School Board Update. December 15th, 2005
Dear Five Sisters and South End neighbors,
The school board met for more than five hours on Tuesday night, and emerged with a roughly 38 million dollar budget you will have the opportunity to vote up or down in March. The budget we approved helps us deal with a very tough budget cycle with a balance of shared pain that incorporates the best efforts and consensus of the Board.
One thing has been very clear to me since joining the school board in March – people (myself included) love the Burlington schools their children attend. Nobody really wants change. However, if we had adopted a no-change policy, the budget would have topped 40 million dollars, and we would have brought to the voters a school tax increase of more than $300.00 on a house valued at $200,000.00, in a year following a reappraisal that has hit many of us very hard. If that steep budget failed, under the provisions of Act 68, we would have had until June 1st either to pass another budget, or to make more than 2 million dollars worth of budget cuts (this is the so-called “soft-landing” provision). Because of the very high state “common level of appraisal” increase expected this year, every percentage increase the Board requests is magnified through that lens. Instead of proposing a no-change budget with the potential for town-meeting-day-disaster, we arrived at a compromise budget that amounts to a roughly $160.00 increase on a house valued at $200,000.00 (for a household that does not qualify for a prebate or rebate). Here’s what we cut to get there, and why:
At our Board retreat in August, we identified our priorities for the year, of which our top three were: removing obstacles to the success of students from low-income families, critically evaluating infrastructure, and maintaining small class sizes. If you have read my previous updates, and/or follow the Free Press, you know that the administration proposed a plan based on these guidelines for the 2006-2007 budget, that included the sale of two buildings and re-districting of students at Barnes Elementary to other schools in the district. The plan combined frugal use of buildings with the principle of socioeconomic integration.
The board voted to implement parts of this plan.
The school district will vacate and sell (or possibly lease) the Taft building in the coming year, and the Ira Allen building the next year -- keeping those offices and programs in place for now. We also voted to minimize the expense of maintaining Barnes (now at 145 students) by cutting the principal and librarian positions there. The upshot -- for the coming year, Wheeler and Barnes will share a principal, a librarian, and a librarian-assistant. Each school will still have its own guidance counselor and heath staff. The enrollment at those schools, combined, is roughly the same as at Flynn, so the ratio of administration to student population is not entirely unjustified, and the schools are geographically quite close. The benefit of cutting these administrative positions is that we were able to save three teacher positions and thus maintain small class sizes, and, of course, we kept the school open.
In addition to these cuts at Barnes and Wheeler, district-wide we also will lose: 3 social workers, 1 behavior specialist, 1 reading coach, 2 elementary school teachers, 12 paraeducators, and $10,000.00 in funding for high school summer programs. After enrollments are established, the administration will determine the allocation of our remaining social workers, etc. in accordance with student need. These specific cuts were proposed by the administration, and the board has been (firmly) put on notice that while this will work for one year, we must move forward with more significant changes for the 2007-2008 school year. Because we have some large grants ending this coming year, and expect (again) significantly decreased federal and state funding, it is imperative that we make bold changes soon. To that end, the board has given our chair the authority to appoint a task force, convening soon, that will combine Burlington educators, leadership (i.e. city councilor, CEDO staff, etc), and parents and community members, to come up with recommendations. The task force will offer lots of opportunity for public input, and hopefully this inclusive process will produce creative solutions that put kids first.
I hope you will take the time to carefully consider the school budget we have approved before town meeting day. If this budget fails, we will need to cut another $556,000.00 from the budget by June 1st, and that would be terrible -- one thing I have definitively learned is that this is a lean district where there are no good places to cut. The school board will hold public hearings on the budget on December 20th and January 3rd at 7 p.m. at Burlington High School. Our other Ward 5 school board member, and finance committee chair, Fred Lane will be making a very detailed presentation of the budget that explains lots more than I have here, and I hope you can attend and resolve any questions or concerns you may have. If not, please feel free to contact either of us (Fred is at: flane@bsdvt.org). Finally, I would like to extend my most sincere condolences to those who will lose their jobs as the result of this budget, and take this opportunity to wish all of you happy holidays and a healthy new year.
Amy Werbel
awerbel@bsdvt.org