Schools Headed Toward Budget Override

MARBLEHEAD - After a School Committee meeting lasting over 3 hours on Wednesday evening, March 20, a budget deficit that had been closed to within about $200K earlier in the day blossomed up to $1.2 million; and by the end of the meeting settled in at somewhere between $877 and $777K.

Ben Bermen, chair of the FINCOM, and Jason Silva, Town Administrator, expressed their frustration because the School Committee was “moving the goal posts … the target number keeps changing and at this point we don’t know what the number [we are trying to achieve] is.”

Since the last budget meeting a few days ago, several members of the School Committee met with various school department heads and school administrators to get more information on ways to meet their budget.

The result of these discussions was that the School Committee members found that some line items could be reallocated, other items could not be reallocated, and that some new expenses needed to be added to the budget (e.g. $40K for SPED transportation expense that was not included in earlier budgets.)

When all the new items and the re-allocations were combined; a deficit that in the morning was close to $200K had grown to $1.2 million by the start of the meeting.

In addition to other contributions to shrinking the deficit totaling about $300K, the town came to the meeting with an additional contribution. Jason Silva announced that they would lower, by $50K, the overall amount that the School budget needed to contribute to the energy reserve fund.

The School Committee helped to reduce the $1.2 million deficit number by eliminating another kindergarten class due to lower enrollment and reducing the number of expected SPED out of district out placements from four to three. Each outplacement has an budgeted cost of $77K.

Some School Administration expenses were reallocated, but by much less than the 20% requested. All town Departments and School budgets were asked to reallocate 20% of their budget this year.

Mr. Silva also informed the School Committee that “We [the town] are covering an operating expense with reserve funds; this is not sustainable ... there is no more money from the town”. This was in reference to the recent school revelation where expenses from the 2018 school budget were illegally held back and paid with 2019 funds.

That incident resulted in the sidelining of the current Superintendent, Maryann Perry, who submitted her early retirement commencing at the end of the school year; and the sudden resignation of the School Finance director.

FINCOM member Emily Belfbecker asked the School Committee to take a moment to look away from the individual line items, see the big picture, and explain their plan to get to a balance budget. Jennifer Schaeffner, School Committee member and budget liaison to the FINCOM, replied, “What do you [Emily] think we should do?”

That about summed up the tone of the meeting thereafter. While there was much discussion about items that may be open for reallocation, the sense was that the Committee felt they had done all the reallocating that could be done and they could not get the deficit to zero.

Committeewoman Sarah Gold said that if they did not get the override funding, then the Committee would have to eliminate Sports and Fine Arts. Ben Bermen immediately objected saying that “You are going immediately after the heart strings? I can see many items in this budget that could go before these very important activities.” He then pointed out several items from the Administrator’s budget that were less important and a $50K SPED study.”

Earlier in the meeting Ben Bermen and Jackie Belf-Becker, Chair of the Selectmen, both questioned the need for a $50K independent SPED assessment that they believed could be deferred to next year; but School Committee members Meredith Tedford, Jen Schaeffner, and Sarah Gold said that this was necessary this year. “Given we have a new SPED director we don’t want to set him up for failure” Gold said.

The meeting then shifted to a discussion of how an override could be presented to the town. Ben Berman explained that the School Department was already going to Town Meeting to ask for permission to transfer $600+K from the town’s reserve fund to cover the illegal SPED transfer; and that the School is sponsoring a $54 million new School override, and this will add a third school extra funding item to the agenda.

Emily Belfbecker cautioned the School Committee not to pack overrides into one meeting. “The budget is a short term problem, and the new school is a long term problem; don’t jeopardize the school” she said.

But Meredith Tedford said that the people she talks to say that the school budget and the new school are two separate items. “We need more money for the school’s budget and we need a new school,” Meredith said. Ben Bermen replied that “The word on the street is that if there is a school budget override and a new school override on the ballot, that the school will not pass.”

The School Committee has a meeting for Thursday evening scheduled and a place-holder meeting on Friday. On Monday the 25th there is a special meeting for the School Committee to present their budget to the FINCOM. This meeting is right before the regularly scheduled FINCOM meeting where they review all the warrant articles.

School Committee members David Harris and Meagan Taylor both were hopeful that the Committee could get to a balanced budget, however the remaining members all agreed that the budget was as low as it can go and were not optimistic that further re-allocations were possible. They even discussed the possibility of not having a final budget number to present to the FINCOM on Monday the 25th, just days away.

If the School Committee does not present a balanced budget or any budget at the FINCOM review meeting on Monday the 25th then the FINCOM will have several options.

They may vote to recommend the original budget number they gave to the Schools (last year’s budget plus negotiated increases) or they could delay their recommendation until the Committee reaches a consensus.

The FINCOM would also have to take a position on the override amount requested by the School Committee; if the School Committee can agree on the override amount before by the meeting.

”We are in uncharted waters” said School Committee chair, Meredith Tedford.