On Tuesday, 3/3, the 6:00
portion of the School Committee meeting consisted of a Budget 101 presentation designed to
support community understanding, reflection, and advocacy around the FY16
school budget process. (You can see the slides here: http://1i8brn1xoauz1pwsvo1ktb7vb1q.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Budget-1011.pdf
or watch it on MMTV at http://www.mmtv3.org/index.php?categoryid=28
in the Part 1 section.)
Here are a few notes that
may lend context to the presentation:
The school budget is the
main way the community ties educational goals to school funding. For example,
one of our goals is to “Maximize the value of the teacher contract…” so you
will see increases in teacher salaries compared with the FY15 budget. You will
also see investments in professional development and administrative salaries in
order to ensure that teachers get training, support, and useful and appropriate
evaluation so they can keep improving what and how they teach. We seek the
greatest value for what we spend, in other words, the best return on our
investment.
How do you know that the
schools are using your tax dollars for what they promised at budget time? Two
ways: financially and programmatically. Financially, at every regular meeting, Director of
Finance Jay Picone submits
“warrants” (which are actually invoices) for school expenses and the Committee must approve every one
for them to be paid. Those payments
are posted in summary form in the Monthly Budget Summary, and must also be approved by the
Committee so we can see how the money is
used properly and that we don’t overspend. Second, when we look at programs (like athletics for example), we make sure
our choices at budget time (types of
sports, levels like freshman/JV/varsity, etc.) align with expenses. You can find all warrants and Monthly Budget Summaries
in our packets on the IQM2 page of the
School Committee web site. Programmatically, you can look at documents like School
Improvement Plans, Programs of Study
(MHS and soon for MVMMS), Codes of Conduct, contracts with collective bargaining units, and/or the web site. An example: last year you heard discussion
around the potential hiring of a Fine and Performing Arts Director. The Committee approved that position, so you
will see Director DiFruscia’s
name in our staff directory and as a separate budget line item with her salary, as evidence of that investment.
How might you think about
what you want the budget to direct the Supt. to do?
We have to abide by the law, contractual obligations etc.,
so we have to provide special
education services, pay for legally required teacher training, pay staff members what we’ve promised in their
contracts, etc. It’s very difficult to
quantify those elements into a number by itself. But we can think about what we as a community value at different
school levels (elementary, middle,
and high), like arts, athletics, health and wellness, library media services, on-line/blended learning opportunities,
foreign language. Do we want
more training for teachers? Would we increase what we pay substitute teachers to be able to hire more highly qualified subs? Would we accept more students from other
cities and towns to provide more
revenue to fund the things we value? How do we see technology fitting into this equation? Would we
give up something to get something different?
At the end of this process
in late April, the Committee must submit a balanced budget for consideration by
the Board of Aldermen. So what do you think makes for a high quality education
for your child(ren) and how do you think we should allocate the money in this
budget to get as close as we can to that?
More questions? Suggestions?
Comments? Please send them to fy16schoolbudget@melroseschools.com
or contact your principal, Supt. Taymore, or Committee members. Thank you so
much!
