School Dept. works to balance its budget
Published on March 28th, 2001
STONEHAM, MA - Just like many residents, the schools have been hit hard this year with soaring heating bills. Its woes were illustrated last Thursday at the School Committee meeting where Administrator of Business Michael Musto reported that the fuel account is expected to run over budget by $131,000, due to higher consumption and rising costs. The electricity account is suffering under the same scenario. With regard to the substitute teaching budget, Musto reported that this account is also running in the red, but that "for the first time, we have not been without substitutes." Despite the overage, he credited Kelly Services, the company that provides substitute teachers in Stoneham, with a 95 to 97 percent fill rate. To arrive at a year-end projection, each line item was evaluated. Despite the high numbers in heating, overages in some accounts were applied to shortages in others and, at this point, the numbers indicate an overall shortage on June 30 of $115,000. Traditionally, explained School Superintendent Dr. Joseph Connelly, the March year-end budget projection is approximately 85 to 90 percent accurate and this year, he does not anticipate any major surprises in the next few months. To keep the deficit under control, however, Musto imposed a spending freeze at the beginning of March for the balance of the school year, restricting all unnecessary expenditures. The Stoneham Finance Board will be enlisted to help the financial situation. Connelly explained that last August the schools were faced with a mandate to fill special education positions, at a cost of about $64,000. The Finance Board approved the hiring with the suggestion of a Reserve Fund transfer at the spring Town Meeting if needed. Spring is now here, and the money isn't, so Connelly has sent a letter off to the Finance Board advising it of the projected deficit and requesting the previously discussed transfer of funds. This will bring the deficit to about $51,000. "We're hoping that between now and June 30, we can make it up," he said. Close monitoring by the administration along with the spending freeze should control that deficit, and possibly even bring it down further. Looking ahead, Connelly presented draft 3 of the fiscal year 2002 budget which totals $20,343,081, an increase of $1,652,770 or 8.84 percent over fiscal 2001. This figure currently represents a $543,000 gap between the town recommendation and the school proposal. In an attempt to close that gap, renting of the East School on Beacon Street is being researched and could yield $100,000 for the year. The School Committee has scheduled a public hearing on the issue for Thursday, March 29, at 6:30 p.m. in the High School library to hear residents' input. If the school department is successful in renting the property, the gap between the town and the school numbers falls to $443,071, or an 8.4 percent increase over the current year. School Committee Chair-woman Jeanne Craigie encouraged committee members and the administration to continue looking at avenues to close that gap even further. She asked Connelly to investigate the revenue impact from imposing user fees on extra-curricular activities. "I believe in this budget. I think it's everything we need. But ... if it comes down to ‘we have to look at additional places,’ then we should be as creative as we can," she said. She stated that although she recognized such fees represent an additional burden for some families, it would be important to at least have the data available. Earlier this month, Connelly reported that the School Department was facing the possibility of sending out 66 letters to teachers in the system who do not hold professional teacher status (those with less than three full years in the school system). This move was considered necessary due to the gap in the draft 3 budget and the town recommendation, a figure that represents about a dozen teaching positions. Since rehiring all teachers may not happen, by contract the School Committee must notify all teachers without Professional Teaching status of the possibility by April 15. Sending out such letters was dangerous, according to Connelly, since the system risks losing some bright, young teachers to other school systems. Representatives from the Stoneham Teachers Association (STA) had requested time to investigate options to avoid sending out the letters. Last week, Connelly announced that the STA voted to extend the deadline for notification, for this year only, to May 15. This date falls after Town Meeting and finalization and approval of the fiscal 2002 school budget. In other school news: Director of Media Bob Hogan updated the School Committee on the state of system-wide technology. A five-year technology plan was developed by Hogan and is intended to be funded by the town solely through warrant articles rather than the school budget. Last year, Town Meeting funded $125,000 for wiring and equipment at the Middle and High Schools. That represented year one of the five-year plan. This May, Town Meeting will again be asked to fund $125,000 for technology, specifically for new equipment at the middle and high school levels with about $5,000 of that allocated to the elementary schools. For each of the next three years, Hogan explained that the plan calls for asking Town Meeting for $75,000, with the determination for where and how to disperse these funds falling on the technology committee and school staff. In addition to the technology warrant article for this May's Town Meeting, the school department is also asking residents' approval on $190,000 for new textbooks, an expenditure Connelly called "absolutely necessary to keep pace with MCAS and with state frameworks."
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