Wednesday, May 3, 2023

School Budget Subcommittee hears of the five areas for budget cuts, avoids bus fee increase for now - 05/02/23 (audio)

FM #986 = This is the Franklin Matters radio show, number 986 in the series. 


This session shares the Franklin, MA School Committee Budget Subcommittee meeting held on Tuesday, May 2, 2023. The meeting was conducted in the 3rd floor training room. Remote participation was enabled for this session. 


Chair Dave McNeill opened the meeting. School Committee members Dave Callaghan and Denise Spencer were present. Superintendent Lucas Giguere and Business Manager Miriam Goodman also participated.


Quick recap

  • Business Manager Miriam Goodman provided the recap of Superintendent budget recommendation that went before the School Committee, they increased it, the Town Administration released the budget allocation as only $1M over prior budget so they are preparing to reduce by $2.3M accordingly

  • Proposal before the subcommittee was in five categories:

    • Reducing investment initiatives

    • Reducing services

    • Reducing positions

    • Shifting some expenses to grant funding

    • Increasing some revenues

  • Discussion ensued by turn, around the subcommittee members, to clarify points on each of the five categories, and specifics within each

  • All of this is preliminary as the Finance Committee hearings (Schools on May 10) may result in changes, and or the Town Council hearings (May 24 & 25) will lead to the final number needed to adjust

  • Notifications of personnel reductions would need to be made before June 15, more likely to make them before that (i.e. mid to late May)

  • One adjustment finally made was to increase the use of circuit breaker funds by $20K to avoid raising the bus fees, as the bus registration process commenced this week

  • Next meeting set for June 6 at 5:30 PM to review and prepare for full committee meeting on June 13 at which point the final budget needs to be approved


The show notes contain a link to the agenda and to my notes.


The recording runs about an hour and 40 minutes, so let’s listen to the Budget Subcommittee meeting of May 2, 2023. Audio file -> https://franklin-ma-matters.captivate.fm/episode/fm-986-school-cmte-budget-subcmte-mtg-05-02-23



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Budget Subcommittee agenda

https://www.franklinps.net/sites/g/files/vyhlif4431/f/agendas/agenda-bsc_5_2_2023.pdf 


FY 2024 Budget information -> https://www.franklinps.net/fy24budget 


My notes in this ThreadReader PDF -> 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NqQcbDBh_wrg0PYqDajgFmKgu9LKK-Ya/view?usp=share_link 



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The music for the intro and exit was provided by Michael Clark and the group "East of Shirley". The piece is titled "Ernesto, manana"  c. Michael Clark & Tintype Tunes, 2008 and used with their permission.


I hope you enjoy!

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