School Budget Still Undetermined
Committee
discusses forcing override at Town Meeting
“We’re not on the same page even
though we’re 2/3rds of the town’s budget” ~ Dave Stoldt
By David Hamacher
March 16, 2007 — Several members expressed their concern with
the lack of collaboration with other Hopkinton Departments
forging the overall town budget for the coming year at last
night’s School Committee meeting. Citing his seven year tenure
as a committee member and referring to fellow member Phil
Totino’s role for the past ten years, Dave Stoldt (File photo,
right) said, “It used to be that all departments and committees
would gather information and we’d all sit down, review the data,
interpret it so we all understood what the numbers meant, and
then we would take necessary actions to move the process
forward. That’s seems to be missing in the past year or two.
What I would call ‘the Hopkinton Way’ seems to have gone away.”
Mr. Totino replied, “I’m disappointed in the
process when I read about the actions in the newspaper. It was
my understanding that we would sit down with the Selectmen and
work together to come up a number we can all live with. Now I
read how we need to come up with another $447,385.00 in cuts to
meet this number.”
Business Manager, Mr. Geoff MacDonald (File photo,
below left), referenced an e-mail he received from the town
accountant Heidi Kriger on March 15th that showed how $447,385
was calculated. “It appears the revenue projections used earlier
to determine budget increases for next year are not going to be
as high as thought. So, they’ve taken our original budget which
called
for a 2.1% increase and then calculated what a 1% increase would
be which comes to approximately $342,469. They then took the
projected deficit against the lower revenue projections and then
pro-rated it against last year’s town budget. The schools’ share
of last year’s budget was 76.6%. When you factor the schools’
share into the projected town-wide deficit of $137,000 against
the revised revenue projections, our share becomes approximately
$104,900. Add that to the $342,000 number (difference between
the 2.1% increase asked for by the schools and the originally
mandated 1% increase), and you arrive at approximately
$447,000.00.”
Dave Stoldt reminded the committee that, “statutorily
it’s still our authority to determine the schools’ budget. We’re
not on the same page even though we’re 2/3rds of the town’s
budget.”
Member Lyn Branscomb wanted to know the process behind the
school bringing their budget to the Town Meeting floor that
would mandate an override on its own if the schools budget was
more than the town-wide budget number. She asked “What would
happen then?” COMPLETE STORY
Dave Stoldt replied, “Unless the override for the
school alone made the ballot for the vote, there would have to
be a special town vote taken for the school override. It would
get very complicated."
Committee Chair, Rebecca Robak quipped, “I think the
charter just drags it out farther,” referring to the several
attempts by different parties to meet the March 15th deadline.
“No committee member was invited to the Selectmen’s meeting on
the 13th and now they’re inviting all of us to the next meeting
on the 20th," she added. “How should we handle this?”
"I’m not comfortable collaborating with the Selectmen
during their regular meeting,” Mr. Totino said. “The
collaboration will be more productive in a different forum.”
Superintendent Dr. John Phelan (File photo left) responded,
“There needs to be dialogue and collaboration across all
committees,” referring to the process of compiling the town-wide
budget.
In other committee actions, High School Principal
John McCarthy and Middle School Principal, Dr. William Lynch
both presented final iterations of their respective Program of
Studies for the upcoming school year. After several questions
and comments from the committee members, both programs were
accepted unanimously as presented.
The updated and revised Advertising Policy was reviewed
following the extensive changes that had been requested at the
last committee meeting. All the changes made resulted in the
entire policy being reduced to a single page. Questions about
how to implement the policy and what further guidelines would
need to be instituted were asked, and it was agreed that the
policy would be adopted as presented.
The School Calendar for 2007 – 2008 was presented and
accepted. School will start on September 5th which many members
noted was after Labor Day.
During review of facilities issues at Center School and
the High School, Dr. Phelan explained the recent situations that
forced evacuations at the Center School on three different
occasions were all due to one factor.
“A
ventilation fan on the roof was not working properly and needed
to be replaced. There was never a threat to the health of any
child or staff member. The smell was due to a non-toxic additive
they put into the gas for delivery purposes,” he explained. “The
fan has been replaced and now we have another problem in that
the fan now causes vibration on the third floor and we are
addressing that as well.”
Explaining the temperature issues recently at the High
School where certain rooms were cold, Dr. Phelan explained,
“We’ve had several people look at that and it was determined
that there was reduced pressure in the boiler. Water was added
and the problem seems to have gone away. And to make sure that
there was no preference given to anyone, the coldest room in the
building was Principal McCarthy’s office,” he quipped.
Mr. Stoldt asked Dr. Phelan, “How did the Middle School
weather the recent thaw?”
“The Middle School did not weather the recent thaw very
well at all,” he replied. I took a walk through the other day
and was amazed at the number of locations where water was
leaking in. The capital article for the roof replacement can’t
come soon enough for me. Not only that, but we have similar
issues with the roof at Elmwood,” he continued.
The next scheduled regular committee meeting is for
Thursday, April 5th at 7:30pm in the Middle School library.
