The quick and dirty on our local school finance situation from Committee member Steve Stycos:
BUDGET PASSES
Over the strenuous objections of three members, the Cranston School Committee passed its budget for 2007-08. The committee, in a 4-3 vote, balanced its budget by removing about $1 million from projected health care expenditures.
With the million dollar transfer. the school budget projects its health care costs next year will be only $38,000 more than the current year, or a totally unrealistic increase of 2/10 of one percent. In the current year, the school department, which is self-insured, estimates it will spend $16.6 million on employee and retiree health care. Donna Tocco-Greenaway, Andrea Iannazzi and I opposed the transfer and the final budget as fiscally irresponsible. We called for an additional meeting to improve the budget, but were outvoted by the other four committee members. In addition to unrealistic health care cost projections, the budget eliminates 12.9 teachers, including 6 at Cranston High School East. Other personnel cuts include five custodians, 13 teacher assistants, 11 library secretaries and 7 other secretaries.
Despite the layoffs, my motions to save $185,000 by freezing administrative salaries were defeated. The committee did approve several cuts, reducing the budget gap by $336,000. These were the elimination of a yet to be named administrator ($118,000), carrying the 2005-6 surplus into 2007-8 ($54,681), the elimination of double counting of retiree health care costs ($63,110), the elimination of one elementary guidance counselor ($70,213) and the reduction of the estimated property tax insurance ($30,000). All the budget amendments were proposed by the three of us who opposed the budget and Paul Archetto. Other committee members made no proposals to alter the budget except to bring it technically into balance by removing $1 million from the health care account.
The budget now goes to the mayor, who must make a bottom line recommendation by April 1. The city council then sets a final school budget by May 15. The council and the mayor have no power to alter individual school budget line items, only the total revenue from the city. Under a new state law, the city is limited to increasing the school budget by a maximum of 5.25 percent. The passed budget optimistically projects the school department will receive that maximum from the city.
If the council approves a total school budget that is different from the school committee’s budget, the committee must meet in June to reconcile the numbers. This is when key decisions will be made about laying off high school teachers and library secretaries.
My biggest disappointment was the decision to end the budget debate without addressing class size. I had hoped to realistically balance the budget and then reverse some of the proposed teacher cuts through a variety of amendments.
Thank you to all those who attended the budget hearings. You had a major impact.
I didn’t attend — I work evenings. My efforts on this situation are concentrated online.
I think this is what’s called SNAFU — situation normal all fouled up. We are going to underfund the health care account, run a huge deficit, and then beg the Mayor to bail us out? This is exactly what happened in 2003 and 2004, leading to much animosity between the school department and city hall.
Like I said, situation normal. All fouled up.
Well, it worked before so people are banking on it working again. I just hope this time we can transfer the money to the school department without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers. This what is really nuts. Most communities do not need a pack of lawyers to resolve the budget between their school departments and city hall.
But enough editorializing. If you would like to hear from Mr. Stycos about eliminating the middle school foreign language program, you can go here.
Please feel free to leave your comments on this issue by clicking on “Comments” below. Consider your input to be part of the public discourse on the issue. I will do my best to help valid messages be conveyed to Mr. Stycos and others on the school committee.
Kmareka.com 
The layoffs are a good scare tactic. Unfortunately, Traf and his ilk refuse to take ultimate responsibility for the current (and previous and future) budget problems. They spend too much on personnel contracts without understanding their fiscal impact. I’d like to buy a plasma TV, and I could if I wanted to, but there would be a big hole in next month’s budget, so the plasma TV stays on my wish list. I’ve studied rocket science, and this ain’t it.
A dozen positions lost, standing on the back of the positions lost last year, are a real concern to me. If something happens once, it’s a random thing. If it happens twice, it’s coincidence. If it happens three times, it’s a pattern. The pattern is to overspend, avoid developing efficiencies and cry for more money. If our elected officials were truly in it “for the kids� they would scrap the way things are done now and build a new system from the ground up. We need a better funding mechanism, we need to look at K-8 grouping and we need school choice. My pipe dream is to see school district consolidation across the state.
Do you want to see what a real school system looks like? Mosey on over to http://www.friscoisd.org/ and http://www.fortbend.k12.tx.us/ – how can these districts grow rapidly, place more high schools in the top 1000 than all of RI and have a surplus at the end of the year? Frisco is building 3 new elementary schools and a middle school in 2007 with a tax increase of zero! We can’t even make our operating budget without tapping into reserves or raising taxes. Why?
I’m generally an optimistic guy, but I see things behind the scenes here in Cranston that truly scare the hell out of me.