JAY – Budget Committee member April Hartford said Monday she was concerned that an explanation about raising $2.1 million more than a state school funding formula allows puts school programs and staffing in a negative light.
Hartford made the comment during an informational meeting on a proposed combined $16 million school and municipal spending package for 2005-06. The meeting was for residents to comment on the budget before the articles are completed for a referendum April 25.
The state requires the School Committee to use certain wording in the warrant articles that would appear on the ballot, Superintendent Robert Wall said.
The committee is also required to put in an explanation under the article, explaining why voters are being asked to raise or appropriate certain funds.
The last three lines of the explanation are what the Jay School Committee considers factors in the request to spend an additional $3.4 million in local funds, which exceeds the state’s Essential Programs and Services funding model by $2.1 million, Wall said.
Those factors are greater costs for co-curricular activities than designated in Essential Programs and Services, higher than average salaries and benefits for staff, and optimum teacher/pupil ratio staffing levels.
Hartford said she thinks the explanations cast the school staff and programs in a negative light because they will cost more than what the formula will allow.
The state is allowing only $97 per student to support co-curricular activities.
Wall said the intent wasn’t to project the factors in a negative light.
A vast majority of school systems in the state – 214 systems out of 286 – are also spending more than what the new Essential Programs and Services formula recommends, he said.
Only 72 school systems raise less than what the state formula recommends, he said.
Wall also said projections show Jay schools receiving $1.1 million in state aid for the 2005-06 school year, the same amount they received this year.
It is going to take time to bring the school system in line with what the state spending recommendations, he said.
There are some savings in the proposed $10.5 million budget for 2005-06, which represents a decrease of $101,692, or 1 percent, from the current $10.6 million budget, he said. And the taxpayers would be asked to raise $9.1 million, which is $567,972 less than they raised last year, he said.
Hartford and Budget Committee member Tom Fortier both said they would like to see the explanation changed. Hartford said she would like Wall to add his comments on other schools facing similar issues with the new formula.
However, Budget Committee member Ellen Levesque said she thought the explanation was a true statement and didn’t need to be changed.
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