Whether to ask for more or go lean was the question facing the Whitefield School Committee as it reviewed projected 2009-10 budget figures.
By the close of Monday’s meeting, the panel decided to retain requests for doubling the guidance counselor’s time, keeping a teacher, and increasing an office aide’s hours.
The requests are headed next week to the finance committee of the Sheepscot Valley Regional School Unit, to which Whitefield and seven other towns belong. The RSU board of directors is responsible for building a single budget for the unit that also includes Wiscasset, Westport Island, Alna, Chelsea, Palermo, Somerville, and Windsor.
All the towns will vote on that budget but a date, sometime in the spring, has not yet been set.
Several Whitefield School Committee members said the budget is no longer their call. Nonetheless, Carole Cifrino objected to the fact that projected expenses for the RSU superintendent’s office were not “real.” She said Whitefield’s contribution to the central office costs is “inflated.” The numbers should reflect the portion it paid as one of three Union 132 towns (along with Chelsea and Jefferson) supporting the existing office. However, the numbers were divided by two because of revenues lost when Jefferson dropped out and joined another regional school arrangement.
Supt. Frank Boynton said he was told to divide the expenses of the present central office by two, instead of by three, as would normally be the case.
The result based on that approach, Cifrino said, is that the RSU, “will get one and a half times as much from us” as at present. “We’re supposed to be seeing savings in administration.”
Although Mike Thurston countered that with, “this proposed budget isn’t what the RSU will end up with,” Cifrino insisted the new unit would be building a budget on numbers that are “indefensible and unreal. It’s inappropriate to use them as a basis for anything.” Figuring out the actual superintendent costs for Chelsea and Whitefield should be done outside the Whitefield School budget, she said.
Marianne Marple and Robert Soohey agreed it would be good to tell the finance committee, “we have a concern, alleviate our fears.” Chairman Lester Sheaffer pointed out “our percentage will be the same,” a reference to the cost sharing formula for all the towns that will be used the first three years the RSU operates. (Whitefield’s is about 14 percent.)
The majority’s preference was to have Boynton develop a second column of figures reflecting what Whitefield actually pays now for the superintendent’s office.
Principal Ron Cote presented anticipated enrollment for next year. Of the 183 total students, there will be 21 in 8th grade compared to 32 this year. The staff recommends dividing the 22 kindergarteners so that 13 are in a K-1st grade split, he said.
In the middle school, Cote said, “Based on learning styles and dynamics within the 25 seventh graders, the staff recommended dividing it into two groups of 12 and 13.”
There are 12 teaching positions, and one of those would be a teacher providing reading and math support to various grades, the principal said.
Sheaffer, referring to the controversy last year over low teacher-student ratios, said he favored cutting a teacher. The enrollment was even larger then, he said.
With the anticipated enrollment, Cifrino calculated an average 15 students per classroom.
Thurston and Soohey were against the cut, preferring to seek RSU budget approval with the current slate of teachers.
Boynton interjected that the carryover going into next year “is good,” in the $300,000 range, and “my understanding is that the $27 million curtailment (of education funding by the state) is gone.” Additionally, the federal stimulus package will have the effect of quelling the curtailment for two years, he said.
Discussion of guidance followed. The counselor’s hours were cut to two days during last year’s reductions and Boynton restored them to a four-day schedule. Cote defended the need. “Some kids have substantial problems,” he said, and having Ed Okishoff available on Mondays and Fridays in addition to Wednesday and Thursday is especially helpful.
The $13,000 phone system, which had initially appeared on the 2008-09 budget at $8000, was intended to give each classroom teacher a phone. The school committee haggled over keeping or eliminating it. “What if other schools (in the RSU) are adding this and that?” Soohey asked. “Everybody else will get what they want. Are we doing a disservice to our school by taking stuff out?”
Except for the phone system, the committee ultimately recommended other expenditure requests.
Marple said she didn’t want to “fight this fight again,” a reference to last year’s battles with taxpayers over keeping school costs down. In the end, however, the panel decided to leave the decision to the RSU on where to spend the money. They will meet with RSU finance committee members next Tuesday.
Secondary school costs are pegged at about a four percent increase and the proposed total expenses as of the March 9 meeting were $4 million. Last summer, voters approved a compromise spending plan of $3.6 million for the current year.
