School Committee makes $54,100 in additional cuts, but not enough to satisfy budget nihilists
UPDATE: Only Charlestown, among the three Chariho towns, voted "YES" to approve the third version of the Chariho School District's budget yesterday. The Charlestown vote was 153 Yes and 78 No.
But the school budget was doomed by continued attacks from Richmond and Hopkinton conservatives who wanted the budget hacked to death with a meat cleaver. Hopkinton voted NO by a margin of 696 - 104. Richmond voted NO by 584 - 119.
Under state law, Chariho must now continue the school operations using the same budget as the current fiscal year ("maintenance of effort"). That amount will actually be higher than the third version of the budget that the yahoos in Hopkinton and Richmond voted down.
The annual costs to each of the three Chariho School District towns (Charlestown, Hopkinton, Richmond) varies depending on the year’s student enrollment.
Last year, Charlestown had a slight increase in the number of students, thus a small increase in cost, and it was our CCA Town Councilors Tom Gentz and Dan Slattery turn to act like budget nihilists, if not outright buffoons, to demand Chariho cut its budget without any useful suggestions about how to do that.
This year, Charlestown enrollment is down and Hopkinton’s and Richmond’s are up. So Charlestown’s costs drop (by 1.7%) and Hopkinton’s and Richmond’s rise, by 0.19% and 1.19% respectively. And it’s now up to Richmond and Hopkinton to act like budget nihilists, giving Gentz and Slattery the chance to pretend that they are the clear-headed ones this time around.
Richmond and Hopkinton are doing a pretty good job at whipping up taxpayers, pretty much over nothing, sparking a revolt that led to the defeat of the Chariho budget twice now, including the last time when Chariho simply proposed the same level of funding as last year. If the voters reject the budget for a third time, state law will require the district to maintain that same level of funding.
All three towns provide very little in municipal services so the cost to educate town children in the Chariho School system is more than 50% of each town’s annual budget. For Richmond, it’s 78% of the town’s total spending.
Chariho has been under fiscal pressure from all directions. It took a big hit when the state revamped its formula for state aid to education, especially when the state stripped Chariho of the bonus it received for running a regionalized system.
The aging of the population and drop in the number of young people reduced Chariho’s enrollment, as did the syphoning off of some students by charter schools. Plus, the system has spent heavily in programs to raise its ranking with the state to among the state’s highest.
Cathy and I don’t have kids, but even so, I support generous funding for education. As John Green noted, I don’t like living in a place filled with stupid people, so to me, education is the silver bullet.
Cathy and I don’t have kids, but even so, I support generous funding for education. As John Green noted, I don’t like living in a place filled with stupid people, so to me, education is the silver bullet.
But not to the town Republicans of Hopkinton and Richmond who have organized taxpayers against Chariho.
I have combed the record, especially the pages of the Westerly Sun where so much of this battle is being fought to try to figure out why this, why now and if not fair funding for Chariho, what are their alternatives?
Each of the budget nihilists claims to nothing but the best intentions for the school system and for the students and teachers while criticizing and seeking to cut in ways that will hurt the school system and its students and teachers.
Curiously, there is one budget item, $600,000 over a three-year period, that conservative critics and the teachers’ union would like to see cut and that’s the Te@ch Incentive Pay program. The union was the first to offer to have that cut since, in general, teachers oppose incentive pay provisions like this. Conservatives don’t necessarily share the teachers’ principled opposition – they just like to cut the budget.
But management wants to maintain that program because it fits in with state Education czar Deborah Gist’s “education reform” philosophy.
The $200,000 for Te@ch in the current year’s budget is unspent. I don’t understand why Chariho doesn’t simply satisfy almost everyone – except maybe Deborah Gist – and take the savings by scraping Te@ch.
Conservatives also want to scrap Chariho’s student dean positions – there are four of them who apparently serve as school disciplinarians – for a savings of $329,000. Some conservatives say Chariho doesn’t have a discipline problem – this car crash notwithstanding – while others could argue that this is why you have the student dean positions.
If it came between a school of scuttling these top-level managers or cutting into the 81 teachers assistants, 20 general resource staff and 15 reading and math aides as Hopkinton Town Councilor Barbara Capalbo suggested, I’d cut the managers. Capalbo can’t wrap her mind around the idea that students seem to do better the more personalized attention they get.
Capalbo also wants to cut $147,522 from athletic coach stipends, eliminate all travel and conference costs for School Committee members (at $2000, that’ll make a big difference), eliminate an academic fellow who does curriculum development (savings of $131,480) and charge $100 for every student parking space.
Conservatives say that because Chariho enrollment is changing, that should automatically lead to changes in the configuration of the schools and the budget. Except that’s not very practical since most of the costs are fixed expenses.
Hiring and firing staff to match the ebb and flow of enrollment is also unwise and impractical if we want a school staff that is competent and dedicated.
Otherwise, we might as well replace the teaching staff with temp workers or, as Barbara Capalbo actually suggested, with computer teaching programs.
Some conservatives say they are urging a NO vote as a protest against state support cuts. Yeah, that’ll show them. How about taking it the next step and just shutting down the schools. That’d really get the state's attention.
The odds for passage of Chariho’s third proposed budget look bad. Conservatives want more and more cut from the budget than Chariho is willing or able to give. In fact, the only new expense conservatives embrace is commissioning a comprehensive management study so that they can get a consultant’s report on what else to cut.
It’s always complicated to talk about budgets. I think it’s important to be clear about your intent and your goals. There should be clear, logical reasons to support any budget analysis. For example, I challenged Charlestown’s Fiscal 2014 budget because it called for a 16 cent per $1000 property tax hike even though Charlestown is carrying an undesignated fund balance (a.k.a. surplus) of almost $8 million.
I support raising the investment the town makes in its staff and its minimal town services, but with a surplus that exceeds even that amount advised by the town’s financial experts, I saw no justification for not using that excess surplus to eliminate the need for property tax hike this year.
I supported Chariho’s first budget with its modest increase because they were modest and seemed to be well thought-out. There’s always stuff you might cut – e.g. TE@CH – but there’s also always stuff you could add.
I hope the third time will be the charm for Chariho and urge you to come out and vote YES on June 18.