need that we see in our schools now. We are facing a perfect storm of higher contractual obligations, inflation, and student needs.”
