April 8, 2003

Mayor may add to school budget woes

By JILL ANDERSON

Staff writer

NEWBURYPORT -- Mayor Alan Lavender said the School Committee should plan on including $650,000 in charter school reimbursements in the fiscal year 2004 budget.

At the School Committee meeting last night, committee members and Superintendent Mary Murray were stunned by Lavender's announcement

"That is totally a surprise to us," said committee member Mary Anne Clancy.

Committee Vice Chairman Bill Heenehan said he "assumed the city was going to cover the entire charter school cost."

After the meeting, Heenehan said the mayor stated privately and publicly that the city would cover the entire cost of charter school reimbursements.

Lavender said last Friday he met with the city auditor and there was a change in plans. Lavender said the school should anticipate covering half of the charter school reimbursement cost of $650,000. "We determined that this needed to be taken," Lavender said.

Lavender's announcement came after Murray presented her recommended fiscal year 2004 budget to a packed room at the high school. Murray's recommendation includes a best case budget of $19.8 million, which would maintain level-services and include only an increase in contractual obligations; her worst case budget of $18 million would include a 10 percent cut or $1.8 million reduction across the board.

The additional cost of $650,000 would change both of Murray's recommended budgets, and could bring school cuts to nearly $2.4 million.

Murray said, under the advice of Lavender, she took last year's city appropriation of $17.5 million and increased the amount by $751,578 in contractual obligations. She recommends the city appropriate $18.3 million to the schools.

The $18.3 million city appropriation added to $1.5 million in predicted revenue gives Murray what she considers the best case budget of $19.8 million for fiscal year 2004.

"The $19.8 million is the budget we need to operate the school," Murray said. She noted that this is a reduced budget, but educationally sound and could continue to meet the needs of the school.

In order to get to the $19.8 million budget, Murray said $500,000 worth of cuts were made. She said some of the cuts will be made in technology, custodial and clerical services, student services, health, professional development, supplies, and proposed staff at the high school.

Murray said she has begun notifying staff about potential layoffs and that it was a very "difficult" day.

The "worst case" budget includes a 10 percent cut or $1.8 million cut from the $18.2 million city appropriation and $1.5 million in predicted revenue lowering the budget to $18 million.

Murray said she prioritized six different levels of cuts to reduce the budget by $1.8 million.

If the city makes a 10 percent cut in the school's budget, this will require cuts across the board in administration, athletics, clerical and custodial staff, student support services, special subjects like art and music, technology, foreign language, and ultimately the core curriculum like math, science, English, and social studies.

News of the additional $650,000 cost, which the School Committee anticipated the city covering, would make cuts at the best and the worst case budgets more severe.

Heenehan said in order to reduce the $19.8 million budget by $650,000 that would bring the committee to level three cuts.

Level three cuts involves removing special programs in music, art, physical education, athletics, and possibly even requiring a shared principal for the Kelley and Brown School.

If the 10 percent cut was made on top of the $650,000, this would take the cuts beyond the six levels Murray presented last night.

Lavender said he didn't think it was likely that the school would have to go to 10 percent cuts.

"I'm saying it's not going as deep as a 10 percent cut," Lavender said. "They won't go nearly as deep."

Even though Lavender didn't think the cuts would go as deep, Clancy asked the mayor to reconsider adding the $650,000 back into their budget.

"Nothing is etched in stone at this point," Lavender said.

Heenehan asked Lavender to attend the budget workshops scheduled for Friday and Saturday this week where he intended to discuss using free cash or the stabilization funds to cover the $650,000 in charter school assessment costs.

Lavender said he thinks he can attend the workshop meetings, but added that he needed to check his schedule.

The School Committee will hold two budget workshops this week on Friday, April 11 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the high school and Saturday, April 12 from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the high school.

The School Committee's public budget forum will be held on Tuesday, April 15 at 7:30 p.m. at the Nock Middle School.