By GAYLA CAWLEY
SWAMPSCOTT —School officials can rest easy after the town budget allocated enough to the schools to take free all-day kindergarten off the chopping block.
The Board of Selectmen unanimously approved a $67.63 million budget last week, which is subject to further conversation with the Finance Committee before ultimately coming back to the board for final approval. Town Meeting members will vote on the budget, which is still subject to change in May. The FY18 town budget, as it stands now, is a 1.2 percent increase over last year.
Town officials opted to allocate an additional $950,000 to the schools, $200,000 more than the projected increase in recent months, which contributes significantly to closing their anticipated $275,000 budget gap. When faced with that gap, school officials were considering eliminating free all-day kindergarten, and instead switching to a tuition full-day model, with a free half-day program.
“At last night’s board of selectmen meeting, the board recommended a budget that included additional funding for the school department,” said Superintendent Pamela Angelakis in an email last Thursday. “This additional funding will be used to continue to fund our full-day kindergarten program for the next school year. This is wonderful news and I am grateful for the town’s continued support. Keep in mind that this is only the first formal step in the budget process and it will not be official until a vote on the budget at Town Meeting on May 15.”
The School Committee is scheduled to vote on their $30.49 million FY18 budget on Wednesday. After revolving grants and funds are taken into account, the school district budgeted for $28,272,500 in town allocation. With the increase, the town allocation is $28,197,500, leaving the schools with a $75,000 budget gap. Evan Katz, school business administrator, said school officials are evaluating how to fill the remainder of the gap.
Selectman Peter Spellios said the town has provided the school department with increases well in excess of what other areas of the town budget have received in the past several years.
“The problem with this is that it’s not sustainable,” Spellios said. “We are robbing Peter to pay Paul … The reality for us is that in order for us to have increased the funding, we have now just underfunded some town programs. We have deleted initiatives. We have taken things away.”
Spellios said the selectmen decided to allocate the additional funds in the face of losing all-day free kindergarten. But he said next year, the discussion may not only be kindergarten, but also about cutting AP English, two items that are on the superintendent’s list.
School officials are still in the midst of contract negotiations with the Swampscott Education Association, the teacher’s union, which recently rejected its proposed contract and is potentially seeking higher raises. In December, Katz projected there would be $960,000 in salary increases for school employees and teachers, based on a then-anticipated 1.5 percent raise for educators.
Before ultimately settling on an additional $200,000 to the schools than was initially projected, town officials expressed an uneasiness with advocating additional funds, if it would potentially go toward payroll, rather than programs such as full-day kindergarten. As 80 percent of the school budget is already devoted to salaries, Spellios said last month that contractual increases were outpacing the revenue the town could give to the schools.
That sentiment was echoed by Carin Marshall, chairwoman of the school committee, last month after teachers representing the union gave prepared statements defending their decision for turning down their contract. Teachers said the rejection was based on several factors, the least of which was monetary, and that they didn’t feel respected as professionals. They also questioned how an initial $1.6 million school budget gap at the start of mediation when salary bargaining was underway became $275,000 after a tentative agreement was reached.
To reduce an initial $1.6 million budget gap to $275,000 before last week’s increase in town allocation, there have been revenue increases of $240,000, personnel transition savings of $200,000, program reductions of $314,000, and the $300,000 budgeted for the unknown amount of students who may join the district and require special education services has been eliminated.
Gayla Cawley can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @GaylaCawley.