Politics & Government

RTM Committees Endorse Finance Board Budget

In overwhelming votes, the Representative Town Meeting's Finance & Budget Committee and Education Committee each voted to recommend to the RTM the same budget proposed by the Board of Finance.

The Board of Finance's proposed $120.2 million budget—with a 3.93 percent tax increase—was endorsed in full Monday by the Finance & Budget Committee of the Representative Town Meeting.

Nearly all of the committee members complained about the increasing costs of special education within the Board of Education's $79,984,182 budget, but in the end, none voted to cut that budget, which passed in an 11-0 vote, with one committee member abstaining—Terry Duff.

"Tax increases for the last couple of years have been driven primarily by increased costs of special education," said Bruce Orr, chairman of the committee.

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At a recent meeting, the RTM Education Committee had voted to approve the education budget, unchanged from the Board of Finance version, in a 12-1 vote at a previous meeting, the chairman of that committee, Lois Schneider, told the Finance & Budget Committee. In an earlier vote of the Education Committee, however, five members had voted for an amendment to reduce the budget, with eight opposed.

As members of the Board of Finance had said in their budget meetings, members of the RTM Finance & Budget Committee said there seemed to be no support among town residents for cutting the education budget, and in fact, town residents who had voiced an opinion to public officials had been nearly unanimous in supporting education spending.

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Orr said that a taxpayer who paid about $12,000 in property taxes—and roughly half of taxpayers, pay more and half pay less than that—would be paying about $1,500 in special education costs, a part of the budget that just keeps rising.

"Our message every year to the Board of Education is getting these costs under control," Orr said.

Committee member Jack Davis said the Board of Education should hire a reputable, knowledgeable firm with expertise in special education to audit the school district's special ed practices to see if cost reductions could be made (or cost increases slowed).

Davis said that with special education costs rising, other areas of the education budget have been squeezed to tightly, particularly deferred maintenance. Clara Sartori, vice chairman of the board, told the committee that $2 million in proposed maintenance spending had been deferred over the past several years.

Bringing special education spending under control

Town education officials insisted that they were beginning to bring special education costs under control, although they've been hampered by lower state aid and the inherent unpredictability of exactly how many special education students might move into the district. They also don't always know how individual education programs for each student would be worked out.

Nevertheless, Boad of Education Chair Elizabeth Hagerty-Ross said, aggressive monitoring of costs over the past year has slowed down the increase in special education spending from double digit rises in previous years to between 3 and 4 percent now.

"[Superintendent of Schools Dr. Stephen] Falcone has just begun to make changes," Hagerty-Ross said. "As in any plan of a business, you have to allow them to run."

An increase of about 60 new special education students last year (when a new state evaluation method, SRBI, was implemented) meant a one-time increase in the number of students in special education, she said. Falcone said the evaluations probably identified a lot of students earlier than they would have been IDed before.

Falcone said that this year's 4 to 5 percent increase in special education spending was due in part to the relatively high wage increases teachers received in the last year of their current labor union contract. The town has negotiated much lower increases for the next two fiscal years, he said.

In this school year, he said, the administration has saved money by not filling some positions when various employees retired or left the school system. The schools are using more in-house experts, who are cheaper to hire than it is to pay to have a student taught outside of the district. With a new special education director expected to be appointed this year, Falcone said, a fresh set of eyes may find more areas where money can be saved.

Education officials are also keeping a closer eye on individual education programs, so that they have a better idea what costs will be at a much earlier time in the year, allowing for better planning.

Orr's perspective

Orr told other committee members that to make a significant difference to taxpayers, such as reducing the tax increase from 3.93 percent to 3 percent, would require a reduction in spending of about $800,000. He said he didn't see where that much money could be cut in the budget without impacting the quality of education.

The $111,000 from a proposal in the capital budget to fund security cameras in schools, and it cut $165,000 from the overall $79,984,182 education budget proposal. After an audit during the budget process, it was found that another $175,000 would not need to be spent on retirement benefits, so that money was also cut from the education budget.

Town-side spending, which wasn't cut, came to $40,250,354.

Orr, asked if there was enough support among RTM members to pass the budget his committee was recommending, said, "My personal opinion: Generally, the RTM goes with the committee, and given the Education Committee and the Finance & Budget Committee voted for this, it's a fairly high likelihood.

"But I would not be surprised," he added, "if an amendment is put forward for reduction."

Clarification, 2:41 p.m.: The following words (in italics) have been added in the article to Bruce Orr's comments to better reflect what he said at Monday night's meeting: "He said he didn't see where that much money could be cut in the budget without impacting the quality of education."


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