Each year the K-8 school committee defines a set of priorities to help guide them as they put together a budget for the upcoming year. At a meeting last night, the school committee said their top priorities for this budget season are to focus on personnel and to improve the student-teacher ratio.
School Committee Chairperson Marybeth Strickland said prioritizing personnel and class size is not an indication that there are problems in those areas, rather it’s recognition of how important they are to running successful schools.
Class sizes in Southborough actually shrank this year, but Strickland says there’s still room for improvement. “I feel much better about class sizes this year, but they still don’t meet our policy levels” she said. “They’re still not ideal.”
Committee member Susan Dargan agreed, saying smaller classes benefit all students and can actually translate into cost-savings for the district. When classes are smaller teachers are better able to accommodate students with special needs who might otherwise have to be placed out-of-district, which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“We want to keep kids in the district as much as we can,” Dargan said.
As for personnel, Strickland said the priority is on hiring and retaining the best teachers. While she said she doesn’t foresee trying to restore any of the teaching positions that were lost in previous budget years, “everything is on the table.”
Members of the Advisory Committee attended last night’s meeting to reiterate the request that all town boards and committees submit a version of their budget that is reduced by 1% compared to the current fiscal year. The regional school committee has said they will not comply with the town’s request, but the K-8 school committee has yet to take a stance.
Advisory Committee member John Butler said the 1% reduction would give voters a sense of what the impact would be if there was no tax increase next year. “It doesn’t mean that’s the budget you’re going to end up with,” Butler said. “We are asking you to tell us what the impact would be.”
Preparing a 1% reduced budget is about “being responsible to the people in town,” Advisory Committee member Karen Muggeridge said. “A lot of other boards and committees will be looking to you to follow suit.”
Strickland said after the meeting that they are just starting to dig into numbers for next year and have not yet decided what approach they’ll take. “We will present what is reasonable for the schools,” she said.
Strickland said the budget working group – comprised of herself and fellow committee member Kathleen Harragan Polutchko – will start meeting this month. A general budget discussion is scheduled for next month’s school committee meeting, with a preliminary draft of the budget to be presented in January.
Good luck to the Advisory Committee. One can easily perceive the attitude of the School Committee- If we follow the request we won’t be serious. After all, if the Unions and Teachers want more money that’s fine. We’ll bring our gang to the Town Meeting and the increase our sponsors want will go through.
Prove me wrong.
What about school choice? By adding only a few members to each grade, it would benefit the budget by bringing in 5/k per student, without drastically changing class size. If 20 students were allowed in through the school choice program(5 students per grade) the budget would increase by 100k. Not too mention it would benefit the lack of diversity which is pivotal to the educational experience, and a department in which Algonquin is desperately lacking.
I certainly hope that the “working group” which appears to be a sub committee under the State open meeting laws will only meet in public with posted meetings and minutes. The public deserves to see transparency in the budget process.
I wondered the same thing, so I asked. I was told it’s not an official subcommittee – it’s a working group – so it’s meetings are not posted and are not open to the public.
I believe that that is incorrect. The MA Open Meeting Law states:
“Public body”, a multiple-member board, commission, committee or subcommittee within the executive or legislative branch or within any county, district, city, region or town, however created, elected, appointed or otherwise constituted, established to serve a public purpose; provided, however, that the governing board of a local housing, redevelopment or other similar authority shall be deemed a local public body; provided, further, that the governing board or body of any other authority established by the general court to serve a public purpose in the commonwealth or any part thereof shall be deemed a state public body; provided, further, that “public body” shall not include the general court or the committees or recess commissions thereof, bodies of the judicial branch or bodies appointed by a constitutional officer solely for the purpose of advising a constitutional officer and shall not include the board of bank incorporation or the policyholders protective board; and provided further, that a subcommittee shall include any multiple-member body created to advise or make recommendations to a public body.
They are a multiple-member body created to advise or make recommendations to a public body and should be meeting in public.
Concerned:
A “working group” is just a different name for a sub committee. It was appointed by the chair and must do its business in public. This is exactly the same thing that happened in the so called 3 vs 4 school “working group” . I was assured by the Superintendent that this would not happen again and did not press the issue.
The open meeting law is very clear on this point. The “working group” is constituted from the authority vested in the School Committee and constituted for a public purpose. It must meet in public and only in public. In fact since it appears to only be a committee of 2 the 2 members may not even discuss the issue with each other (or through an intermediary) outside of a public meeting.
The School Budget Process needs some serious sunshine.
We are in total agreement Al. How is this rectified?
I enthusiastically endorse the desire for more “sunshine “on the School Budget Process and by extension the School Committee (which as I stated previously seems to act for the unions and teachers rather than ALL taxpayers). It would be a treat to comb through the budget in detail and to examine its ever increasing costs. Who knows, perhaps this year we may even find out what salary increases are proposed before approving them rather than the ridiculous cover up (by the unions – surprise, surprise) of last year’s increase that was kept secret – disgraceful really.
Now, how do we go about that?
Neil, I get it that you hate unions. You’re an economic radical. You think corporations should be able to grow as big as they want but the only correct unit for the sale of labor ought to be the lone, over-matched individual.
In modern American society, it’s not the unions that are ripping off the rest of us. It’s financiers, bankers, and hedge fund managers, not the poor, not the middle class, not the Occupiers, not the unions. It’s Wall Street, it’s banks, it’s the very wealthy.
These malefactors of great wealth, to quote FDR, have taken all the labor productivity gains of the past three decades. They’ve paid lobbyists and Congresspeople for huge tax cuts, with the pretense that that would improve the economy. Today, income and wealth distributions, far from trending socialist, are more plutocratic than even in the late 1920s. And the economy has continued to be awful and insecure for ordinary wage-earners, whose income is virtually the same now as it was in 1980.
I haven’t paid dues to a union in more than three decades, but it’s clear that the middle class has suffered from undefended class warfare by the very wealthy during that entire period. Those of us who make less than $500,000 a year need more advocates on our behalf, not fewer. Unions are far from perfect, but I’ll take them over Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup any time.
Here here Kelly!
Kelly
Since the Democrats have controlled one or both houses for most of the last 30 years then it must be fair to assume that the malefactors you refer to must have, as you point out, paid Democratic Congresspeople to pass the required legislation that promoted their interests. One might infer that more would have been paid to Democrats as they would need to be persuaded to go against the interests they purport to represent than Republicans who more readily side with the malefactors.
Al, Democrats are guilty too. Many of them have abandoned their traditional role as protectors of the middle class. I’m not that kind of Dem. :)
But the Republicans have still raked in more money from financial interests – not in all election cycles but in most – than the Democrats.
It was a terrible sign with Pres. Obama appointed Tim Geithner and Larry Summers as his chief economics advisors. The last three years bear that out. I shudder to think, though, where we’d be if John McCain had brought us more years of failed deregulation and doctrinaire opposition to doing anything to fill the demand gap left by the bursting of the housing bubble – something free market advocates said was impossible, notably Alan Greenspan when he admitted that irresponsible lending had caused the great recession.
Had McCain been elected instead of Obama, we would be in the throes of deep recession with nominal unemployment (the popular but deceiving number known as U3) around 12%, maybe worse.
Still, Obama has only taken weak steps to prevent future financial frauds on the scale that led to the meltdown. We are not safe – the financial corporations cannot self-regulate, as we have seen over and over again for the past 30 years.
“It was a terrible sign with Pres. Obama appointed Tim Geithner and Larry Summers as his chief economics advisors.”
I agree completely although I suspect for very different reasons. Geithner is just another Goldman crony capitalist and Summers is just a @$%%$#@^@.
I am equally inimpressed with Obama’s choices for the jobs council. Putting the head of GE in charge assures that nothing will be done. GE is not a job creator in this country.
I am afraid that Obama, who I voted for by the way (wont make that mistake again), has proven to be an economic lightweight or worse. McCain would unfortunately would have been no better.
I also agree with you that no where near enough bankers have gone to prison. Capitalism only works if there is symmetry between risk and reward. When rewards are private and risks are public you can expect the sort of unbalanced risks that were taken.
But don’t worry, wall street invests heavily in both parties so no bankers will be harmed in the next election.
Al, I think we actually share several important points of agreement, and your assessment of those two is spot-on, maybe even down to the word you censored. I’m with you about Jeffrey Immelt too.
If I had been Eric Holder, I would have had a high-profile perp walk every single week, which would have been not only just and good public policy (moral hazard? I’ll show you moral hazard!) but also good politics.
And political finance is a stinking cesspool of corruption – or at best potential corruption – with both parties implicated.
Kelly
Holder was far too busy running guns into Mexico and then misremembering.
Obama is not going to do squat about crony capitalism. Aside from the political contributions the govt needs Wall Street to float its new debt. Neither party can conceive of a balanced budget or living within its means and like any junkie will slave themselves to their pushers.
If Obama were smart, he would announce to all that he will sign any balanced budget the Congress will pass but not one that is $1.00 over unless it meets his goals. The Republicans would be apoplectic since they have no intention of balancing the budget just want a talking point. The good news is he is not that smart.
Kelly,
How about the one billion dollar campaign chest Obama has raised to run his negative campaign? That money has come from the very sources you lambast. Are you aware that the public sector wages, job security, and pensions has caused an enourmous unsustainable burden at all levels of government? look to Barney Frank and Chris Dodd if you want to assign blame for the burst housing bubble. Look to those (primarily Democrats) that want to solve everything by raising taxes dispite Obama saying you shouldn’t raise taxes during a rescission. The banks that you vilify are what keeps this economy growing. The millionaires and billionaires are not the bankers, they are the hedge fund crooks. As long as there is money being thrown around there will be people who figure out how to scam it. Regulation is necessary, overregulation is a hindrance.
But, by the way, more sunshine is a good thing.
Unions should be regulated and have to report their activities and salaries just like corporations. Many of them are corrupt and misuse their funds. They contribute to left wing causes without their members consent. In many cases you have to join to get a job. If you don’t like a corporation, you sell your stock. If you don’t do your job you’re fired unlike ” public servants” who are protected – including incompetent teachers. Guess that’s how you like it. Oh, and the outrageous pensions…I could go on and on. Over and out on the union topic.
Many corporations are corrupt and misuse their funds. They contribute to right wing causes without their shareholders’ consent. In many cases, executives ship jobs overseas and take bonuses – abetted by federal tax policies which they have purchased. If you don’t like a corporation, you only have a couple of choices, and those are generally too similar to make much difference because they all use the same techniques in fealty to Wall Street’s ROI desires. And you still may have to work for one, if, say, your personal educational capital is in skills needed by large organizations. If executives don’t do their job, they fail upward – including incompetent CFOs. Guess that’s how you like it. Oh, and the outrageous pensions, ripped off from general pension funds. I could go on and on – and my issues wouldn’t be penny ante.
The serious grifters and thieves in the American economy are in the executive suite, not in unions. Eventually the middle class is going to wake up to who’s been building a society in which only the new aristocracy of inherited money can flourish. They’re going to notice that Europe has better social mobility than America, where getting ahead through nothing more than hard work has become a myth.
I guess Kelly never heard of James Hoffa or the Coal Miners Union. She must not be aware of union practices in contracts that lead to increased labor costs. It’s funny to hear about Europe’s social mobility. They are are so mobile they are trashing the Euro with unsustainable debt driven by their socialist behavior. I never hear much about the Left Wing efforts which are stunting growth in our country. Would you include Steve Jobs and Bill Gates in your diatribe?
Neil, have you tried getting the information you seek from a School Cmte member? I did, last year and the year before. I met with one of the members, who gave me reams of information, including costs, salaries, staffing, class size past/present/future, charts, graphs, and more. It took about 3 hours of her, and my, time, but it was worth it to be able to make an informed and educated decision when voting on the school budget. Failure to obtain the available information is the fault of the voter, as it’s readilty available to anyone who asks.
On another note, can anyone tell me how many of the Advisory Cmte. members have children in the Southboro Public Schools? How many never had kids on our schools? And how many have elected to send their kids to private schools instead?
Sue
During my tenure on Advisory I could count 7 different members who had children then in our schools, including me, and several others who’s children had graduated from our schools system I am not away of any that sent their children to private school but it was not a topic of discussion.
Advisory has had a long track record of supporting schools and for the most part siding with the schools when there were differences of opinion with the BOS.
If you were looking for evidence of bias the Advisory in the past has been biased in favor of our public schools.
Sue, thanks for your input. We never did get the salary increase info at Town Meeting. Did you? Have we ever had an analysis of student achievements as a consequence of pouring in ever more resources. Do you believe the Committee would be prepared to go through the budget – with salary info, not by name – on a line by line basis with cross questioning? For me the class size topic seems to be the perennial bolt-hole. It is a contentious topic. Why aren’t class sizes tailored to give TAXPayers and those on fixed incomes a break. In case some of those happily employed folks are unaware there is a recession going on and some taxpayers are hurting.
Seems some people are confused. We live in a free market (read capitalist) society. The country was founded on that basis. Corporations may have some bad actors but they get fired by the shareholders and you can sell your shares if you disagree. If you want to keep your job you have to stay in the union and pay your dues regardless of your political affiliations. Know where the union money goes – The Democrats. Did you know that Obama got more from Wall Street and business in 2008 than most politicians ever? Hello, are you there.
And, Kelly, if you think Europe has more social mobility I can attest that it does not. I came from Europe. Why don’t you ask Europeans that have settled here what they think? I can further attest that a “green card” remains precious. I found it so, and naturalized as soon as I could.
Neil, here are some sources on social mobility:
– Fareed Zakaria in the Washington Post – note that Paul Ryan shares your unjustified faith that America’s past superiority in social mobility
– The Economist and again here – granted a European publication, although one that generally favors less regulatory forms of capitalism
– Matthew Yglesias at ThinkProgress
Social mobility is the opportunity for someone who grew up poor here to become wealthy here. Immigration is a different case. For one thing, America selects talented and educated immigrants to grant naturalization. Yglesias, whom you would probably otherwise dismiss out of hand, agrees with you on that case: “One nice thing about the United States and social mobility is that compared to most European countries (but not Canada or Australia, or for that matter Sweden in Europe) it’s easier for foreigners to move here and make their way.”
So your single case is not even relevant to the factual question.
Oops, left out a phrase – that America’s past superiority in social mobility continues in the present day…
Re: social mobility
Guess again! The U.S. now ranks very low in arena. 50 or more years ago it was a different story. Today, there’s very little mobility among the classes. The wealth formerly enjoyed by the so-called middle class has migrated almost entirely to the most wealthy 1% of the U.S. population. Despite productivity gains in the workplace, those being more productive have little to show for their efforts – save for increased hours on the job.
Re: unions
The major concern I have with the teacher’s union (and those representing our municipal employees) is that we, the tax payers – and funding source for these people – are NOT being paid union wages. We have to go out and fight tooth and nail for our compensation – with no union guaranteeing we won’t lose our jobs when there’s a single quarter in which our company doesn’t meet its numbers. Why would any reasonable person think for one moment it makes any sense to pay these people (teachers, etc.) at union rates out of the money we earn at NON union rates?
It is an understatement to state the situation is ABSURD. It goes far beyond that.
…and now we’re looking at the school department making up yet another year’s budget. No more!
Learn (there’s a key word school dept.) to live with less – like the rest of us. With so many people out of work, Can it be even remotely possible that the people teaching in the Southborough schools couldn’t, in just a few days, be replaced with non-union educators? I would bet there are at least a dozen people who would fill those roles, at more than competitive rates, in a heartbeat.
Do you have a degree in education? Would you presume to step into the role of any other professional if you decided they were being paid to much?
So we need a degree in education in order to challenge the size of the school budget or if we ask the education establishment in town to live with less. Isn’t it enough that we are tax payers?
If the teachers think they are being bashed on this board, I have a different take. Maybe the teachers can ask their union, the school board and the superintendent to treat the tax payers at TM a little differently the next time their contract is re-done. Respect is a two way street.
“Say what” i heartily agree with your position on unions. They are also job killers.
On the mobility issue, isn’t it strange then the general clamor to come here. Let me assure you that there is less social mobility in Europe. There, with there socialist policies that favor unions they are in bigger trouble than we are. On the other hand, the current
administration is desperately trying to get us into the same mess. While Europe moves right, to fix their problems, we are stuck for the time being with a far left government. Go figure. Or take a 3 week vacation in Hawaii.