School Committee presents budget to Council.

On a 5-2 party-line vote, the Portsmouth Town Council last night rejected the budget proposed by the School Committee and moved to flat fund the schools, an effective cut of $1.2M. The move, proposed by Jeff Plumb (R) and seconded by Karen Gleason (I) was supported by Republicans Keith Hamilton, Huck Little, and Peter McIntyre, and opposed by Democrats Dennis Canario and Jim Seveney.

School Finance Director Mark Dunham walked the Council through the details of the requested budget, which is available on the PSD site. Supt. Sue Lusi described the budget request by the schools as "extremely lean," and at $36.6M, it represented an actual increase of only $896K, or 2.51%. "This budget is not without pain at all levels," said Lusi. "Not only are we closig a school, but we're reducing staff where we don't have a decline in enrollment."

Lusi also asked, rhetorically, if the budget represented what the schools really need. "The answer is no," she said. "Private donations continue to fund what should be operational costs, it does not fund to levels identified in the performance audit, IT has not added the personnel recommended by Berkshire, and textbooks and materials are level funded at best."

However, despite successfully delivering a budget with an increase of only 2.5%, reductions in state aid pushed the actual requested town appropriation to $1.2M. So although the school budget is technically within the S3050 tax cap, state aid cuts on the Town side would require a combined budget exceeding the cap, something which proved a sticking point for the majority on the Council.

"We're at the cap and I don't think we can go to the cap," said Plumb, arguing for a hard-line on the budget. "We can't afford $1.2 million."

Council President McIntyre made it clear that the Council was sending a message. "The union has to pay attention to what happens in this room," he said. "Everybody has to bite the bullet. We have a great education system, [but] maybe we need to look at how we're going to save some money."

The two Democrats on the Council argued against the motion, and the back-and-forth among Canario, Seveney, and Plumb became heated. "It's nice to think that we can't go over the cap," said Canario, "But there are contractual obligations that have to be met." Added Seveney, "There are children's expectations that have to be met. The elephant in the room is the education of our children."

"I'll be the voice of the taxpayer," said Plumb.

"Just to level fund and not to meet contractual obligations is absurd," said Canario. "There is no thought process behind the motion at hand."

"There has been a lot of thought of the taxpayers," said Plumb. "People are calling me telling me they're losing their home."

The Council asked Supt. Lusi to offer an opinion on the implications of flat funding.

"Please don't cry up there," snarked Councilor Karen Gleason. I'm going to remember that in November, Tailgunner.

Lusi calmly said that the assumptions in the budget were a salary freeze for teachers other than required step increases, and she reminded the Council that teachers had no cost of living increase last year. She added that even if you eliminated all step increases, and cut every athletic and extracurricular program, that would still only equal about half of the $1.2M number. "But we can absolutely look at it," she said.

Dunham noted that cutting the $350K building and technology warrants would actually cost money by moving necessary items back into the operational budget. And Town Finance Director Dave Faucher described the cost to the town for debt service at just $19K this year. "So we get rid of $700K [of buying power] to save $19K?" asked Seveney.

After additional heated discussion, the motion passed, 5-2, which will force the School Committee to come back to the Council for the second and third rounds of the budget process with an amended request. The next round of the budget process will be the "provisional" approval, and the last step is the final public hearing when the budget ordinance is enacted.

School Committee chair Dick Carpender expressed disappointment at the Council's action. "I'm certainly shocked," he said. "The budget we developed was a good, lean budget at 2.5%."

I asked Dave Faucher about the implications for the average taxpayer of funding the $1.2M request. His back-of-envelope estimate — which I promised to characterize as such — would be $120 a year, for the average taxpayer with at $350K house. I asked Councilor Plumb whether $120 a year was really going to drive Portsmouth residents out of their homes.

"Well, I'm not $120," said Plumb, arguing that for some in town, this really would be prohibitive. "It all adds up," he said. According to the Vision Appraisal site, a house owned by Jeff Plumb on Sandy Point Ave is valued at $657K. We could use round numbers and call that $20/month.

Editorial:
On August 19, 2006, 1,284 Portsmouth voters at the last tent meeting cut an arbitrary $1.1M from the school budget, throwing the district into deficit and forcing a Caruolo action which restored half the funds. Last night, the Republican majority on the Council did the Portsmouth Concerned Citizens one better, cutting an arbitrary $1.2M and flat funding the schools in an act of pure political theater.

There was no acknowledgement of the work the committee had done crafting the budget, no concrete recommendations for reduction, just a command to come back asking for less, even though it was established that even a complete salary freeze and eliminating all extracurriculars wouldn't close the gap.

If you're a parent, or someone who cares about education in our town, you should be outraged.

For the average taxpayer, we're talking ten bucks a month. That's a couple of trips to Dunkin' Donuts. Are we really saying that this is going to force people from their homes? If there are people on fixed incomes, let's deal with that through our existing tax exemptions, not use that as an excuse to gut the school budget.

We will have two more bites at this apple, in the provisional budget and the final hearing, and I strongly encourage all residents of Portsmouth to let the Council know where you stand on this. You can find their phone numbers here.

Resources:
School budget request on District web site