Dr. David Hopson
12 Littleville Rd
Huntington, MA 01050

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March 17, 2008

At their March 12th meeting, the Gateway School Committee adopted the proposed budget totaling $17,882,520 for the 2008-2009 school year. Their motion to adopt the budget included the caveat that any additional Chapter 70 education aid from the state would be used to decrease town assessments. This budget is a 2.55% increase over the current year’s budget—the lowest budget increase since the state cut $1.8 million in educational aid in 2003. This budget represents less than a level-service budget because it reflects a total loss of 7 teaching positions due to not replacing many of our retiring teachers. This may be the lowest increase in school budgets in Western Massachusetts. For details on the budget please visit our website at www.grsd.org.

In response to a request from Montgomery town officials, the school committee also reviewed potential cost savings from consolidating schools. As I’ve pointed out in past columns, it is my understanding that if we close schools we would be responsible for paying back the state’s share of the building costs. While closing three elementary schools would ‘save’ $250,000 this year in operating costs, we would also ‘owe’ the state $385,000 in building program reimbursement—for a net cost to the district of $135,000. As the savings are only realized in the first year of school consolidation, the eventual cost to the district and our taxpayers would be almost $3 million over the first five years; costs for reimbursing the state would continue for twelve additional years. The cost of repaying the state and losing additional students to school choice appears to be just over $655,000 per year, assuming that the state would allow us to repay them over the ‘lifetime’ of the buildings. We would incur additional costs for borrowing money if the state required a lump sum payment in the first year of closing schools. While this is an area we may have to revisit in the future, at this time it doesn’t appear to be a feasible option to reduce town assessments.

In addition to adopting the budget, the school committee also voted to increase next year’s user fees by 2.5%--approximately the same increase as the budget. This was recommended to keep user fees increasing at roughly the same amount that the budget increases and avoid further reduction in services or additional increases to towns. While none of us likes user fees, the truth is that they are an important component of Gateway’s financial wellbeing and are necessary as long as the state continues to under fund educational aid and regional transportation reimbursement. In districts that charge user fees (defined in our case as athletic fees, parking fees and building/grounds use fees), Gateway is roughly in the middle in terms of amounts charged and the total family cap on fees. For the second year in a row Gateway did not increase the family cap on fees, which remains at $500.

A recent letter to the editor pointed out that Gateway was ‘nickel and dime-ing our children’ by charging parking fees. In my written response to that parent, I pointed out that the district is required by law to provide seats on buses for all children living more than 1.5 miles from school, even if they opt to drive to school. This costs the district a little more than $1,300 per student per year and the district saves no money when a student opts to drive his or her car to school. The current cost to park at school for students (staff aren’t charged because we don’t provide them free transportation to work) is $210 per year. If they are not tardy each semester, ½ of this fee is refunded to students. Students who drive to school on an occasional basis are allowed to pay $2 per day. We also offer several payment options to help students manage their parking fees. In addition, as we do for all student fees, we offer a reduction to those students who qualify for free/reduced lunch.

Student athletic fees enabled the district to resume a full season for our student athletes this year and generally help offset the cost of our athletic program. Athletic fees cover less than 20 percent of the total cost of our sports programs. But they do allow Gateway to maintain our athletic programs in an era in which many schools are being forced to reduce athletics due to financial constraints.

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