Changes to the Budgets at BOF 4/28/09
At last night’s Board of Finance meeting the Board really stepped up. The meeting began with Glenn Converse being a no show, and so the Board seated alternate Tim Young to fill the open seat.
After taking care of past meeting minutes, the Tax Collector's “uncollectible” list, and a very brief discussion of comments from last week’s Public Hearing, the Board turned to the main event – the recommendation of the final budget.
Elizabeth Murphy raised serious concerns that the Board’s decision at the previous meeting, to take the entire revenue shortfall from the unreserved fund, would seriously jeopardize next year’s budget as the status of the stimulus funds and revenues are unknown but economic conditions are not likely to significantly improve, which could mean having to dip further into the unreserved fund, pushing it below the desired 10% of spending level, or having to face serious tax increases. She proposed taking $250k from the unreserved fund and the balance (~$208k) in budget cuts to be split 25/75% BOS/BOE.
A motion was then made to reconsider last week’s decision. George McCoy stated that he stood by last weeks decision, and, basically, that we’ll worry about next year next year – not exactly forward looking financial planning. Ron Cabana went along with George. Fortunately the rest of the Board didn’t and the motion passed.
After detailing out Ms. Murphy’s proposal, Dave Hosmer pointed out that any reduction in BOE spending would be offset in part by the recently announced $33,263 reduction in Woodstock Academy tuition. Glenn Converse, having arrived and now seated in the audience, chimed in with the comment that any further cuts would be disingenuous since the BOS and BOE had met the zero increase originally asked for. Mr. Hosmer quickly pointed out to him that both boards had been told that a zero increase was a “best case” scenario and Ms. Murphy added that at the time they didn’t know about the $458k revenue shortfall.
Mr. Hosmer then went on to offer his original proposal to split the remainder of the revenue shortfall (about $241k) 50/50 – which was left to deal with after the $217K from closing out the elementary school project – half from the unreserved fund and half in cuts, or reductions of $30,159 for the BOS and $90,476 for the BOE. After a brief discussion of possibly going to the taxpayers for the ~$120k, Ms. Murphy withdrew her proposal and the Board went ahead and approved Mr. Hosmer’s proposal 4-2.
Final budget: Town Government $5,548,054 and Education $15,396,610.
Of note, this final budget proposal covers a 1.99% increase in tuition at Woodstock Academy with a slight decline in per student spending for all High School students, and a 2.16% increase in per student spending for PK-8. On the government side, the waived salary increases are ~$46,000.
Dave Richardson
That's stepping up? Cutting $120,000 of a 20.9 million dollar budget. .57%
ZZ - keep in mind that just last week they declined to cut anything and planned to take all of the shortfall from the unreserved fund. Forcing a change over the previous weeks decision is stepping up. Plus I think if you check, this is the first time since at least 1982 that spending actually DECREASED from one year to the next...
Dave
2.16% increase in per pupil spending for pk-8? Can you explain?
cc,
Total Education Budget $15,396,610
Total High School $5,862,707 After $33,263 reduction in WA tuition
Pk-8 $9,533,903
Estimated Enrollment from BOE Budget 895
Cost per pk-8 student $10,652
Last year Cost per Pk-8 $10,428
Basically same calculation as above using last year's budget and 923 Pk-8 students (also from last year's budget).
$10,652/$10,428 = 1.0216 or an increase of 2.16%
Dave
Ya gotta love the double speak of the term "per pupil spending" which gives the illusion that spending on pupils will increase by 2.16%. Rather, more appropriately, the budget should reflect "per teacher spending" which is where the spending will go. One up for the teacher's union, one down for the pupils.
Tax,
Let's also not forget the bloated administration which we have calculated at somewhere in excess of $800 per student in the K-8...two down for the pupils.
Dave,
I'm only looking at your numbers provided above so I may be off track here and feel free to correct me if I am. But if the total education budget is $15 million (rounded down, of course) and the total High school portion is $5 million (rounded down again), then that leaves $10 million left to be spent on two schools' worth of students; meaning two other buildings to run and maintain in addition to teacher and transportation costs, etc. So does this mean we're averaging about $5 million per school with 3 schools to maintain...for a total of $15 million? I wonder how that compares with other districts running three schools? I understand, of course, that WA has other sending towns to help support it - not just Woodstock. But if our share is $5 million...does this hold and is it reasonable comparatively?
Newcomer,
I’m not sure exactly what conclusions you’re trying to draw or where you are trying to go with this data, but I’ll give it a try.
Yes, the ballpark is around $5M per school – $15M/3 schools. Trying to compare to “other” districts that run three schools could be difficult – Size of schools, capacity utilization, location (Greenwich v/s NE corner) etc. By the time you're done you have to make so many assumptions I’m not sure you actually have anything to work with but assumptions.
Here’s some data:
A couple of more data points:
Woodstock Academy, with tuition under $11,000 is quite a bargain for all sending towns – by the way, all sending towns pay the same. If we used Putnam as an example (I think around 400 students, so just a little less than Woodstock by itself would have) the cost per student would be something over $14,800 per student. I got this from the Pomfret budget as Pomfret does send a couple of kids there, otherwise it would be difficult to get a clean number. At that rate ($14,800) it would cost Woodstock roughly an additional $1.8 million dollars a year – forget about quality of education etc. NFA tuition is $10,755 and they have claimed in the past that they are 20% below the state average. If this is the case, and I’m just accepting it at this point, then the state average is ~$12,900 per student. At that rate ($12,900) it would cost Woodstock roughly an additional $923,000.
WPS has a student teacher ratio of 12.1:1 – 895/74. The state average for public schools is 14.88 (2006 data is the latest I have seen).
This is all just data and food for thought.
Dave
Dave,
Thanks for the reply and the info. Maybe I'm oversimplifying it all but when I looked at the overall figure of $15 million and saw that it broke down about evenly to $5 million for each school, it just got me to thinking that the spending seemed proportionate between the 3 schools. If either (or both) WES and WMS came in at $6 or $7 million while WA was much lower, I would wonder about the discrepancy. But with the overall spending being about the same at each school, I'm thinking that maybe the cost of education in general in the U.S. is just crazy. I agree with the need to keep taxes low. I'm just not convinced that there's a ton of room in our education budget to cut without directly affecting the quality of the education we provide. For now, I'll just continue to listen to all sides and keep an open mind.