School Superintendent Presents 8% Budget Increase

by William Dowd 2/13/12

Just in case you missed it, at the School Committee meeting on Thursday, February 2, Superintendent Brad Jackson presented his recommended FY13 budget in the amount of $29,723,815. That’s $2,198,761 more than was appropriated for this year and an increase of just about 8%.

I have no doubt that the Superintendent absolutely believes that that is what it will take to provide the kind of education and educational services Holliston has come to expect. And I give him credit for clearly explaining all the reasons for the increases, and under different circumstances it would be difficult to argue with his rationale for all the proposed spending. (The Superintendent’s full budget presentation is available on the Town’s website.)

The problem of course is that we have to deal with the circumstances we are dealt. The FinCom’s budget guideline for FY13 is 1.5%. That’s an increase of just $413,000. So what happens next?

As they say on Capitol Hill, this budget is DOA - Dead On Arrival. Even the Superintendent realizes that it’s not possible to actually get his proposed budget through Town Meeting. The School Committee will now take the Superintendent’s proposed budget and work through it in great detail and present its own budget recommendation. But if you really understand the basis for the 8% increase recommendation, you’ll quickly conclude that it also highly unlikely that the School Committee will bring forward a “guideline” budget.

So what does all this mean? Here are several things for which to be on the lookout.

1.    Nearly half of the proposed budget increase is associated with two things over which the School Dept has little influence; special education costs and the loss of Federal Stimulus money. There is no escaping the costs associated with providing education to children with special needs or handicaps, nor should there be. State reimbursements lag a year, so when the Town faces these increased costs, it’s a matter of pay now, get reimbursed later. I haven’t come up with it yet, but there has to be a way to deal with this in the books so these cost/reimbursement mismatches don’t drive wild budget swings.

Federal Stimulus dollars? These were supposed to bridge us from bad times to good. The bridge wasn’t quite long enough. We need to find a way to absorb these in the existing schools budget.


2.    There are lots of people holding out hope that the Selectmen’s move to reduce health insurance benefits for Town employees works and creates some reduction in the Benefits budget that could be spent on other things. I’m hoping for that too. But if it’s going to happen, all those who seek to rely on it need to step up and support it. The Selectmen should not be all alone on this project.


3.    Some have reservations about the FinCom’s approach of setting aside $500,000 in next year’s budget to start funding $46 million in retiree health benefits for employees. There’s no doubt something needs to be done, and you’ll find no bigger fan of funding than me.  But starting to fund a benefit that is outrageously generous and completely out of line with what’s going on in the real world before the plan's benefits and eligibility requirements get fixed could be premature and could limit the Town’s leverage to get the changes we need.


4.    Others have expressed concerns that the FinCom is excessively conservative in its assumptions about both revenue and expenses. This past October, Town Meeting put an unusually large amount of money into the Stabilization Fund. These dollars came from revenue that was larger than expected and expenses that were lower than expected. The Town had planned on funding the Stabilization to a target of 5% of our annual budget to give confidence to our bond issuers that we are a safe bet for lending. The fund is now well over 5%. Is it possible that the fund should be tapped? Yes. But we should all be very wary of the reasons for tapping it, and the impact on our financial stability.

In my opinion, the FinCom’s conservative approach is the right one. It’s always better to be sitting around deciding what to do with more “Free Cash” than we expected, than it is to be sitting around dealing with deficits and large Reserve Fund Transfers.

5.    The “override” word has already been uttered. The idea is already out there. I can’t imagine a scenario where a budget override would be put to voters this year, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. If you’re opposed to paying higher taxes, you should get informed about the spending challenges, and make your voice heard now, not just on May 7.  


I think the School Committee should do just exactly what we all do in situations like these. We sit down and look at what we’re going to get in income, and then we make our expenses fit. We don’t go to our bosses and say “I’m going to be a little short buying groceries this year; could you give me another 5% pay raise so I can make it work?” We work within what we take in. I know that is a foreign concept for governments at all levels, but in the real world of balancing income and expenses which is where we all come from, that is how it works. You prioritize what you’re spending and you reduce things low on the list to pay for things high on the list – even when cutting the things low on list is going to hurt. You just don’t have a choice.

I’m not on the School Committee, so I won’t be a participant in their subcommittee’s budget review and development, but if history is any guide, we should all expect the School Committee’s budget to be less than the Superintendent’s, but greater than guideline. They will lay out a history of budget reductions and service curtailments designed to convince you that they’ve cut as much as they can, but without a budget bigger than guideline, education in Holliston is going to suffer. I say start from the same place every other department is starting – prepare a guideline budget. Educating our children is very important. But that shouldn’t exempt the School Committee from making the tough choices every other Town function and department are making as they bring forward their budget.

I will be making every effort to be informed about the budget for the Schools as the process continues. I urge all of you to do the same.  Sitting back between now and May and showing up at Town Meeting expecting to make an impact will not make you credible.
 

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