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The school budget end game So what has happened with the school budget you ask? To review, our school board's original budget proposal was shot down by the voters on April 19. When this occurs, the budget then goes to the local governing body for review, in our case the Readington Township committee. After some apparently contentious discussions between committee members and school board members, on May 16 our township committee decided that the school budget should be reduced by $720,000.00. At that point, the recommendation is returned to the school board members who are responsible for finding the lines items to be cut or reduced in order to meet this new number. Although the township committee does not ultimately have responsibility for specific line items, our committee members did take the time to offer some suggested areas for reduction. Their resolution can be reviewed here. (PDF file). On May 17, our school board members held a public meeting to determine what areas should be cut in order to meet the $720,000.00 reduction mandated by the township committee. The meeting was sparsely attended, but board president Mark Berry offered some comments in the beginning of the meeting to "set the record straight" about what he considers to be misrepresentation of the negotiation process with the town committee. He expressed frustration that the committee members did not offer some compromise numbers to the board, and he feels that he was blindsided by their actions or lack of actions. As the meeting went on, it became evident just how irritated that Mark and board member Rich Kilpatrick had become with the town's action. There were $215,000.00 in cuts previously identified by the board, so it now became necessary to come up with an additional $500,000.00 or so in cuts. After some wrangling over the process, Superintendent Irene Benfatti offered eleven budget areas to be considered for potential reduction. This became the focus for the rest of the night, as no other budget items were mentioned by board members other than what was on Irene's list. Not incidentally, these eleven items were not available to the public before the meeting, though an agenda was provided. Since the public comment time came before any public knowledge of these items, the public had no opportunity to speak about them. Furthermore, there was information attached to the agenda about the particulars of school transportation law as if someone knew in advance that this information would be needed. The eleven items mentioned as potential cuts included many new intervention teacher positions in various schools, some other new "specialty" teaching positions, purchases of software, a pet program on biofeedback, "B" team athletics and a tennis program, and, the most controversial area: courtesy busing. Hours later into the discussion witnesses to the meeting noticed that certain board members find it very convenient to use courtesy busing as an issue to push back in the lap of the town. Perhaps it is also a way to punish those who voted against the budget in the first place. The idea seems to be that cutting courtesy busing will stir the wrath of parents and it will force the town to assure that offer safe passage for the kids now coming by car and by foot is available. One board member that night even mentioned that this focus on busing was sounding rather spiteful. In the end, courtesy busing was voted to be cut from the budget, with Rick Finn as the sole "no" vote. By the end of the night, some new intervention teacher positions had been put back into the budget, the athletics programs were spared, and the software and pet biofeedback project were canned. Again, Rick Finn provided the sole "no" vote. Following the meeting, the only public explanation for the cuts chosen was this list provided by Superintendent Irene Benfatti: Description
So that we all understand, these cuts of teaching positions were new positions, not existing teachers. Irene Benfatti specifically noted that the new intervention teacher positions were not required in order to preserve the level of education we would like to continue to provide. There has been no great increase in student population. Yet, some board members insisted that these new positions should be created so that we maintain our "cutting edge" status. One might wonder: if the Superintendent sees additional intervention positions as something of a luxury anyway, why cut courtesy busing now over new positions that are not required? The answer may well originate with some board members who are not able to separate personal anger from public decision-making. What does this all mean? For one thing, the addition of more intervention teachers may simply mean a corresponding increase in students who will suddenly need these teachers. As our classrooms become more homogenized, classroom teachers will be more likely to differentiate not with flexible lessons, learning centers, workgroups and the like, but by increasing reliance on intervention teachers to handle students outside of the middle. "Cutting edge" in this case apparently means a slippery slide down the hill toward ability grouping. For another thing, the action of our school board has now created a new problem with busing that did not exist before. Due to state formulas, courtesy busing might have been in jeopardy as soon as next year anyway. Now, however, we will not have a year of planning to analyze the increased automobile and pedestrian traffic. Parents will not have the extra time to adjust work schedules or even to switch jobs in order to accommodate the change. We will have little time to ameliorate the new dangers associated with children walking or being dropped off at school by parents. Lastly, there was never any discussion of other items that could certainly have been cut instead. Only the eleven suggestions from the Superintendent were considered. The extra helpings of standardized testing would have been high on many lists as a prime candidate for a cut and that alone would account for more than half of the cost of courtesy busing. The township committee made suggestions too. Yet, the push to cut courtesy busing seemed more important than any other consideration. |
