Selectmen Question School Budget Increase
Voters will decide the budget at the March 16 annual town meeting.
Westborough selectmen are questioning why the proposed school budget increase exceeds the 2 percent target the board set for the town departments.
Selectmen said this past week they don’t understand the schools’ proposal well enough to recommend a direction to the March 16 annual town meeting.
The school committee voted on Dec. 19 to seek $42,694,208 for the fiscal year starting July 1.
The 3.07 percent budget increase is less than the 3.67 percent initially recommended by Superintendent Marianne O’Connor.
However, Town Manager Jim Malloy said the schools’ figure also is about $411,000 higher than the figure he “initially recommended to them to try to come within”: a $1 million increase.
“My thought on that was the board’s direction to me was to keep the budget within 2 percent of last year’s levy, not including any new growth,” he said.
Selectman Denny Drewry said that “through the town manager, we tried to set an increase. I think that increase should go across the board.”
““I think we have a good school system. I think it can survive with just a 2 percent increase”
Selectmen Chairman Leigh Emery said selectmen have received “portions of the school budget, in sort of segmented fashion,” such as the Westborough High School budget.
She asked if selectmen “feel that that’s sufficient information to form an opinion about the budget.”
“I would like to understand what the overwhelming necessity is for the extra $400,000,” Emery said.
Selectman George Barrette said the school committee had public budget discussions, and that copies of the budget are available.
Barrette suggested selectmen make no recommendation until they hear the school budget presentation on town meeting floor.
“The five of us can’t hash it out with the five of them,” he said.
“They’re in front of fincom. Attend the fincom meetings, or watch them. I’m not comfortable voting on the biggest chunk of the town, by far.”
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Csharris
6:46 pm on Monday, February 18, 2013
By law the selectmen have no jurisdiction over the school department's budget. State law allows the school committee to have sole authority over their budget.The SC has tried their best to work with the town regarding budgets over the years which shows good faith but really has set a precedent that I dont care for. The sc still needs to present the budget on town meeting floor which is where it will either win or lose.
Jim Malloy
9:34 pm on Monday, February 18, 2013
Mr Harris - Can you provide a citation on the law you reference?
Jim Malloy
Town Manager
Parent
8:17 am on Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Residents and the selectmen really need to look at the changing face of Westborough when reviewing the school budget. It seems as though every week my three kids are coming home telling me about new students arriving in the classrooms from other countries, and you need to look no further than the data provided by Mrs. O'Connor in her budget presentation to validate the fact that number of students requiring ESL services is rising by leaps and bounds each and every year. My kids have been in the WPS system for a mere six years and the change has been staggering, to say the least. Between that, unfunded state and federal mandates, and the significant increase in special education costs, it's no wonder why the school budget is rising. Folks, it's not the Westborough you used to know.
Bubblicious
12:39 pm on Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Parent makes a very good point with the increasing segments of the student population in town that need special services. Mill Pond alone lists 35 regular classroom teachers - and separate from those - 34 special education teachers. Granted, not all of the sped teachers are full-time, but that's still a staggering number, and doesn't include 3 ESL teachers. The other elementary schools also show numerous additional teachers to support special ed and ESL kids. The last that I heard, the cost to bus sped students to other schools topped $100K. So a huge, if not major, portion of the school budget goes towards students that need special services. Of course these kids deserve to be educated, I'm certainly not saying that they don't. But the town needs to understand just how drastically and rapidly the student population is changing, and how costs are driven by these changes. Yet they keep shoehorning in these large-scale apartment and condo complexes like Westboro Woods, Westboro Village and others, and then complain that the school budget keeps increasing. Well, what do you expect??
Mike
8:57 am on Tuesday, February 19, 2013
If ESL expenses and state and federal mandates items are isolated from the proposed budget, what then is the budget driven by Westborough decisions? Is that reasonable? Lets look at how much we would spend apart from those decisions. Let's also identify what is a mandate v a recommendation from out of district.
Leela Keshavan
10:40 am on Friday, March 15, 2013
http://www.doe.mass.edu/lawsregs/advisory/cm1115gov.html#IIB