Sharon Schools Superintendent Discusses FY14 Budget

With Town Meeting having come and gone and the Fiscal Year 2014 budgets ready to take over next month, Sharon Patch spoke with Sharon Public Schools Superintendent Timothy Farmer to talk about the upcoming $37,766,330 budget and its impact on the schools in town.

Below is a Question and Answer feature between Sharon Patch and Farmer. 

Sharon Patch: What are some of the drivers of the Fiscal Year 2014 (FY14) budget?

Timothy Farmer: Well, as it’s true with every year the first driver is student need. That’s anything from programs to class size. Our strategic plan for the District that was approved at the beginning of this school year drives some of our decision making around the budget because we are focuses on the differentiation of instruction, a program called Response to Intervention, all of which have some budget implication.

So, I would like to think, it sounds a little bit esoteric perhaps, but teaching and learning is really the main driver of the budget. Making sure that we provide the resources that are necessary for quality teaching and learning.

Sharon Patch: Have any jobs been added?

Timothy Farmer: We added a new position because the number of children in our district who are not speaking English as their primary language at home is increasing dramatically. And the state regulations for children who officially qualify for this program is that their supposed to receive two and half hours of directed instruction on every given day. So we don’t currently have enough ELL (English Language Learners) teachers to provide that level of service to kids so we’ve added a new position for next year.

English Language Learner teacher. Currently we have three in the district, with 1.5 devoted to the elementary school and 1.5 middle and high school but this new position would be devoted almost exclusively to elementary. So we’ll increase by a full position at the elementary level.

This current school we took over half of what’s called the Autism Spectrum Disorder program at the elementary school. We had contracted that service out to another agency and they supply the teachers, we supply the classroom space and the children and so forth. But we paid a fair amount of money to this outside agency. We decided to bring that program in-house as much as possible where we’re hiring our own staff and providing our own services. So this year we took over of the elementary program and we’re adding a program at the middle school because the children in this program are moving into the middle school ages. So we added what’s called a ASD teacher or special aide teacher, along with two aides for that program at the middle school.

We also added a .5 science teacher at the high school and an English teacher at the high school and a .5 foreign language teacher at the high school.

And that’s largely due to the fact that we’ve increased our population by almost 200 students over the last three or four years and yet we’ve added almost no staff. So our class sizes are getting a little bit high or are increasing to the point where they’re not manageable at the high school level so we’re adding some staff to provide more flexibility for class size?

Sharon Patch: Were there any positions that were taken away?

Timothy Farmer: Yes. We eliminated half of an elementary assistant principal position at Heights. And just so that the general public will understand, what that does is that provides Heights now the exact same level of service that Cottage and East have, where they have one person who’s a .5 assistant principal and .5 special needs chair. The person who chairs all the special needs meetings. What Heights had, was they had a full-time assistant principal and a half-time special needs chair. So now they have a half and a half and it is the same person. The person who had the full-time assistant principal job retired so half of his position went away. Which was a savings of approximately $48,000.

Sharon Patch: What capital improvements were approved at Town Meeting?

Timothy Farmer: The capital improvements were also approved at the Town Meeting last Monday night. The bigger issues, there are technology pieces associated with capital outlay. There are some facility upgrades at both Cottage Street School and East Elementary, where they didn’t have bathrooms on their lower levels and we’re creating some bathroom spaces for staff.

But probably one of the bigger issues is our capital outlay is that we’re doing what’s called existing conditions studies for both Heights and for the High School. For Heights it’s largely around their traffic patterns with regard to drop-offs and pick-ups for buses and for students because they’re right on that main thoroughfare and it’s just very busy. And we’re looking to see if there’s a better way to go through drop-offs and pick-ups so that it will be safe for children. And then the other piece of the Height study, it will be all about their systems. For example their boilers, their heaters, their electrical systems because they’re all along that 20-30 years old when they’re ready to be reviewed.

At the High School, the existing conditions study is a little bit larger where it’s really looking at the entire building. It’s not just the boilers and the heaters and the drop-off and the pick-up and the safety pattern. It’s also do we have enough classes for the number of children at the building? Are those classrooms sufficient in size? For example . . . the current recommendation for a high school science lab is 1,440-square-feet. We have no science lab that’s larger than 1,100-square-feet and we have one that’s just a little more than 650-square-feet. I don’t know for sure, we’ll have to wait until the conditions study is done, but we’re suspecting that by having outside consultants come in and look at the facility at Sharon High School that they’ll have recommendations for things that should be improved upon whether it’s in the next five years or the next 10 years or the next 15 years. All of that is yet to be determined but we look forward to receiving that report. So an outside agency’s help is what’s appropriate to improve.

Sharon Patch: How does this year’s budget compare to the FY13 budget?

Timothy Farmer: It is a 2.2-percent increase over the previous year. The FY13 budget is $36,947,797. The proposed budget that was approved last week is $37,766,330.

It’s very difficult to roll over a budget because when you think about it we have a little over 500 employees, all of whom are going to get paid even if it’s a penny more, they’re going to get paid something more next year than they got paid this year. So just for staffing purposes to roll a budget forward we’re looking at almost $1 million that we needed to add to our budget just to cover salary increases and that’s for administrators as well as the 330 teachers in the district and so forth. So in order to add $1 million for salaries and don’t have an overall bottom line $1 million increase other cuts had to be made. Which is where that $500,000 came in for special education tuition, $48,000 for elementary assistant principal, we cut about $25,000 out of materials and supplies to help make the difference.

Sharon Patch: Are you satisfied with how things went at Town Meeting? 

Timothy Farmer: We were very happy with Town Meeting. The citizens of Sharon support public education and it was evident by their actions at Town Meeting.

Sharon Patch: Anything else we should now?

Timothy Farmer: The biggest savings in our budget this year is in out of district special education tuition. We have almost a little more than a $500,000 in savings, $550,000 in savings from children who are aging out of the special needs program. Once they turn 22 the public school system is no longer responsible for providing educational services and there are enough children who fit that category that when you add up their out of district tuition it’s a little more than $500,000 in savings. So we cut all of that money out of the budget for next year.

The only other variable that I think has an impact on budget is student enrollment and we’re projecting probably about 40 more students next year than we have this year. But that’s not a dramatic increase. If we were having 300 fewer students then people should be expecting a reduced budget. But that’s not the case, we’re expecting equal if not a slight gain.