Easton school officials are whittling away at a “point of departure” budget to reach a proposed 2018-19 budget with a 3.5% increase over the current $15.8 million plan.
School Superintendent Dr. Thomas McMorran has presented the Easton school board with possible cuts to arrive at the 3.5% hike that represents a $554,327 increase and a $16.3 million overall school budget.
“We’re showing you a path,” McMorran said, addressing board members at their Feb. 13 meeting.
Officials emphasized their efforts at reaching a fiscally responsible budget went along with maintaining current class sizes.
“Class size means everything,” said Easton resident Claire Wilkes, who addressed board members during public participation.
Wilkes said she’d hate to see classes becoming larger than the 24 and 25 students in current seventh grade classes.
She said she’s also concerned that programs might be cut, as they were during “deep” budget cuts made to the arts and languages in 2010-2011.
“It took several years to bring back what was lost,” she said. “We must not backslide. We need to fund our schools at the appropriate level. I support a minimum of a 3.5 % increase.”
“The budget is actively fighting us to keep the budget higher,” McMorran said, and officials are dealing with a spike in special education.
“The number of students eligible for services has increased,” he said.
There are also factors that are “difficult to mitigate,” McMorran said, including teachers’ and transportation contracts.
“We’ve had a school budget below $16 million for seven years,” he said, and annual increases between a half and one percent. “There’s a point at which you can’t continue to do that. To get to 3.5% is tough.”
He detailed possible cuts starting from a “point of departure” budget with a 9.37% increase.
The path to reach the 3.5% increase includes scrapping plans for hiring an ER9 director of digital learning, deferring maintenance projects at both Helen Keller Middle School and Samuel Staples Elementary School, and working with Dattco, the district’s school bus company, to reduce a projected 12.5% increase, or $120,000, in the upcoming third year of the contract.
The district could save $10,300 if it paid Dattco “up front,” said Jeffrey Parker, Easton school board chairman.
By advancing the contract, Dattco may “give us a small consideration,” Parker said, and savings could also occur if the district extends the contract.
Other savings could be met by not hiring a requested special education teacher and adjusting existing caseloads; cutting $17,000 from the professional development conferences and travel cutline and making $38,000 in miscellaneous cuts.
They would include shaving line items that have ended the year with surpluses, cutting the purchase of 65 chrome books, renegotiating the district’s contract with Xerox and pulling faculty advisor stipends for extra-curricular clubs at the middle school.
The stipends could be paid for through fundraisers, as has been done in the past, and imposing fees, Parker said.
Money could also be saved by eliminating a requested school counselor position that was to be split between Easton and Redding, hiring a new math teacher at a lower salary than the previous teacher, cutting a middle school media assistant’s summer hours and pulling a request for a recess paraprofessional at the middle school.
Also on the chopping block would be a current paraprofessional math support position and a requested part-time math aide. Using some money from the medical reserve allowance could also be used to lower the budget.
Board will discuss proposed reductions
Starting to teach Spanish in second grade rather than in kindergarten as is presently done, is “on the top of the list” of concerns among school board members, Parker said, and that possible cost reduction will be discussed further.
Another possible reduction that drew strong reaction was eliminating the Integrated Language Arts specialist (ILA) at the middle school.
One of the ILA’s primary tasks is to provide remedial intervention for Tier 2 and Tier 3 students, Parker said.
The cut could be offset by increasing a half-time remedial English teacher to full time, and that person would work with the Tier 2 and 3 students
Language arts specialists interface with specialists at other schools, and, in this district, they are liaisons with the Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction.
Susan Kaplan, principal of Helen Keller School, read a list of 20 job responsibilities handled by the ILA specialist.
“We expect a lot out of our specialists,” McMorran said.
Board members discussed possibly saving money by cutting down the number of school buses used to transport children.
“We continue to have buses running around Easton half-full on a daily basis,” said school board member David Bindelglass.
Eliminating a bus might be “almost enough to put a ILA specialist back,” he said.
But it’s difficult to eliminate buses or replace buses with vans, officials said.
A discussion about two-tier bussing, which would combine bus runs to Helen Keller and Samuel Staples, may be reopened, Parker said.
Board members should take a look at changes in school population and bus routes, said board member Randy Hicks.
“How many 70-passenger buses do we need?” Hicks asked.
Parker said he also wants board members to consider the future possibility of increasing the number of elementary school classrooms from four per grade to five per grade in light of current population growth in kindergarten and first grade.
His concern is that in six months, “we may see the four sections of second grade exceeding optimal class size.”
Meanwhile, “We’re going to continue to keep digging,” Parker said, in order to arrive at a budget proposal.
He said he’s received emails from parents who are concerned that the school board “was going to put financial concerns first, while maintaining the core curriculum and class sizes would be second.“
The school board “has no interest in doing anything that will negatively impact our children,” Parker said. “Every member of the board has the number one priority to provide the very best educational experience we can have for our kids.”
He asked school board members to voice their concerns about items under consideration for removal from the budget, so that McMorran can respond to them.
The next Easton school budget workshop is expected to take place at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 21 in the Helen Keller School media center.
The school board is expected to present its proposed budget to the Easton Board of Finance at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 7 at the Easton Senior Center.