January 30, 2009
Bedford Journal
The Bedford school district deliberative session will be Tuesday, Feb. 3, at 7 p.m. at the Bedford High School Theatre.
At the session, registered voters will be given a presentation of the proposed operating budget and other warrant articles. Voters will be able to discuss each item on the warrant, and then either approve or amend it. The version of the warrant agreed upon at deliberative session will be voted on in the March 10 general election.
Here is a look at the warrant that will be presented at deliberative session:
The proposed school district operating budget for the 2009-10 fiscal year is $56,838,229, an increase of about $730,000, or 1.3 percent, over the current budget.
There are also three salary increase warrant articles, for school district staff, on the ballot. If all three of those are passed, another $1,192,300 would be raised to pay those increases, bringing the budget to $58,030,529.
Superintendent Tim Mayes has called the proposed budget a maintenance budget, meaning that it maintains current programming but doesn’t add anything new, with the exception of the new 12th grade and some special education programming.
However, the costs of adding a senior class to the high school will be offset by the decrease in tuition payments to Manchester, where only a handful of Bedford students will attend next year.
The administration had presented the school board with a proposed budget that was somewhat higher, but the board cut it down by $322,540.
The proposed budget is just $72,000 higher than the default budget, which would go into effect if voters rejected the proposed budget. The default budget is $56,766,400.
Board member Terry Wolf said earlier this month that the board “shaved (the budget) as closely as we could without cutting or bleeding.”
And the board’s cuts followed cuts already made by the superintendent, noted Chief Financial Officer Mark Conrad in a phone interview earlier this week.
“There were $278,000 in legitimate requests to the superintendent that he did not include in the budget he presented to the board. Then you look at reductions the school board made,” Conrad said.
“Some of those reductions also reduce the default budget,” Conrad said. “So I think the board looked very carefully at this budget with a sensitivity toward the current economic climate.”
Conrad said district staff was understanding about the cuts.
“We met with some of the directors and they understand the difficult circumstances we’re in,” Conrad said. “I think the administration did a good job of balancing the needs of the taxpayer and the needs of the system.”
Because the amount of state funding Bedford will get is not yet known, the local tax impact of the proposed budget and other warrant articles can’t be accurately calculated.
If the state fully funded the district according to the “adequate education” standards, the local tax increase would be about 67 cents for every thousand dollars of property valuation, according to Mayes. But if the state’s funding falls short – a possibility considering the state’s budget problems — the increase could be over 80 cents.
Other warrant articles:
Three warrant articles would give the staff raises next year. The negotiated salary increase for teachers, Article 2, proposes to raise $988,023 to fund raises for the teachers. According to Mayes and the school board, Bedford’s teachers are not highly paid compared to other districts’ teachers, and funding a salary increase is important for Bedford to retain good teachers.
The average raise would be 5.2 percent. That means, for example, that a teacher at the level of Bachelor Step 2, who makes $34,076, would make $36,362 with the raise, according to Conrad.
The tax impact of Article 2 would be 29 cents on every thousand dollars of property valuation.
Article 4 would raise $61,964 to pay for custodial and maintenance staff pay increases. This would give the maintenance staff an average hourly raise of 65 cents an hour. The tax impact would be 2 cents.
Article 6 proposes to raise $142,314 to fund pay increases for secretaries, clerks, teaching assistants and kitchen staff. The tax impact would be 4 cents.
Wolf said at a board meeting earlier this month that the salary increases are important.
“All of these groups work hard, and considering the budget we just passed, they’re probably going to have to work a little harder,” Wolf said.
The warrant also includes three articles authorizing the board to call special meetings to negotiate new salary agreements in the event that voters reject the salary increase articles. The new salary agreements would then be presented to the voters later in the year, said Mayes.
Another article, Article 9, authorizes the school board to accept gifts of property and funds on behalf of the district throughout the year, should any gifts be offered.
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Note: Considering that proponents of this high school promised a tax rate of no better than $1.21 per thousand over 20 years but in reality it has already caused most resident’s property tax to go up at least $2,000 I’d say these taxpayers had better get to these meetings and nix all new spending.
A $56M budget divided by the relatively small amount of students that exist in Bedford provides an good picture of the obscene amount of money that is spent on education. To see what Bedford is spending this money on, see this Letter to the Editor from a Bedford parent.