With a new year, comes a new budget season.
Superintendent Jeff Szymaniak, who attended a Nov. 12 Whitman Select Board meeting in which budget forecasts were reviewed – and the school budget came up – urged residents and the School Committee member to view it on the W-H Cable Access YouTube channel because it was a valuable budget discussion.
“I know we’re talking budget and nobody ever wants to talk budget and it’s always not great,” he said during the Wednesday, Dec. 11 meeting. “The financial forecast from the state, from the towns are not ever outstanding, like, ‘Hey, whatever you want, you’re going to get.’”
Szymaniak reported to his committee that Kain wants Whitman to work collaboratively with the school district.
“It was positive,” Szymaniak said of the Whitman Select Board’s overview presentation. “I’m glad that I went and heard some things, and I’’m cautiously optimistic that we can work together to make things happen.”
He added his pleasure that the Select Board took up the issue and that they voiced the fact that it is, in fact, the School Committee’s decision to set the assessment.
“He made a very clear statement that the assessment is set by the regional school district school committee, with the hopes that we collaborate together to see where the towns are at,” Szymaniak said. “Some of the ideas that he came up with were pushing against some other selectmen and some ideas out of the box, being up-front, saying that 44 percent of the town budget goes to the school district … and 44 percent of the growth would always go to the school district.”
Of the communities that do that, some go over, and they run a deficit, which they also have to work against. Szymaniak said he would challenge the School Committee to do better, because 44 percent is a little bit lower than most towns.
But, he noted, Select Board member Shawn Kain gave a presentation to the Whitman Select Board that night, clarifying some points that have been “out and about,” according to Szymaniak, and described the dialog in the Nov. 12 meeting as decent and that he will build on that as the School Committee compares where the district compares on the charts to other communities in the commitment of resources from the town – is it percentage-based, or is it a percentage increase of the budget every year as some communities do it.
“Not an assessment,” he stressed. “We’re not talking about assessment. A typical overall percentage of your budget, you’re only allowed to go up 3 percent, or 3.5 percent.”
He noted that some communities do that, going over and sometimes they go over and end up running a deficit.
“It’s something that I would talk to our committee about and do a little research about what the towns are actually contributing out of their budget to educate the students in their communities,” he said, and stressed to the School Committee that he would like t to work together with the towns.
“I’m glad it was voiced out loud to the public that it is [our] decision to set the assessment,” he said. “We’d, again, like to get all sides involved – Selectmen, finance committee and school committees – but, it is up to the School Committee to vote an assessment 45 days before Town Meeting, and that assessment would go on a Town Meeting warrant as an assessment for the community.”
Szymaniak also recalled that Kain talked about looking at other sources of revenue that haven’t been looked at before as supplementals, including the meals tax in Whitman, instead of moving it over from accounts such as free cash or OPEB [other post-employment benefits] liabilities.
“There was some discussion back and forth and I’m cautiously optimistic that we can have those discussions,” he said. “I don’t know if we’ll ever agree, eye-to-eye, because the Select Boards in each community really want to make sure that taxpayers in their communities are serviced. Our charge here, and my charge are to make sure that our students are taken care of.”
School Committee member Rosemary Connolly, who also watched the Nov. 12 Whitman Select Board’s meeting and budget presentation, said she, too, is cautiously optimistic. She was a member of the Finance Committee during the last budget cycle.
“Where we can meet both places – that’s where you usually start when you compromise,” she said. “Where do we agree?”
Connolly said Whitman has borrowed for its largest projects, through the schools. … Not having a real investment in OPEB makes a difference, having bad excess and deficiency, makes a difference and they negatively affect the taxpayer.
“We can talk about that,” both Szymaniak and School Committee Chair Beth Stafford agreed.
“That’s a place where we can land,” Connolly said. “Forty-four percent is way below the average, so rolling forward at a low, continually keeps us frozen, at a place where we can’t address E&D, we can’t address the flexibility in the classroom that some of the letters from parents are talking about.”
She stressed that the school’s mission is to educate students who can then go out into the world and be active citizens in an equitable way.
“The word I heard repeated by Mr. Kain a couple of times was ‘hold-harmless,’” member Dawn Byers said. “This committee has to have the opportunity to have the same conversations that are happening in our town halls. … It’s a difference in foundation aid. The difference that we got last year, the aid that we’re eligible going forward in the next year, and when that aid is reduced, our aid payment from the state is not reduced. We get the same amount of money.”
Sometimes changes in inflation factors, property values, income, wage-adjustment factor and enrollment – and the municipal growth factor – “we don’t talk about the MGF, but it is a major factor going forward,” she said.
“You’re not incorrect,” Szymaniak said.