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D'Auria paints
'grim picture' of cuts, fee hikes
By Jay Turner
Citizen Staff
Saddled with a
potential shortfall as high as $1.5 million in the coming fiscal
year, School Superintendent Dr. John D’Auria informed School
Committee members last week that he had no choice but to insert
a “bunch of bad ideas” into his recommendations for the FY2011
operating budget — lowlighted by the elimination of more than 18
full-time positions and the return of bus user fees.
The
recommendations, which he had shared with school staff earlier
in the day, represented almost a complete reversal from FY09,
when the schools, bolstered by a $4.55 million Proposition 2 ½
override, had succeeded in restoring nearly two dozen teacher
positions and eliminating or reducing most user fees.
According to
D’Auria, whose “grim picture” came in the form of a lengthy
PowerPoint presentation Thursday night, a substantial portion of
the additional money secured by the override — $717,960 to be
exact — has been diverted to “fill holes” in the FY10 and FY11
budgets caused by cuts in state aid and other “reduced revenue
streams.”
Combine that
with a growing structural deficit tied to out-of-district
special education costs and a possible further reduction in
state aid next year, and the schools could soon be nearing
pre-override service levels.
Refusing to
sugarcoat matters, the superintendent prefaced his list of
proposed cuts by warning that “from this point on I have nothing
to tell you other than bad ideas; there’s nothing good in what I
have to say.”
He also
detailed the impacts of each cut, ranging from higher class
sizes and fewer elective offerings to reduced counseling
services and even dirtier buildings.
All told,
D’Auria’s cut list included the equivalent of 18.3 full-time
staff positions — 6.7 at the elementary level, three at the
middle school, 3.6 at CHS, 1.5 system-wide, and 3.5 “support
staff” positions. He also proposed a reduction in capital
spending, supplies (including technology supplies), and the
reduction of one bus, as well as a $25 increase in the athletic
user fee and a return to bus fees for students in grades 7
through 12.
D’Auria said
his recommendations reflected a “worst-case premise” and that
school officials were working very hard to find additional
sources of revenue, but he stressed that the larger problem —
rising special education costs — is not going to fix itself.
In fact, more
than $1.2 million of next year’s total projected deficit of $1.5
million comes from legally mandated special education services,
and $225,000 of that figure are for proposed “in-district new
needs,” including $120,000 to educate six new preschoolers with
special needs and $55,000 to hire a life skills teacher at
Canton High School to accommodate the school’s growing autistic
population.
And the trend
is hardly just a local one, as D’Auria presented graphs showing
a similar dramatic spike in the number of autism cases both
nationally and statewide, particularly since 2000. In Canton
alone, the number of cases nearly doubled between 2007 and 2011,
while the cost of the district’s autism spectrum services rose
at an annual clip of more than 15 percent and will top $1
million in FY11.
At the same
time, D’Auria said Canton has been proactive in its efforts to
control costs, and that includes the proposed new CHS program,
which he said will cost $371,000 over the next four years
compared to $1.77 million if the same students were educated out
of district.
“I don’t see
this as developing a Cadillac program,” he said. “I see this as
doing the right thing for the children and being fiscally
[responsible].”
D’Auria noted
that Canton is also one of the few school districts that charge
tuition to out-of-town residents who want to utilize its highly
successful autism programs. “I can count on one hand in the
state how many districts do that,” he said.
Besides the
new needs in special education, the one other area that the
superintendent proposed significant new spending ($55,000) was
for professional training and support to help usher in a new
“comprehensive English Language Arts approach” at all three
elementary schools.
“We need to
guarantee to the parents, whether they go to the Luce or the JFK
or the Hansen, that they are getting an equivalent education,”
said D’Auria, adding that the new program, which also requires a
substantial capital investment in textbooks and materials,
cannot be implemented by “simply reading the teacher’s edition.”
Following the
superintendent’s presentation, School Committee Chairman Reuki
Schutt thanked him for providing a thorough overview of the
budget picture but suggested that alterations will likely be
considered in the coming weeks. Regardless of who or what gets
cut, committee member Robert Barker said it will be like
choosing “between road kill and rotten fish.”
Meanwhile,
school officials still have an existing deficit of more than
$400,000 to worry about, and they are running out of time as the
budget must be balanced before the close of the fiscal year on
June 30.
The deficit
actually went up since Business Manager Ken Leon gave his last
report because the district had four new collaborative school
placements, adding to the seven new out-of-district placements
that Canton inherited between January and March 2009.
Earlier this
year, the School Committee submitted a town meeting article
requesting additional funds to close the projected shortfall,
but as Schutt pointed out, they still need to develop a list of
cuts in the event that the funds are not approved.
Of course, if
that were the case, the deficit would need to be made up between
April and June, resulting in far deeper cuts than if they were
implemented at the start of the school year.
Committee
members agreed to discuss the specifics of the current budget at
their next meeting on February 25, while Schutt said she would
draft a letter to both the Board of Selectmen and the Finance
Committee reminding them of the schools’ predicament.
February 18, 2010
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