School Budget has Two Sides — $1.7 Million Apart

Fees to remain the same

by Heather Kelley

December 18, 2009 — At the School Committee meeting last night, Superintendent John Phelan presented a two-sided budget.  On one side was the “265” budget, one that represents a 2.65% decrease in spending from FY10.  On the other side was the “Superintendent’s” budget, one that would maintain the same level of services in FY 11 that exists currently in FY10.  Phelan was careful to emphasize, however, that the Superintendent’s budget does not represent a level services budget: “This budget is not level services, because the definition of level services has changed.”  Phelan pointed to a consistently downward slope where, for example, things such as foreign language was lost first in fifth grade, and then in sixth grade, over the recent years.

 

The budgets weighed in with a discrepancy of $1.7M.  The Superintendent’s version was an added $808,000 over the current year’s spending, while the 265 budget showed an $855,000 decrease.  Most notable in the tangible differences were staffing (gaining 7.6 professional and support staff positions versus losing 13.9 <---- Correction in bold), losing the Grade 5 instrumental music program, eliminating late busses, and increasing class sizes, including highs of 26 students in 2nd and 5th grade classrooms.  Almost 50% of the staff increases were for teaching assistants for the pilot Full Day Kindergarten classroom(s).

 

Wanting to highlight restraint and fiscal responsibility, Phelan also pointed out major cost savings realized over the last five years, such as the cooperative purchase of gas and oil (saving $143,000), the system-wide Green initiative of going paperless (saving $47,000), and the special education in-district programs (saving $4.2M).  An additional $193,000 in yearly savings will also come on line, Phelan said, once the NSTAR solar projects at the Middle and High Schools are finished with their two-year payback period.  “Hopkinton has the largest municipal solar project in the state,” said Phelan.

 

Jean Bertschmann asked for clarification regarding fees.  “As far as fees go, you’re keeping the fees the same?”

 

“Yes,” replied Phelan, “there are no changes in fees.”  However, he did mention that there will be a new line item for revenue with the Full Day Kindergarten tuitions.

 

Troy Mick asked to see a list of all reductions in services over the past five years.  Rebecca Robak thought it best to go back to 2003, when many specials such as music and foreign language were first cut.  Phelan also spoke of initiatives such as math remediation.

 

“We developed an action plan; we’ve been unable to fund it,” he said.  “We’ve been prevented, because of a lack of funding, from really having a comprehensive approach to providing interventions in a number of areas, mathematics being the prime example.”

 

The discussion of the budget will ramp up in January, with the School Committee meeting weekly, every Thursday, starting on January 7th and continuing until the Public Hearing on the Preliminary FY11 Budget and Town Meeting Warrant Articles on January 28th.

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Design Partnership of Cambridge, the firm that designed the High School, has made it off the short list to become the first choice of the MSBA Designer Selection panel for the proposed new elementary school building design work, said Rebecca Robak.  Contract negotiations will begin soon.

 

Superintendent Phelan presented four Town Meeting articles for discussion.  One was for the replacement of the Elmwood School boiler; fortuitously, there are funds left over from a similar project at Center School, and the article only calls for a transfer of already appropriated funds.  The second and third articles contained minor housekeeping issues.  The fourth was more substantial, dealing with the repair of the Loop Road on the Hopkins/High School campus.  At first, Nancy Burdick came out against the repair work, noting that some things had to wait given the economic climate.  But then Rebecca Robak suggested that since it is a shovel-ready project, perhaps it could garner stimulus funds and be repaired at substantially reduced or no cost to the town.  A unanimous vote kept the article on the table to be put in the warrant, in the hopes that outside funding could be secured.

 

Finally, kudos went out to the many student-led organizations that held toy drives to benefit Project Just Because.  From raffles and bake sales, to toy drives and concerts, numerous venues for making donations were available all around town.  At the Middle School production of A Christmas Carol, said Phelan, “They had beggars, consistent with the story, collecting cash.”  Phelan reported that they collected over $200.

 

Nancy Burdick mentioned that there were Elmwood students collecting toys for Toys for Tots.  She also shared that Hopkinton’s elected officials in the State House, Senator Karen Spilka and Representative Carolyn Dykema, have extended an invitation to some of the Hopkinton Middle School music program participants to perform at the State House next month, on January 28th at 11:30.

 

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