School Superintendent Provides Context for Budget
Schools, City Face Tough Budget for Next Year
– Allison Goldsberry
School Superintendent Roy Belson stood before a large crowd at the McGlynn School on Wednesday night and spoke for nearly two and a half hours about the financial challenges the schools will face for next year’s budget.
Bottom line- both the city and the schools stand to lose millions in state aid next year and will be forced to do more with less. The city was already forced to cut $1.4 million earlier in the year for fiscal year 2009, $500,000 of which was cut from the schools, and next year is expected to be even worse.
Superintendent Belson provided some context for the upcoming budget hearings that will take place for both the city and the schools in late June. Medford is still awaiting final numbers from the state and the Governor, House, and Senate each have different budgets and each one cuts Medford by a different amount. Last year, the city’s total local aid was $27,952,537, according to its cherry sheet, while this year its expected to receive somewhere between $21-24 million.
According to Superintendent Belson, Medford received more money in education aid from the state in 2001 than it does now. State aid used to cover 35.1% of the school budget in 2001, compared to 24.1% in 2009. It is expected to bottom out at 17.5% over the next couple of years.
Declining aid and rising costs have forced the district to make some tough choices. Belson said consolidation, staff reduction, salary deferral, retirements, energy conservation, interdistrict collaboration, new grants, reduction of supplies, and partnerships are all being considered to help contain costs and raise some additional revenue.
Going foward, Supertintendent Belson urged parents to let him know what programs and services are priorities, to engage in targeted fundraising to help keep exisiting programs in place, and to advocate for increased funding for public education at the state and local levels.
Video of Supertintendent Belson’s presentation and the question and answer session that followed is playing on Channel 15 at 7AM, 12PM, 5PM, and 9PM. His PowerPoint presentation is also available on the school website.
Mr. Belson should be applauded for providing this information and posting it on the web. Providing a link to the school web site allows those of us in the community that were not able to attend the ability to review the presentation; thanks InsideMedford.
I was disappointed to hear that 3 members of the school committee could not find the time to attend this important event.
I too applaud Supt Belson’s open communication policy, but I am not impressed by his continued bashing of charter schools.
Charters are not budget busters; charters are entitled to district per-student allocation for children who matriculate to charters. This is often mischaracterized as “stealing” from public school districts. What is often neglected in the analysis is that charters take the children with them.