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Dr. David Hopson |
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January 2, 2007 This month, the school committee will be weighing new services that are essential to improving student achievement against the fiscal realities of the district’s towns. I presented new budget requests to the school committee in December that addressed identified needs in the district. Those requests total around $600,000 that, on first blush, look to be outrageous but in reality do not attend to all of the district’s needs nor fund many opportunities we’d love to offer our students. The school committee is focusing on expenditures and program needs at this time rather than the budget’s affordability to the towns. Affordability hinges upon state funding and those numbers won’t be available until later in the budget process. To try and ensure a smooth budget process, we will be presenting alternative ‘improvement’ budgets for the school committee’s review. These will allow substantive discussion on the merits of requests, the setting of priorities, and the potential benefits to students. This will also allow for an easier adjustment of the budget once state educational aid is determined. The first level will essentially be to fully fund the requests. As with each level, the school committee (and the public attending the meetings) will have the opportunity to view how each item will positively impact the district’s students. District administrators will be at school committee meetings until the budget is adopted to answer questions, discuss priorities, and share statistical data related to making decisions surrounding budgetary requests. The second level will involve a lower budget increase and begin to reflect additional constraints on meeting student needs. This budget may include phasing in some requests, modifications of staffing (either numbers of positions or combinations of positions), delaying some requests, or modifying non-staff requests. This will allow the public to see how requests are prioritized to meet district needs and which needs will remain unmet as we reduce costs. In the third level, we will continue to trim budget requests to meet an even lower increase in the budget. As you can expect, the 2nd and 3rd levels will require a decrease in proposed services and student opportunities as well as a sharpened focus on setting priorities. A level-funded budget would require cuts of over $800,000 as well as eliminate all new requests. Obviously, this would not meet our goal of improving student achievement. As state funding levels are unknown, it is too early to look at this option. In recent years, the amount the state requires us to spend on education (net school spending) has increased far faster than the amount of funding they have given us. I understand the burden this places on all of us as taxpayers and the desire we all share to provide an adequate education for our children. I encourage the public to be involved by attending school committee meetings, emailing us ( myopinion@grsd.org), or writing to the district at 12 Littleville Rd., Huntington. The key to making good decisions is to be informed and knowledgeable as the process unfolds. As difficult as it is, I believe that making the budget process transparent and sharing information is key to having all of us reach consensus regarding what we need to make our students successful.
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