The Groton Dunstable Regional School District is asking for a $278,948 override from Dunstable and $937,570 from Groton in order to fully fund the FY08 school budget. For Dunstable taxpayers, the school override would add approximately 54 cents per $1,000 of property value to the tax rate, on top of the 77 cents added by the municipal override.

Without the additional funding provided by the school override, the district will be forced to cut an additional $1.2 million in expenses from the budget, most of which impacts existing staff and programs. A list of cuts that will be taken [1] if the override fails and answers to frequently asked questions [2] can be found on the district website [3] .

The rest of this article provides some additional background on the school budget and why the school override is needed.

Override request driven by shortfall in state funding

The revenue shortfall driving the school's override request is the result of state funding increases failing to keeping pace with the student population growth and increases in fixed costs that GDRSD [3] has had to absorb over the past several years. Also, Dunstable and Groton were among the 1/3 of towns in Massachusetts that got a much smaller share of the increase this year in state revenues, while the other 2/3 got significant increases. This shift in state funding has put even more pressure on our local property taxes to support the schools. Property taxes have to fill the budget gap left by reductions in state funding.

Many of the more significant budget increases occur in non-discretionary expenses, such as health insurance, retirement, transportation costs, and utilities. Those increases alone consume most of the $1 million increase in assessments that the towns could support this year under Prop 2-1/2. The district also has contractual obligations that are driving another large part of the budget increase. Dunstable's FinCom [3] and Selectmen can only support a 5.3% increase in operating assessment [3] ($194,937), which leaves the district short on funding. Rather than cutting school services, the School Committee voted to request an override to let taxpayers decide whether they will support the remaining amount that is needed to fully fund the school budget.

Need for increase in services

While most of the school budget is focused on maintaining level services within the district, school administrators have placed a priority on addressing a few the most prominent areas of concern in the district: elementary & middle school math, class sizes at the middle school and high school, availability of guidance counseling at the high school, and aging technology across the district.

• MCAS math scores have recently shown some decline in lower grades, and the district is on warning status for not meeting the No Child Left Behind standards for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP [3]) in math for Special Ed students. The budget includes funding for a math specialist, who would provide the support needed to improve the math teaching skills of the existing staff, thereby strengthening the whole math program.
• Class sizes at the high school and middle school exceed the recommended levels. When class sizes are too big, students may not get the individual attention they need to succeed. To address this problem, the administration has proposed adding 2 new teaching positions at the high school and 1.5 new teaching positions at the middle school.
• With 30 more students entering the high school next year, guidance ratios are expected to reach 290:1, while the next highest caseload for any other school counselor in the area is 238:1. GDRSD guidance counselors are already spread too thin for helping students plot a course through the high school curriculum and apply for colleges. So, the administration budgeted for 1.7 new guidance counselors at the high school.
• As a result of limited funding being available over the past several budgeting cycles, technology (computers, projectors, science equipment) within the district has become outdated and is more difficult to maintain. To begin addressing this problem before it becomes a much more serious problem, the district would like to introduce a technology leasing program that would allow some equipment to be replaced each year.

These new expenses represent less than 2% of the total increase over the FY07 budget. The other 98.2% of the requested budget increase is needed, just to maintain the same level of service the schools provided last year.

A more detailed description of the reasoning behind each of the major expense increases in the budget was explained in a presentation [4] at the GDRSD Public Hearing on the budget on February 28.

FY08 budget cuts already taken

The budget cuts that would result from a failed override would be applied on top of the recent $350,608 in cuts that the School Committee approved on April 4. Those cuts included such things as:

• a reduction in new personnel from the equivalent of 7 full-time employees (FTE [4]) to 5.6 by cutting back on Tech Ed coordinator hours and eliminating the request for an Assistant Network Manager,
• elimination of the proposed increase in spending on after school activities,
• a reduction in stipends
• elimination of the proposed increase in maintenance
• a reduction in funding proposed for introducing a leasing program to manage replacement of technology, much of which is now over 4 years old with age-related problems that demand more time from the school's limited tech support personnel.
• eliminating administrative assistance for the Athletic Director

The School Committee approved these cuts with some reservation, because in different financial times, those expenses would be easily justified. The cuts drew heavy criticism aimed at the School Community from community members expressing concern about the gradual degradation of support for education in the district. However, having listened to town officials, the School Committee chose to lighten the burden of school expense that is falling on property taxes. The cuts reduced Dunstable's assessment [4] by $80,394 (triming the impact on Dunstable's tax rate by roughly $0.19 per thousand) and reduced Groton's assessment by $270,214.

Ongoing efforts to avoid an override

The district administration and School Committee have been working hard to resolve this budget problem for the past several years. They have tackled it from both sides, by improving efficiency and cutting expenses, and by actively pursuing changes at the state level to get more adequate funding from the state.

Last year, the district negotiated a $500,000 savings on health insurance that allowed the district to balance the budget without an override. They have consolidated accounts for utilities and reduced energy (heat, lights) utilization costs by 10%, which has helped to make up for the gas price increases in the past year or so and has allowed them to level-fund energy this year, in spite of rate increases. They modified hiring practices to save on advertising costs, and have implemented less expensive methods for communicating with parents and the community. They have been pursuing partnerships with other schools and the towns that would allow them to negotiate better prices on service contracts. They are continuing to pursue other savings of this sort with making plans to consolidate copier contracts to negotiate a better rate, putting the liability insurance contract out to bid, and outsourcing SPED transportation.

At the same time, the Superintendent and School Committee have played a leadership role in pursuing the funding problem at the state level. They met with Hargraves last spring to enlist his support in these initiatives. They have also been working with the Mass Assoc. of School Committees on initiatives such as calling for the state to fulfill its commitment to fully fund transportation (instead of funding only 80%) for regional schools and changing some of the funding formulas to take the pressure off of property taxes. Effecting changes at the state level takes time; they will continue to work on these initiatives.

One positive development that may have been at least partly influenced by meetings that the Superintendent and School Committee had with State Rep. Hargraves last spring is the change in the state budget cycle. In past years, school funding levels were not finalized until July and schools were often in a position of having to ask for an override, only to have the state allocate more funding in July. This year, for the first time, the district knows how much Chapter 70 funding it will get before towns vote on their budgets. However, that also means there is no prospect of getting extra Chapter 70 funding in July to help the schools if an override fails.

Budget cuts to be implemented if school override fails in both towns

Recognizing that $1.2 million in revenue is dependent on the override passing in both towns, the district has prepared a list of the specific cuts that they would make if the override fails in both towns. The list was presented at the recent public forums and has recently been published in the GDRSD Newsletter [5]. Community members should at least look over the list of budget cuts [6] to understand the impact that a failed override will have on the schools.

The GDRSD administrative team came up with this list after many hours of discussion concerning where cuts could be made with minimal impact on students' education. Unfortunately, the district has trimmed its budget so much over the past several years that they have run out of options for where cuts of this magnitude can be made without impacting students.

Cutting $1.2 million from the budget would not only eliminate the 5.6 new positions that have been proposed to address some of the more critical problems within the district, it would also require the equivalent of 16 existing positions to be cut. The existing positions on the chopping block include 7.3 teaching positions, 5 aides, and some administrative and curriculum coordination resources. Because of the reduction in teaching staff, class sizes will increase; some kids will have to change schools to balance elementary class sizes across the district, and "bumping" could result in teachers being assigned to different classes. Some programs, such as foreign language and existing athletics programs will be cut back; football and indoor track won't happen. An override failure would also result in further cutbacks to the technology leasing program.

Overall, if the override fails in both towns, it would result in significant cuts to the current level of service that is currently being offered by the schools. By law, notification to employees that would be affected by the layoff would need to be given soon after the elections. (This happened a few years ago. Many good teachers were lost in the process.)

If the override fails in one town and not the other, then the School Committee will have 30 days to decide on a course of action, but they are likely to meet much sooner than that. The possibility of calling a Joint Town Meeting between the member towns would be within the scope of that consideration.

Much depends on the outcome of Dunstable's ballot vote on May 21 and Groton's ballot vote on May 22.