Schools Project 5.86% Increase; Finance Committee Says 2.15%

*Image, courtesy of the Bedford School Department web site*

By Kim Siebert MacPhail

The preliminary budget for FY14, presented by Superintendent Jon Sills on November 27, showed a 5.86% increase over this year (FY13). However, last week, the Town’s Finance Committee determined its budgetguideline for all Town departments to be a 2.15% increase. For the schools, this represents $1.216M less than originally sought.

Sills has stated that the FY14 budget increases result from several key drivers: unexpected population growth at the high school, an increasingly complex student body with diverse needs, and state and federal mandates.

[To read the previous article about the School budget increase, visit: https://thebedfordcitizen.org/2012/12/12/preliminary-school-budget-shows-5-86-rise/ ]

“So where this puts us is a distance problem,” said School Committee Chair Anne Bickford. “The budget we’ve been considering—on which we have not yet made reductions—is a 5.86% increase. The dollar value of that increase is $1,922,352. The Finance Committee last week approved a guideline, which it does every year, with a recommended increase of 2.15%, for a total dollar value of $706,175.

“We wind up in this situation quite often, and it’s a dialogue. So we have to figure out what we’re going to do in this dialogue,” Bickford added.

Bickford asked Superintendent Sills and School Business Manager David Coelho to illustrate at the next School Committee meeting on January 15 what changes they would make, showing the changes in half-percentage point steps down to a 4.36% increase instead of 5.86%. Each half-percentage point represents about $100,000, according to Bickford’s calculations.

“If we were to begin the process—which we need to do—of figuring out where we’re going to come to a recommendation to Finance Committee, what are the things that are going to come off?” Bickford asked.“Give us your recommendations, based on changes—putting things together or things that we can put over until the next year—or, at least,[what the]consequences [are]. We’ll use that as a basis for how to talk about [the issue]at the next meeting. That’s not going to get us all the way down to the bottom, but I think we can consider whether we’re going to go to that next place—which is to identify huge areas of slashing and burning.”