Wayland eNews

At Monday night’s School Committee meeting, Wayland Public Schools Superintendent Gary Burton recommended an operational budget of $28,953,032 with offsets (outside revenue) of $553,750 for a total requested Town Meeting appropriation of $28,399,282.

Last October, the Finance Committee asked all town departments to prepare a budget that would represent the funds needed to maintain level services. Their FY07 guideline for the school appropriation was $28,749,743. This figure included actual negotiated salary increases, estimated step and lane changes for the professional staff, and level funding for all non-personnel accounts other than utilities and fuel. The guideline represents a budget increase of 5% over the 2005-2006 budget.

The Superintendent’s recommended appropriation for 2006-07 of $28,399,282 comes in at 3.72% above the FY06 budget: $350,461 below the Finance Committee guideline. It allows Wayland to come close to maintaining level services throughout the five schools but does not include approximately $823,000 in requests from the building principals. This budget also consolidates elementary and middle school classes resulting in a reduction of 8.13 certified positions, introduces a new fee for the elementary instrumental music program, increases fees for Middle School and High School athletics, and requires that two varsity sports (swimming and skiing) be funded entirely by participants.

The School Committee will continue its budget discussions on January 17th and 23rd with the goal of finalizing the budget in February. Please check http://www.wayland.k12.ma.us/admin/schoolcom.html for schedule updates.

Submitted by the Wayland School Committee

Materials from the 1/9 Meeting:

Summary by Lisa Valone

Dr. Burton's budget was based on these principles:

Preserve the program appropriately balancing academics and extracurricular

identify cost savings and revenue through fees

increase class size up to policy limits and exceed if there are significant cost savings

consider school choice

Dr. Burton also noted that the total enrollment of the 3 elementary schools is anticipated to go down by 45 students in FY07. The Middle School is anticipated to increase by 11 students, the High School by 10 students.

Cuts to teaching staff in the elementary schools in part reflect this decrease in enrollment.

Total of recommended FY07 budget: $28,953,032 less offsets (revenues) of $553,750 for a total appropriation of $28,399,282. This is a 3.72% increase over this year's appropriation. This represents a decrease of $823,694 over a budget that provides essentially level services.

Positions/Programs Effected By Recommended Budget

High School: no more school sponsored swim and ski team. They will need to be organized and funded under a model like the hockey and crew teams. Also, 1.7 new positions that were requested by the principal will not be added.

Middle School: lose 1.5 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) teachers; 0.4 classical studies teacher; 0.4 Social Studies teacher; 0.5 science teacher; 0.2 world language teacher (the classical studies position is currently not filled)

Claypit: reductions in teachers are due to projections for decreased enrollment and also result in increased class sizes. They include: 2 grade level teachers; 1 kindergarten teacher and assistant; 0.1 PE teacher; 0.1 music teacher; 0.1 art teacher; 0.78 of a librarian (the current librarian is retiring in Oct and the position will not be filled). Librarians from the other 2 schools will share the responsibility.

Happy Hollow: reductions in teachers are due to projections for decreased enrollment and include: 1 kindergarten teacher and assistant; 0.15 PE teacher; 0.25 music teacher; 0.25 art teacher; 0.2 technology teacher

Loker: reductions in teachers are due to projections for decreased enrollment and include: 1 kindergarten teacher and assistant; 0.15 PE teacher; 0.25 music teacher; 0.15 art teacher; 0.2 technology teacher

system wide: eliminate stipend for position for a caller to call substitute teachers to fill in for absent teachers, and reduce business office clerical hours.

Offsets Proposed for Budget (offsets are fees collected for services)

METCO - program currently pays Wayland Schools $120,000, will increase to $150,000 (anticipated that METCO will cover this through increased state funding and/or fundraising)

Athletic Fees - HS fees will go up from $125 to $200 with a family cap of $850; MS fees will be $100. Anticipate total revenue going from $145,000 to $200,000

Fee based programs (BASE and Children's Way) will be required to pay the system more: increase from $35k to $50k

SPED circuit breaker revenue from state expected to increase from $30k to $50k

Parking fee at HS to be $180 (not sure what current fee is, but this school year is the first year they had one): total revenue will decrease. Expectations for this year were for $36k and this was not being met. With existing fee, anticipate $30k in revenue

Activities fees for MS and HS will be $50. total revenue will decrease due to reason above. $50k projected for this year, project $30k for next year.

Building Rental: this year had a one time $10k income for renting to a specific religious group on Sundays. Won't happen next year.

School lunch revolving fund: used $50k this year; won't happen next year

Gossels Fund - $25k transferred this year; won't happen next year.

Elementary instrumental music fees - $125/student- project $43k in revenue.

school lunch prices will increase between $0.60 and $0.85 per lunch to cover all direct and indirect costs.

Following the presentation, school committee members posed many questions, voiced concerns, requested more information and talked at length about the proposal and how it differed from the budgets presented to the finance committee. The discussion will continue over the next few meetings (see below for dates). On Thurs night, the committee will focus on the capital plan and hopes to get back some information requested of the school department.

Board of Selectmen Meeting 1/9 - presentation of the 2007 Ad Hoc Budget Advisory Committee
The 2007 Ad Hoc Budget Committee made a brief presentation to summarize it's findings. The committee was:

initiated last spring following the April Town Meeting

comprised of 3 voting members: Michael Tichnor, chair Board of Selectmen, Chris Riley, Chair Finance Committee, Jeff Dieffenbach, Chair School Committee and 4 town employees w/no vote- Fred Turkington, Town Admin, Gary Burton, School Superintendent, Michael DiPietro, town finance director, John Senchyshyn, asst Town Admin.

40 items or areas of cost savings or revenue generation were compiled and voted on to be adopted by the committee

the committees vote signifies that they recommend that the respective committees implement. The ad hoc committee has no authority to actually implement anything.

$806,750 in savings were identified that could be implemented in FY07. About $400,000 are one time events such as aggressively collecting overdue accounts receivable of approx $300,000).

other areas were identified that would not realize savings until FY08 and beyond.

expect that there will be quarterly meetings for Gary Burton and Fred Turkington to demonstrate progress on initiatives that needed more work.

the committee was disbanded as it achieved it's stated purpose (identifying cost savings and revenue generation for 2007)

To see a list of the 40 items, go to: http://www.wayland.ma.us/fy07ahbac/index.htm

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