FinCom, School Committee, BOS Continue Debate Over Budget
A possible override vote still looms as the multiple boards mulled various options on what to do about the School Department's proposed budget.
Will there be an override on the warrant at this spring’s Town Meeting? It’s still not clear, but the Finance Committee continued to discuss the possibilities during Thursday night’s meeting along with the Board of Selectmen and School Committee.
The possibility came in part due to an approximately 4.5 percent proposed increase from last year’s school budget request by the School Committee, approximately $975,000 above Town Manager Jodi Ross’ recommended budget.
That increase came primarily from to $450,000 for new expenses related to state mandated special education costs along with three other areas.
The first was increases also came from new positions begun this year, like the School Resource Officer at Westford Academy ($72,000), followed by positions that the School Committee would either eventually save the town money or cost more not to have such as Special Education teaching assistants ($36,000 each), and a Director of Technology ($80,000), and positions that are required to bring problem areas up to resident expectations such as three literacy specialists for Third and Fourth graders (around $200,000)
Without that additional funding, School Committee chairwoman Angela Harkness indicated that additional fees would be possibly be needed for bussing and extracurricular activities as well as cuts in bussing, positions in school libraries and school nurses and enlarging class sizes in some areas.
Town Manager Jodi Ross indicated that revenue enhancement would be required in order to fill the gap due to what is becoming a continuing long term structural budget deficit, although Selectman Andrea Peraner-Sweet suggested that the money could potentially come from going under minimum recommended reserves or taking from stabilization funds as possibility while Selectman Jim Sullivan also recommended the possibility of closing one of Westford’s schools as enrollment continues to drop.
Harkness and Superintentent Bill Olsen said discontinuing use of a school would be difficult due to where enrollment shortfalls are located and that even analyzing the possibility of a closure would take more than a year, but resident Rob Kreegan told the assembled boards it could be done in half an hour with computer programs and that the real issue was continuing growth of the School Department budget.
“For the past ten years, the school department budget has become larger and larger every year,” said Kreegan. “If it continues to grow at the pace it has over the next ten years at the same percentage, the school budget will become the only budget we have.”
Kreegan went on noting that the Highway Department has not added a new employee since the 1970s despite hundreds of new miles of roads in town and that the Police Department has not added a new employee in ten years despite significant population growth.
Olsen in turn disputed Kreegan’s opinion that a structural overhaul of the department’s budget was in order, citing figures on the district’s efficiency as well as anecdotes from other superintendents and school committees in the state who saw themselves as an entity separate from other departments in town.
The Finance Committee will meet again at Town Hall on Monday at 7 p.m.
Fullmeister
6:15 am on Friday, January 25, 2013
WPSSchools have always been like going to Meineke Muffler, we get alot but we dont want to PAY alot! Add all the new positions and force teachers to take delay of steps and ZEROs again next year- worked for the town last time right? Who cares about Teacher Morale we want results!
Those positions have been /will be added with $$$ the SC 'gave back' to the town by not honoring Teacher Steps last year, residents rather have new positions than waste extra money paying teachers competitively! We have extravagant luxuries like Sports (Not anywhere near covered with the fees), Theater Arts, and Curbside Trash pickup and like it that way!
Looks like things are really going to POP in town next year. Wonder how many teachers Olsen plans to loose as word gets out? Oh well can always replace them with cheap newbies right outta college or do more online classes....
M Conell
6:19 am on Friday, January 25, 2013
Thanks for continuing to look out for our nickels and dimes RC from the waste of the town. New positions? Are you kidding me ?! Should be talking about trimming back the Admin Pork from the budget NOT adding more more more.
Lets have WA go back to 2 deans and have admin curriculum 'coordinators' teach another class or two instead of sitting at desks and attending meetings all day
Pete
6:40 am on Friday, January 25, 2013
New non replacement positions were added at WA this year to English and Social Studies, spending then being 'broke' seems to be a reoccurring theme
Sam
8:03 am on Friday, January 25, 2013
RC is correct. The school budget along with most others never go the other way. Most people's own finances and private businesses reduce costs during a fiscal crisis. Governments simply ask for more money and expand. It is crazy. The teachers union does have a point here as well on the added spending and their zero steps though if you ever suggested closing a school or reducing the budget we would have the entire group here again talking about morale and the brain drain. Cut admin and teachers and services until we get to a level where we can competitively pay the folks remaining. Seems simple doesn't it. I acknowledge the highway department has added no new employees but they certainly are not lacking for equipment or facilities. They are the envy of highway departments. Until Westford and the US gets real about cutting costs we are doomed.
Cynthia
8:36 am on Friday, January 25, 2013
Trim the fat, increase bus fees and extra curriculum activities instead of taxes. People who have children should be willing to pay for them not put the burden on others.
Mother of 3.
Jesse James
3:23 pm on Monday, March 4, 2013
The bus fees for FY 14 are at the maximum allowed by law which is 1% of the amount raised by real estate taxes in FY12.
There is a second limitation, the amount raised by all revolving funds for FY14 may not exceed 10% of the amount raised by real estate taxes in FY12.
Pete
2:54 pm on Friday, January 25, 2013
Battle lines are being drawn...
Pops
5:47 pm on Friday, January 25, 2013
$$$$$ the problems of the 'W' Wealthy towns! Oh boo hoooo
McTeigue
5:55 am on Saturday, January 26, 2013
Proposition 2.5 override on the way this spring in Westford, Deval looking for more money at the state level to spend on projects, and Omamas minions in the Senate brokered a fiscal cliff deal that reduced pay checks too!
spend and tax and spend. Time to read over those Bill of Rights Amendments folks and prepping your bunker Doomsday Horders style
McTeigue
6:30 am on Saturday, January 26, 2013
WA should move away from high priced Curriculum Coordinators, give the administrative bureaucracy to the 4 Administrators making a good chunk of $500,000 per year collectively and have those coordinators teach 4 classes not 2...there are many 'out of the box' solutions like this that can be implemented but the SC seems to prefer simply asking for more money rather than doing some things differently to save $
Alex Finstein
5:02 am on Monday, January 28, 2013
Hope WPS Teacher are ready to hear 'sorry, no money' again next year because that's the way this is headed. Yes, towns around us seem to have 'better planned, saved, and provisioned' from the bad economy and are paying their teachers competitively but not here. Sorry.Would do it if we could. Its difficult to pay to fund all these new positions we have been busy creating AND offer all staff a fair contract offer. Your step money was spent on new teaching positions and a SRO at WA and a new IT director. Broke, No Magic Money Tree, Superman has left the building!
Staff Exodus: Dont let the door hit you on the way out! Your free to leave and fully replaceable at any time with newer cheaper less experienced personnel.
Jesse James
8:19 pm on Sunday, February 10, 2013
Why pay an old and tired teacher at the C15+ level ~$80,000/year when a young and vibrant teacher will do the same job at a B5 level for ~$50,000/year with a smile.
Jamaal
4:38 pm on Sunday, February 10, 2013
Whatever the cause rest assured blame can always be placed on greedy teachers rather than administration. Override Mentum this spring
Jesse James
8:22 pm on Sunday, February 10, 2013
Jamaal stop sniffing the glue, the cheap skates in Westford will not pass an override either this Spring, next Fall or the following Winter.
NCSteve
9:31 am on Friday, February 22, 2013
I have to say that I'm certain that I made the right choice leaving Westford and going South. Your town is even more insane than it was 7 years ago!
I live in a medium-sized town in NC that's about the same size as Westford and we had budget surpluses last year. I get more and better services for 1/3 the tax I was paying in Westford for a smaller house. We even have city sewer! (Thank 40B for that, folks - oh, those unintended consequences...)
You guys still haven't figured out that you have to sit on the unions and say "no" to unfunded state "mandates". Nope - you keep drinking the Kool Aid and sending the same people in to Beacon Hill and Town Hall.
I would not call folks who are already paying well north of $5000 - 10000 in taxes, "cheapskates". I'd call them "financially distressed". I know we were.
Alex Finnegan
8:22 pm on Sunday, April 7, 2013
Jesse James said: "Why pay an old and tired teacher at the C15+ level ~$80,000/year when a young and vibrant teacher will do the same job at a B5 level for ~$50,000/year with a smile."
Those are both baseless assumptions on your part. The B5 might be an alcoholic, the C15 might be everybody's favorite teacher. Why are you arguing made up examples?
I have emailed Olsen, Jodi and the town and have still yet to see any of these "mandated" positions. I can't find them on line either. So unless someone shows me otherwise, I'm calling the "mandated" positions a "misunderstanding" on the part of the S.C./Super.
I would hardly call the W residents "cheap skates," they have one of the highest tax burdens in the state. This is what it boils down to, and you just don't get it.
It's not the tax payers not giving enough.
It's not the teachers being overpaid (they are paid less than the MA state average)
It's not the benefits package being too lucrative (W's is among the worst offered)
It's not the number of SPED kids (W has literally hundreds less than disctricts with similar enrollments
It's not the severity of sped kids (W has one of the lowest Teacher to Sped Teacher ratios in the state)
It's not the schools being inefficient, they are amongst the most thrifty with the tax payer dollar in the entire state.
What it could be? The super highly paid admin, excessive compared to other towns and foolish spending. Why aren't people investigating the latter...