Georgia and FWSU boards finalize budgets

By JACQUELINE CAIN | Staff Writer
jackie@miltonindependent.com

The Georgia School Board and the Franklin West Supervisory Union board of directors finalized the fiscal year 2013 budgets last week that voters will consider on Town Meeting Day.

The $1,208,150 budget for FWSU, the supervisory union that serves GEMS, Fletcher Elementary School and Bellows Free Academy – Fairfax, reflects an overall 1.05 percent increase from FY12. The supervisory union will receive $418,044 from GEMS, nearly 2 percent more than last year.

“We have less grant funding available to offset costs, so we’re assessing a little more to the schools to make up for that,” FWSU business manager Chris Sumner said.

The budget was approved without much discussion by a quorum of FWSU board members on Thursday, Jan. 5. It is available for review on the FWSU website, www.fwsu.schoolfusion.us.

The GEMS FY13 budget increased by 3.08 percent due to a larger high school-bound population; GEMS, which has school choice, will pay tuition for 88 eighth graders when they start ninth grade in August, according to FWSU enrollment figures.

“Where we ended up in our budget is pretty much equal to that one factor,” Sumner said.

Last year, GEMS graduated 74 eighth-graders. The incoming eighth-grade class is 54 students.

In November, Gov. Peter Shumlin requested school boards keep budgets level this coming fiscal year to maintain a level tax rate. Even with the cuts administrators proposed at the GEMS School Board’s January 3 meeting, this request wasn’t heeded.

“In order to achieve it, we would have had to make dramatic cuts to the Georgia school program,” Sumner said. “It would have been at the expense of [GEMS students] that the other kids could go onto high school.”

At its regular December meeting, the School Board charged administrators to develop a budget showing a 3 percent increase from FY12 to reflect the graduating students this June but otherwise keep it as level as possible.

Sumner, Superintendent Ned Kirsch and the two GEMS principals, Steve Emery and Frank Calano, initially proposed an $11,952,766 budget – a 2.86 percent increase from FY12 – that included cutting two core and one compensatory teacher in the middle school and reducing hours from a .4 full-time equivalent position on the Enrichment team.

The proposed staffing cuts triggered much discussion during the regular meeting among the nearly 25 community members who attended.

Middle School Enrichment teacher Nancy Mildrum prepared a testimony that she read aloud during public comment.

“I speak tonight as an employee of the school and as a taxpayer here in Georgia.  I respectfully and strongly disagree with the decision made by our administration to cut Nancy Volatile-Wood’s hours as part of the Enrichment team in our school,” the letter began.

Administrators did not name Volatile-Wood in the budget but later confirmed her position was the one in question; Mildrum made the human connection to the proposed $25,000 reduction achieved by cutting Volatile-Wood’s hours.

In her testimony, Mildrum said the three staff that make up GEMS’ Enrichment Program work as a team and that cutting Volatile-Wood’s position would diminish the program’s services.

Enrichment offers myriad programs to all GEMS students; the team serves at least 90 percent of the GEMS population each year, Mildrum said. In a follow-up meeting, she explained the three main tiers of the program: Gifted/Talented, Gifted/Talented with Learning Differences and Schoolwide Enrichment.

The latter category reaches the most students and includes programs like the artistic residencies by Sara Frechette of PuppetKabob, after-school chess classes and drama productions for fifth- and sixth-graders, she said.

“The three of us have different strengths,” Mildrum said, referring to her Enrichment colleagues Volatile-Wood and M.J. Mitiguy.

Volatile-Wood holds a bachelor’s of science in plant and soil science and also a certificate of horticulture; among other things, she advises Make A Difference on Earth, a service-learning group for environmental issues, Mildrum said. Volatile-Wood also leads the Lego DACTA Robotics program and is a musician and photographer.

“Without [her], we wouldn’t have anyone with those expertise. The benefits of children learning from someone with her level of ability would be a big loss,” she said.

Mildrum’s testimony sparked a lot of discussion during the meeting.

Bonin began by reflecting on a community forum in 2009, at which more than 100 Georgians joined a subgroup of School Board members and a representative from the Vermont School Board Association to formulate the direction and priorities of the school.

“Enrichment is essential in Georgia when you hit Essex and BFA [- St. Albans],” she said, noting two of the major high schools that receive Georgia students. “We should be able to articulate to taxpayers: Yes, you’re seeing a bump in your taxes, but we’re educating 30 more students at a high school level.”

Board Chairman Doug Bergstrom reminded the members that the proposed $25,000 cut would help meet this year’s desired 3 percent increase, which is only a one-year necessity based on the large eighth-grade class.

Asked the cost to fully fund Enrichment, Sumner didn’t have a definitive figure but said the increase on the property tax rate would be less than 1 cent.

By Monday, Sumner calculated the figure: The current estimated tax rate is 1.1633, compared with FY12’s 1.1617. Though the FY13 budget is larger, there is relatively no increase in Georgia’s school property tax due to statewide tax factors, Sumner explained.

There was general discussion among community members that as Georgia was among the “good dubies” last year – FWSU, which includes Georgia, Fletcher and Fairfax, as well as the Milton Town School District were among the 15 districts that met the legislature’s Challenges for Change, an initiative to trim spending – the board should absorb the cost of its population this year, even if it meant not appeasing the governor.

Bonin moved to accept the proposed budget with the $25,000 for Enrichment added back in. The board accepted the budget at $11,977,766, a 3.08 percent increase from FY12.

In a follow-up interview, Bonin said the 2009 forum showed her Georgia values Enrichment.

“It’s an added value. But like all programs, every year we look at it very critically … We challenge teachers and administrators to present to the School Board everything that is pertinent to our school,” she said. “That’s why we have five people on board: I expressed my opinion, but if other people didn’t agree, it wouldn’t have passed.”

The staff cuts to the middle school remain in the approved budget. Bergstrom said those positions have been slated for cuts for three or four years as the district’s enrollment decreases.

As is, the eighth grade class will drop by more than 30 students next year, according to numbers from GEMS. This year’s sixth grade has 70 students, but fifth, fourth and third graders have 59, 60 and 51 students respectively. Second grade is slightly larger with 67 students, but first grade and kindergarten have 63 and 58 respectively.

“We used to be around 70, 80; now we’re at 60 students per group pretty much all the way down,” Middle School Principal Frank Calano explained at the meeting.

Middle school classrooms will have about 19 to 21 students after the cuts, he said. In kindergarten through fourth grade, classes will range from 14 and 20 students, Emery said.

The budget also includes two new positions: A full-time literacy leadership position for grades 3-8 and a .6 FTE science coordinator. The literacy position will be half-funded locally and half by a federal grant, and the science position will be fully funded with federal monies, Sumner said.

Bonin said it was nice to have community members speak at the January 3 meeting.

“That’s the democratic process. People get very passionate,” she said. “That’s why [we had] this discussion.”

A typical School Board meeting, when the budget is not on the agenda, draws a public crowd of fewer than five people, she said.

“That’s hard to get everyone’s opinion,” Bonin said. “We want people to be proactive, not reactive.”

The next School Board meeting is Tuesday, Feb. 7. On March 5, the night before Town Meeting Day, the board will hold a budget information meeting (time TBA), and there will be more opportunity for discussion.

Meetings can also be viewed online at Lake Champlain Access Television’s website, lcatv.org. The supervisory union also posts its minutes at www.fwsu.schoolfusion.us.