at Horace Mann - Thomas Mercer Auditorium
folks still gathering, about 2 dozen non-school committee/town council folks here thus far
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Town Administrator, Jeff Nutting
Town Councilors - Bartlett, Mason, Doak, Feeley, Zollo, Whalen
School Superintendent Wayne Ogden
School Committee members - Roy, Mullen, Rohrbach, Armenio, Cafasso, Trahan
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people continuing to arrive
School Committee Chair Jeff Roy welcoming folks at 7:10 PM
Supt Wayne Ogden
covering the presentation that the schools have used to make their case in several forums thus far in the budget cycle this year
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up to approx. 50 citizens here in the auditorium at 7:15 PM
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If you take the avg per student spend vs the state average, the schools are spending $13 million less than what the state average is. This is good to put the request this year in perspective.
The override amount of $2.8 million would bring the school department to level service, meaning the same programs, the same amount of teachers with an increase in enrollment.
Teacher turnover is about 10% during a normal year for all the reasons that people leave a work place. Mentors are required by the state for all new teachers.
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Q - What is pupil personnel services?
A - anything that is not covered by the "normal" teacher in the classroom; i.e. special education, nurses, etc.
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If the 47 positions do get cut, there would be about $675,000 of unemployment cost to the town
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Major impact of the override failure would be an increase in class size. The increase will be felt across the district but not necessarily the same in each of the schools. Some schools would see higher class size than others.
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Chart of sample teacher salary rates comparing Franklin with Wayland, Needham, Natick, North Attleborough, Mansfield, Arlington
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Steve Whalen getting ready to talk about his analysis on the tax burden comparison for Franklin amongst 30 communities.
Steve did this analysis last year as a member of the Finance Committee to prepare for the override. He updated the analysis this year. This is not an official work product of the town. His personal analysis. He has offered for anyone to check his numbers.
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Red lines indicate the single tax rate. Ones in black have a single tax rate.
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Used income from the US Census Bureau from 1999, the last year the data is available. It is updated every ten years.
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He calculated to determine the "Residential tax burden". We have a low rating because we are relatively high on the income scale and low on the tax rate. Hence, we can afford to pay more.
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In the peer analysis, amongst 17 towns with a single tax rate, we are 14 in tax rate, 15 in relative tax burden.
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To answer those who may say we are spending too much, one sheet in his analysis shows that we are 22 out of the 30 for total school department expense per capita. Continuing to the major categories, in General Gov't we are 16th, in Police 26th, Fire 10th, and DPW 28th.
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One sheet looks at towns of similar size located in Eastern MA. For the 15 towns on this listing, Franklin ranks 7th in General Gov't, 14th in Police, 10th in Fire, 14th in DPW and 11th in Schools
Summary we have a pretty efficient and well managed town government.
What kind of town are we willing to sacrifice for?
Even if the override passes, the overall tax burden ranking doesn't change. We are ranked 15th today and would remain at 15th even if the override passes.
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