Formal budget discussion scheduled for 5/26/09 School Committee meeting
School District has been targeting a "level funded" budget since the beginning
Differences between level service and level funded budget described
revised $53,291,773
Increases in revenue currently anticipated
- Increase in circuit breaker revenue
- State stabilization fund
- Federal stimulus package
- Extraordinary relief package
- School Choice revenue
If FEA wage concession comes in, the deficit will be approx. $700,000
Decisions coming in SchCom meeting on Tuesday (5/12/09) on ways to cut the gap
Public hearing on budget scheduled for 5/26/09
Roche - thanks for the information an numbers provided this year
offsets are visible here
Same dollars as last years budget
Town has legal authority over the one line item
School Committee has legal responsibility for all the details
Level funded number $50,297,820
There is no text book line item in the budget
There is a workbook for K-5 Everyday math that is a consumable and required yearly
One vendor, we are at their mercy. To adopt another text book series is a huge effort.
The transportation line item had been the subject of the forensic audit
We have been trying to increase the transportation line item to avoid that issue
We have a total bottom-line item for the overall budget
the fee schedule has not been set yet, stay tuned for Tuesday night (5/12/09)
Field house banners were sold and the money is going back into the athletic budget
Athletic Director Sidwell is using the funds to minimize operating osts
We have applied for several grants and we turned down for several
We are not as diverse a district as we could be to benefit from the grants
The grants have primarily been Federal, several of the State level grants have been cut
One grant for 90,000 this year is only 5,000 and next year goes away
Contractual services private?
Tuition to private schools and residential placements
We can not provide the services for those Special Ed students
We provide as much as we can
Every school district in the Commonwealth has some cost in that line item
Franklin has 71 students in the Special Education
Wellesley has double the number of student for a district half the size of ours
Is Professional Development a problem with the teachers?
The PD budget has been centralized and removed from each individual schools
The final budget will have that spelled out
Our final budget may look significantly different
We have not determined how to flow the stimulus funds across the budget
Using the revolving fund for School Choice was the equivalent of 2.5 teachers
We could not leave that just sitting there
We like to be about 14 percent, this budget could be about 1-2% above the minimum
Legal increase - had a residency case this year
hard to predict the utilization of these funds
generally a one time cost, end result did not pick up the tuition of a student who did not officialy reside in the town
Discussion on validity of voting for a budget tonight
Tuesday May 12th, school detail discussion on fees, and other cuts
Tuesday May 26th, formal vote on final budget
Motion to approve $50,297,820 - passed 11-0
Any old business - no
New business - recommended budget to be published and go to the Council for June 10/11
Next Finance meeting 6/2, may hold until 6/9, but that is still dependent upon the Commonwealth and where the numbers are at that time
Requesting an increase in Building Inspector's of $4400
to cover use of individual's personal vehicles
Inspection Acct 240
total of $369,006
Money to balance this comes from "Other Available Funds"
Technically still part of the budget hearing
Approved 11-0
No comments:
Post a Comment