BUDGET SEASON
MTSD to cut 12 in '13

By COURTNEY LAMDIN | Staff Writer
courtney@miltonindependent.com

The School Board approved its fiscal year 2013 budget Monday, Jan. 23 that could cut up to 12 faculty and staff.

The board voted unanimously to present a $24,938,358 budget to voters on Town Meeting Day. Of this, $23,286,993 is raised by taxes, a 2.88 percent increase from last year. The remainder, $1,651,365, is from grants.

Despite the governor asking school boards to level-fund budgets, Milton found a 0 percent increase was impossible without impacting whole programs. Further, if the board rolled over the fiscal year 2012 budget, the district faced a 6 percent increase, Superintendent John Barone said.

“That’s something that we really could not pass on to voters,” Board Chairman Doug Stout said. “There are some folks asking for 10 percent – Burlington comes to mind – God bless them. I think from our standpoint, we couldn’t do that.”

So that left cutting personnel, the largest part of the school budget. Of the total $761,185.50 in cuts, $609,376 is in staffing. That’s 80 percent.

Even Barone, who assembled the budget, seemed surprised when Business Manager Don Johnson tallied these figures during an interview with the Independent last week.

“When you see that, that’s kind of reality hitting you,” Barone said. “That’s depressing.”

Personnel cuts explained

John Barone isn’t looking forward to telling up to 12 staff they’ll lose their jobs. The cuts break down like this. The numbers in parentheses are the savings.

• 4 elementary school teachers. One position from Grades 2, 3, 4 and 5. ($217,545)
• 3 paraprofessionals, K- Grade 12 ($59,386)
• 1 middle school teacher ($67,832)
• 1 elective high school teacher, based on enrollment ($75,456)
• 1 core high school teacher, based on enrollment ($40,538)
• 1 unified arts teacher, pre-K –12 ($60,920)
• 1 consulting teacher/special educator, K-12 ($61,050)
  
  Other staff will see reduced hours:
  
• Reducing student services administrative assistant to .8 FTE ($9,000)
  
• Change 4 non-instructional positions to 6 hours a day ($17,649)

Originally, the middle school was slated to lose two teachers. That would have increased class sizes to 25, putting Milton right at the student count recommended by the Vermont Department of Education. The district tries to stay below these numbers, Barone said. By cutting one teacher, classes will be 23.5 students to one teacher.

However, with the elementary school cuts, Grades 2 and 3 will be above the standards with 22 and 23 students to one teacher, respectively. The recommendation is 20 to 1.

“The teacher may not be able to give as much individualized attention as we are able to this year,” Barone said. “I have complete faith in my staff that teachers will make it work.”

With seniority factored in, two of the four elementary teachers facing cuts currently teach kindergarten, Barone said. This means teachers will have to reshuffle after the cuts, and a Grade 4 teacher, for example, could potentially shift to teach kindergarten, he said; elementary school teacher licensures run K-6.

The high school and unified arts reductions are a little less certain. While they could amount to full positions, Barone said some of these might be determined by students’ enrollment in classes.

The actual cuts will likely be a percentage of a position – not actual people, Barone said. That’s to say, the 1 FTE cut could be shared among two or more actual teachers based on how many kids are in the class.

One controversial edit was to the non-instructional assistant positions. Just like last year, the district proposed reducing a number of these employees to five-hour days, eliminating their benefits.

But Barone discovered a grandfather clause in the contract that prevents certain employees from losing benefits, no matter how many hours their day is reduced. Of the six slated for reductions, four were on “Appendix C.”

“In the long run, it wasn’t worth it budgetarily to even try and go there,” Barone said.

To offset these cuts, which originally promised $57,866 in savings but amounted to just under $17,650, the district found unexpected savings in health insurance and out-placed student tuition. Those items netted a combined $64,590 savings.

Barone said some personnel might be saved through the district’s retirement incentive. Last year, the district offered a buyout to up to 15 employees who worked 20 or more years in the district. Nine took the option, so six spots remain this year.

Budget factors
According to Barone and Board Chairman Doug Stout, many of the cuts this year were based on declining enrollment – a trend among Vermont schools.

Figures provided by Johnson show Milton’s equalized pupils– a weighted count of students – dropping by an average 38 students over the last four years.

As with last year, Stout said, the district can’t maintain the same staffing with fewer students. And staffing, which accounts for near 80 percent of a school budget, is the logical place to hit.

“If you’re looking to make the size reductions that we were, which were in the $600,000-700,000 range, that’s pretty much the only way to do it,” Stout said.

Barone said the district office also took care to trim its own line items, including less funding for professional development, equipment, travel and textbooks. Those cuts amounted to just over $51,933.

Also contributing to budget-balancing this year was the cost for the upcoming middle school reconfiguration. The School Board voted in December to move grades 7 and 8 to the elementary school by next fall.

Originally slated to cost about $55,000, the price tag was slashed to about $39,700 when 15 SMART boards and computers were removed from the equation. With the staffing cuts freeing up classrooms, the district will have extra technology, Barone said.

Ballot items that aren’t

The district won’t ask voters to approve any additional ballot items for capital projects.

The board considered proposals for two projects at the high school but decided the plans were “too rich,” Stout said.

Board members agreed the high school cafeteria could use some work, but a proposed $2.82 million renovation was just too much.

Same with a $2.86 million locker room project: Though the locker rooms are in dire shape – some students refuse to use them – the lofty design cost way more than a renovation of the current space. The new design included an addition to the current building, moving the lockers to the first floor and converting the existing space to classrooms and storage.

All that sounds necessary, board members said, but then they looked ahead to fiscal year 2014 when the district loses $339,966 in federal jobs money that funds four positions in FY12 and 13.

The board will have to decide then whether to add three behavioral interventionists and an elementary school teacher into the general fund budget.

Add in the two capital projects, and the FY14 tax levy would increase 3 percent – just about amount the board cut from rolling over the FY12 budget, and that cost 12 FTEs.

“When people understand those kind of numbers, they realize it’s not workable,” Stout said.

“It’s very easy to go out and bond things,” he continued, but the board didn’t want that long-term debt to affect everyday operations of the school.

“The board shares that desire to be cautious,” Stout said.

The board asked district staff to re-consult with the architects to see if the numbers can be slimmed down. If so, it might present voters a ballot item in either the August primary or November presidential election, Barone said.

Board hopes for support
All parties realized this budget year was especially tough.

Board members Jim Lyons and Mary Knight agreed at the Jan. 23 meeting that more reductions would be negative ones.

“I fear that further cuts will have to reduce curriculum, and by that, I mean will take learning capabilities away from our students,” Lyons said, addressing the camera. “I do not want to go there, and I hope you don’t either.”

Stout said the board has tried to pass responsible budgets – it was one of 15 districts last year to commit to the legislature’s spending cut charge, Challenges for Change. Stout said Milton has averaged about a .65 percent increase over the last three years.

Knight urged voters to support the budget: “Your vote is your voice, and that’s the best way to make your voice heard,” she said.