"Capital projects like the senior center did not put the town in debt"

By Joyce Kelly/Daily News staff

GHS

Posted Mar 27, 2009 @ 12:22 AM

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FRANKLIN —

In one of its final tweakings of a long-term financial plan and report for the town, the Fiscal Planning Committee decided its wants to stress that the recession is not responsible for Franklin's recurring deficit.

"We have a crisis trend, a recurring fiscal deficit ... and it's been exacerbated by the macro-fiscal crisis," said Councilor Shannon Zollo.

The committee should give one set of recommendations for dealing with the current crisis in the short term, and another set for ending the structural deficit, Zollo suggested.

Echoing Zollo's sentiments, Vice Chairman Doug Hardesty said, "The fundamental message is, with or without this economic crisis, this problem exists in Franklin."

Committee members agreed that they do not want people to have a misperception that the recent salary freezes agreed to by town unions solves the structural deficit problem.

Read the full article in the Milford Daily News here

State Education Mandates - Part 6

From time to time, particular around the budget period, reference is generally made to Franklin Public Schools having to support "unfunded mandates." I managed to find a listing of such compiled by the Massachusetts Association of School Committees. This is Part 6 in the series:

Curriculum

Frameworks. Districts revise and create new curricula to conform to the state curriculum frameworks and demands for timely update as the revises and updates frameworks on a regular basis. This work must be done after school and during the summer. Instruction hours must provide at minimum 990/900 hours of instructional time.

Individual Student Success Plans. Districts are required to deploy administrative, teaching, secretarial, guidance, and technology staff and resources (including but not limited to intervention programs in ELA and Math) to ensure that students receive additional support services that address individual student needs as a result of statewide assessment mandates (MCAS). Instructional support and resources such as texts, workbooks, and online instruction are examples of areas that require increases in expenditures.

Curriculum Requirements. The Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks require that districts provide additional instructional staff (e.g. health teachers and guidance staff) to ensure that all curriculum areas are addressed. The periodic review and alignment of every curriculum area requires substantial investment in time (including committee review, curriculum development, printing and dissemination of curricula) and resources (texts, consumable items, and online access).

The length of the school year (180 days) requirement impacts costs incurred for snow and ice removal and climate control in multiple buildings.

The full listing is available here (DOC)

Note: on the length of the school year, it is defined in days (180 required) but as we recently found out with the Horace Mann/Oak Street complex problem, the State has not yet defined how much time qualifies as a "day" of school.

Financial Plng Comm 03/26/09

The live reporting from the Financial Planning Committee meeting held 3/26/98

• Live reporting - Financial Plng cont'd
• Live reporting - Financial Planning Committee 3/26...

Live reporting - Financial Plng cont'd

let's get to the "what we can do about this"

• If we don't provide funding, the quality of education and services will go down.
• We would need to look the inherent cost structure of salaries and benefits.
• We would need to look at the unfunded mandates.

It is not like they unfunded mandates are frivolous, there needs to be some State/Federal funding for those mandates.

One point was to prove that we have been fiscally responsible. It has been done, the recent bond rating proves that point as well. We should continue to manage in the fiscally conservative manner as we have done.

Should add "reduction in property value" as a bullet? This is a big fear of a lot of folks.

the compensation package for employees needs to be sustainable as well as competitive

discussion on splitting the focus group into two, one group comes at 7:00 and one comes at 8:00.
April 2 -

Live reporting - Financial Planning Committee 3/26/09

Attending: Ogden, Zollo, Kelly, Hardesty, Bartlett, Trahan, Cameron
Missing: Whalen, Nutting, Roche, Wilschek

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Note: I am joining meeting late as I was participating in the Steering Committee for the School District Strategic Planning process. I'll catch up to the earlier points when I have had a chance to listen to my recording.
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Reviewing the current deck and providing feedback on the contents and positioning of the slides

There needs to be an explanation of the difference between operational and capital dollars.

New Cafe Dolce sign

Cool interview with Dave and BJ at the soon to open Cafe Dolce here in Franklin, originally uploaded by shersteve.

I spent a few minutes Dave Purpura and BJ Carlucci this afternoon at the soon to open Cafe Dolce coffehouse here in downtown Franklin.

The results of the interview and additional pictures will be posted in a day or so.

Teacher salary freezes are not the solution to Franklin's financial issues

Disclosure: Mrs Sherlock teaches kindergarten at the Oak Street School. Our two daughters are the product of Franklin's school system, both graduated from FHS and (#1) is out in the working world and (#2) is working to complete her college studies.

The financial issues here in Franklin have been brewing for many years. Jeff Nutting, our fantastic Town Administrator, has worked very well to operate within the constraints provided by the Franklin voters. The Franklin portion of the overall Town budget has declined from about 70% to 50% as we benefited from political connections and the generosity of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The real issue that will require action is the unfunded Federal and State mandates that drive the costs up. The impact is seen mostly on the school side but there are almost equal restrictions on the Town side.

The time has come to understand the mandates that have been imposed upon us and to take on the Don Quixote approach to go tilting the State House and other government bodies to get these mandates changed.

A listing of the mandates driving the school budget is being posted on Franklin Matters. This listing was compiled by the Massachusetts Association of School Committees. The listing can be found here: http://franklinmatters.blogspot.com/search?q=%22state+education+mandates%22

Let's not make the teachers the scape goat because you think they are an easy target.

Let's focus our energy on getting the systemic changes made so we not only get this resolved once but for all.

I am ready to charge the ivory towers to get unfunded mandates changed. Will you join me?

Flickr photo credit