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Dr. David Hopson |
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November 17, 2006 Impossible as it may seem, we are now deeply involved in planning for the 2007-2008 school year. I continue to be thankful for the superb job our business office staff does at working with three budgets at once—auditing last year’s budget, managing the current year budget, and developing next year’s budget. As you are aware, our fiscal year runs from July 1st to June 30th. Therefore, we’re less than half way through this year’s budget before we must plan for the following year. This is always an interesting process—estimating expenses, student numbers, and student needs while taking a best guess at what the state will provide for educational aid to help offset the costs to district taxpayers. This is a prolonged process with considerable input and sharing occurring at several levels (staff and school councils with principals, principals with central office staff, central office staff with the school committee). The process for the school committee begins in October with a review of revenue sources and general expenditures, followed in November with general budget information and, this year, a comparison with other regional districts in western Massachusetts. In December, the administrative team reviews and prioritizes need areas. January is devoted to general budget parameters. The school committee will determine one of these approaches: level funding requiring substantial cuts in programming; level service requiring an increase in expenditures but no increase in programming; or an increased service budget based upon student needs which requires an increase in funding. Following a first look at a potential budget in late January, the school committee will finalize an initial budget in February. This year the Public Hearing on the budget is scheduled for March 7th at Gateway’s Performing Arts Center, followed by the school committee vote to adopt the budget on March 14th. The budget must be adopted, and assessments given to towns, 45 days before the first annual town meeting. The budget is not ratified, or approved, unless 5 towns vote in favor during their annual town meetings. If three towns don’t approve the budget (and a no vote for any part of the budget, i.e., foundation, non-foundation, or above minimum, is a no vote for the entire budget) then it is returned to the school committee for modification. The school committee then has thirty days to reconsider, amend, and resubmit a budget with three basic options—decrease the budget, return the budget to the towns with no changes, or increase the budget. If a budget is not approved by the beginning of the district’s fiscal year, the district uses 1/12 of the prior year’s budget until December 1st; at that point the state department of education assumes operation of the district (determining the appropriate funding level of local communities and deducting that from their local aid distribution). Since the vast reductions in state aid in 2004, and the unknown factors affecting state aid and regional transportation reimbursement, it has been a struggle for the schools to meet student needs and for the towns to pay an increasing percentage of the budget. While we are above minimum expenditures in the district, we are well below average per pupil costs compared to other western Massachusetts regional school districts. Part of the problem that every district faces is the gap between what the state says is adequate funding for 11 core areas and the actual cost of providing those same services. It is interesting to note that the state figures are based on assumptions that do not hold true; i.e. health insurance has increased at a rate FAR GREATER than the rate of inflation since the early 1990’s! For Gateway’s current fiscal year, the gap for these 11 areas amounts to just over $3 million and doesn’t include transportation costs, capital costs, or interest costs, which don’t play a part in the state’s ‘foundation’ expenditures for education. Thus we have dual roles in this process—provide a budget that meets student needs without bankrupting the towns and strongly encourage the legislative and executive branches of the state government to increase foundation levels, Chapter 70 aid to schools, and fully fund regional school transportation reimbursement. The interplay of these two roles is what finally determines each town’s educational assessment.
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