Swampscott schools budget submitted, may change based on state funding

SWAMPSCOTT – The School Committee has submitted a zero deficit budget to the Board of Selectmen and Town Administrator Andrew Maylor.School Committee Chairman David Whelan said the town still does not know how much it will receive from the state for the upcoming fiscal year so it is possible the budget would change.”It’s still very fluid,” he said. “We are waiting to find out if there is any federal money that will help us out and trying to get some clarity on what we can spend it on.”According to Superintendent Matthew Malone, layoffs and reductions in services were necessary to balance the budget for FY’10. Malone said a FY’10 level service budget would cost $25,478,202 but the district only expects to receive $24,747,401 in funding so he needed to make $730,800 in cuts to balance the budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Malone said an elementary reading specialist, a high school guidance director and a fourth grade teacher at Hadley Elementary School are all retiring and those positions would not be filled. He said he is also eliminating high school curriculum specialist positions, two security positions, two physical education teachers, a high school tech education teacher and staff in the music department. Malone said four positions are layoffs and the other staff reductions are through attrition.Business Manager Ed Cronin said the district would need an additional $250,000 in FY’10 to fill positions that are being left vacant and to hire back employees that are being let go.”We don’t know what’s coming down from the feds yet,” he said. “So there are still some unknowns in the budget. We’re preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.”In addition to staff cuts, Malone said he is eliminating the DARE program at Swampscott Middle School. He also cut $50,000 that was budgeted for textbooks and another $107,000 for substitute teachers.Cronin said almost $197,000 was also slashed from the utility budget for the upcoming fiscal year.”We have a year’s worth of experience now in the new building (Swampscott High School) so we’re more accurately able to budget for utilities,” he said. “We have an actual year of costs we are able to look at now when budgeting utilities.”The selectmen are scheduled to meet next week but the selectmen simply vote on how much money to allocate to the schools and it does not offer input on individual line items in the school district budget.