School Committee 2009 budget approved
Published on May 21st, 2008
STONEHAM, MA - With red pens capped and eraser dust wiped away, the School Committee officially approved a fiscal 2009 school budget on Thursday totaling $24,792,346.
But more money may be needed in the fall to cover oil costs. According to School Superintendent Dr. Les Olson, the prior week's Town Meeting approved a town budget that clearly short funds the school's oil account. The oil contract is currently out to bid, and the school department expects to have a firm price for what the schools will have to pay for oil next fall and winter in the next couple of weeks.
"We were strongly encouraged to come back to fall Town Meeting if we need supplemental funds," Olson said, adding that the School Committee reluctantly went along with the recommendation to short fund the oil account in order to get a town budget approved at Town Meeting. The oil account is down $80,000 now from the School Committee's recommendation. Once bids are received, the school department will know exactly how much more money it will need to request in a fall Town Meeting article.
"We were advised to basically short fund one of our accounts and come back in the fall, and that's what we did," said School Committee Chairman Marie Christie. "The Selectmen asked us to do that and that they would support our article in the fall."
Christie went on to clarify the School Committee's position on the budget, a position that she said differs from that relayed in recent newspaper articles.
"Let it be known that the School Committee never agreed to a budget without a trash fee," she said pointing out that the School Committee did not receive from Town Meeting the budget that it felt it needed for fiscal 2009, but approved the budget in order to speed things up at Town Meeting.
Another change in the budget from the last draft is an additional $10,000 in the athletic account to reflect the transfer of responsibility for high school field maintenance back to the school department.
"I would like to thank everyone who came to Town Meeting to support the schools and the school budget. I think we reached some measure of stability which is something we have not had in the last couple of years...It's the first level service budget we're looking at in a number of years," Olson said. However, despite the fact that this fiscal 2009 does restore one very needed custodian to the schools, "it does not begin to address our long range needs in terms of restoring many of the academic programs."
The budget motion was approved by a 4-1 vote with member Joe Viselli dissenting.
In other news, Olson announced that tentative teacher assignments have been e-mailed to staff, and that the school department is currently advertising and interviewing for the roughly ten vacancies it has for next year. Olson said this is a relatively small number of vacancies at this point compared to past years.
A recent review of class sizes for next year reveals that, at this point, intradistrict transfer requests for grades K-2, can be honored and those made thus far will not overcrowd any particular section. Full day Kindergarten classes are filling up nicely, he added, with South School filled at 22 students, Robin Hood currently at 21, and Colonial Park at 18 students.
Subscribe and get Home Delivery of The Independent
Save 36% off the newstand price — that's like 18 FREE issues!