Letter Coming To School Boards

[Henry]

Later this week, school boards across Vermont will get a letter from Administration Secretary Neale Lunderville asking them to keep their 2009-10 budgets to the same per-pupil spending amount as this year's budgets.

If you need more time to do that, the letter will say, then delay your school vote.

Sound drastic? Well, these are drastic times, the governor argues. The state budget is going through drastic cuts because there is a lot less money coming in to state coffers, and so school budgets have to live under the same conditions, he says.

[special ED]

well I guess I will be the first to respone ......IT`S ABOUT TIME  someone spoke up about their out of control spending

[Mummy]

Yup ... I is always good to hear others saying what I have been saying for years! 

Several thousand dollars were just recently spend on a phone system that will call every child's house to let them know school has been cancelled!  Can you believe that?  In this day and age of e-mail, cell phones & black berries!  How about the "repointing" on the school?  Do you know how much that cost?  And then $150,000.00 wasn't enough, they went over the estimated amount but I did not want to know the numbers.  Oh yeah, they spent $52,000.00 just to pave the parking lot!   

Now there are two of us in Fairfax who believes the spending at the school needs to stop and not by 10% and not at the expense of the children (ie: sports or field trips.) 

We are still out numbered but thanks for speaking up! 

[Henry]

There is a little rumor going around that the School Board has already approved the Full Time Kindergarten, without putting it to a vote by the residents of the town.  I doubt they would do that, especially in a year when we are trying to keep expenses down, but maybe somebody in the know can verify or squash this rumor.

[Scott Lang]

Here is some factual information about the school budget.  I am only posting it so that those who read this space - and thank you Henry for providing this opportunity for the community - will have the facts to make their decision.  The phone calling system, called Alert Now - is paid for with a federal grant which supports this kind of service.  It can be used to notify by grade level, staff only, by bus route, and it may be used to send reminders about parent conferences, and other important events at school.  The cost is $2.50/student and there are about 980 students - so the cost is about $2500.  As part of the service, emails, cellphones, etc are contacted.  It also saves manpower.  The repointing project was done because water was beginning to get into the walls.  We did not want to wait until there was mold or there were structural issues to deal with.  The project came in at or a little under budget of $150,000.  The parking lot was paved - actually it was dug up, a new bed (much needed) was put down followed by the paving.  As part of the budget process, the school leaders were guided by the school board wish that any increase be as small as we could make it, while still moving the school forward and being responsive to state and federal mandate.  The principals cut $500,000 before the budget even got to the board.  Then we went back and cut some more. It is a difficult time economically for our community, state and nation.  We all know that and want to be respectful of that.  Finally, the governor's plan has many challenges including but not limited to contracts that are in place, town and city charters across Vermont that specify when budgets must be presented and voted, and a state tax rate that still has not been solidly set even though by statute, the administration was supposed to notify communities by December 15 so that school boards would have accurate information in building their budgets.  Last word.  BFA enrollment is not declining. 

[Loctavious]

Thanks Scott.  I wonder, do you have any information regarding the base cost to operate the school ( salaries, energy needs, property expenses ) and if this cost has fluctuated at all from year to year?  i was wondering what specifically caused the cost-per-student amount to rise over the past few years?  is this normal and on average with other districts?  Is there any correlation b/w the stready rise in the cost of living each year?  If so, how would we keep the average per student spending down in this scenario?

All my questions are geared towards one assumption i've made and would like to know if it's totally off-based:   School spending mirrors the increases in the cost of living, livable wages, and growing student and community bodies.

[Mummy]

ONLY $2,500.00 for the phone system and ONLY $52,000 for the paving and now ONLY $70,000.00 for Full-time Kindergarten - doesn't look like any cut backs are being made at BFA-Fairfax. 

Don't forget about the HALF -A-MILLION dollars that was voted on last year to be placed into an account to be used on the building improvement WITHOUT voters approval!  Don't forget about this when the School Board asks the Voters of Fairfax to approve $XXX,XXX.XX for them to have on hand! 

[special ED]

does anybody know how much it costs to send an adult to uvm for 1 year?

[logical]

About $11K for in state residence and $27K for out of state residence.  And that's only tuition.  Doesn't include room & board, books, etc.

[Suzy]

Mummy,

I can see you're upset about the spending, but if you read Mr. Lang's posting again, the school did not spend money on the phone system, it was paid for with a federal grant.  So, the phone system can be one less thing to be upset about.  (I'm not trying to defend anyone, and since I don't live there, I'm not up on all the budget issues.  I just wanted to let you know in case you missed that part.)

The county I live in here in Wyoming has reduced its budget in all departments, and none of the county employees will be getting raises this year.  The library has reduced the Collection Development budget, and several open positions will not be getting filled.  Staff have been asked to come up with more budget reduction ideas in addition to the cuts that have already been made.  They took away all the water coolers from all of the county offices/buildings, and have reduced hours at some facilities.  I appreciate the fact that the county has vowed to keep people in their jobs, and I guess we should all be grateful to just have a job these days!   

Best of luck to all of you during these trying economic times! 

Suzy

[Scott Lang]

Henry, I didn't mean to ignore the Kindergarten question.  I think we posted at about the same time and my Tech savvy wasn't good enough to wait for yours.  The schoolboard held three meetings when the kindergarten question was on the agenda, and a few other meetings when it came up but was not on the agenda.  There was high interest - it really brought people out to the meetings.  Ultimately, the board decided to go with the full day model.  This isn't something by statute that they would ask the citizens to vote on because it is a curriculum and instruction issue.  The three principals gave up some other things in the budget process to support the idea.  It is based on good educational practice.  The board was aware of the challenge of the timing of this because there is a cost attached.  They discussed that angle.  We were able to reduce the net cost to approximately $40,000.  That is less than we would budget for a new teacher - and this increase is  one full time equivalent.  There is also another 1FTE addition to the budget.  That is in the high school to return the tech ed position we eliminated last year.  We all feel the uncertainty of taxes and programs this year.  Given the Governor proposals, it really doesn't look any better next year.  My piece in the Fairfax News for January explains the program parts of the budget, including Kindergarten.
Scott Lang, BFA High School Principal

[mirjo]

"This isn't something by statute that they would ask the citizens to vote on because it is a curriculum and instruction issue."

Unlike grades 1-12, kindergarten presents a unique set of circumstances because of the age group. I don't think people in general would question or have as many or any questions re: curriculum/instruction issues with a higher grade. The K level evokes emotions in people that goes beyond the dollar value of a teacher.

"We were able to reduce the net cost to approximately $40,000. "

Unfortunately, this updated information is not included in the kindergarten report on the BFA website. I will say that BFA is usually highly responsible when it comes to the budget. The complaints I see and hear are usually ones that are ill informed and based on assumption from a small bit of information and not on fact. Unfortunately, the ones who suffer most often from budget cuts are the students. It's always programs/classes/technology, etc that get cut. Small schools with limited programs can't afford many cuts before there is nothing to offer students.

The logic of the Governor's request for level spending is questionable considering the expenses that are out of everyone's control like fuel, electricity, heating costs and supplies. One thing that I haven't ever heard is a salary freeze. If it has happened,  it's not been mentioned.

[special ED]

here we go ,the children are going to suffer ,hold the children hostage,you cant put a price tag on a quality education,,blah blah blah cut the budget period everyone else is why should the school be any different?

[Loctavious]

Let's place blame where it's due then.  Douglas won re-election with ease, thus Vermonters support his basic perspectives and approaches.  HE IS fiscally responsible overall.  HOWEVER, recession is not a routine situation in reality.  It has been suggested that the " cut until it hurts, and then cut some more" approach IS NOT a viable approach to the situation.  the problem is that, without cuts, we have to incrue debt - considerable debt that would remain beyond DOuglas' term.  Debt that would need to be managed carefully throughout different administrations in Vt.
I suppose that could be a legitimate deterence from borrowing - especially when it would be difficult to borrow ALL that we need in the first place.

However, in a time of fiscal, and ecnomic crisis, soley cutting away services when people need them the most, as well as the jobs those services employ, CANNOT be the answer.   Asking every state institution, service and entity to " make tough cuts" to share in the solution is just an extension of that "cut-based" thinking.  I don't envy those in power as they are the ones who have to make the tough decisions and weigh everything out - it must be agonizing.  When all your solutions are ranked and option 1 isn't that much better than option 4 - you know it's a bad situation all around. 
ALL i can do, is try to be 'constructive and supportive' where i can. \

[logical]

"here we go ,the children are going to suffer ,hold the children hostage,you cant put a price tag on a quality education,,blah blah blah cut the budget period everyone else is why should the school be any different?"

Because if you start cutting back on our children's education now you will in the long run create more expenses.  Depending on the program(s) being cut you may in fact face children having to repeat grades in school and hence having an additional year of expenses for those children.  Yes, there are places to cut back that would in fact not affect their overall education - field trips, sport programs, music, art, etc. 

I am a supporter of full day kindergarten as has been noted in previous posts.  I think that the school board did a great job in weighing the pros & cons of this additional expense.  This is one of those programs that I believe builds a solid foundation for our children for the future.  Teach them the basics now so that they can succeed in the future.  Yes, everybody is facing hard times financially right now.   And we can and should look at ways of cutting back.  But not implementing full day kindergarten is not one of those ways.