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Budget deficit was a long time coming

by Joerg Hermans  ·   Friday, March 14, 2025

Harvard has built its own structural deficit over the past five-plus years. Relying on annual taxpayer-funded overrides is unsustainable. The solution begins with acknowledging the problem and making the tough decisions necessary to correct past missteps. One example is the school system:

Student enrollment (2017–2024): Decreased by 9%

School budget (including offsets, 2017–2024): Increased by 31%.

Given the consistent seven-year decline in student enrollment, one would expect a reduced need for administrative resources, aside from fixed costs like overhead and inflation. Rather than seeking budget overrides, shouldn’t the School Committee first exercise fiscal responsibility by assessing administrative (not teaching) headcount and expenses to better align spending with declining enrollment?

References for the school data are found in required enrollment reports as of Oct. 1 each year. The enrollment figure for FY17 was 1,120 students, which dropped to 1,017 in FY24.

According to town budget books, the total school budget, including offsets, was $15,561,038 in FY17, increasing to $20,393,216 in FY24.

Joerg Hermans
Scott Road

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