Town Council hears 2008 School Budget presentation

By John McDaid | Tuesday, 29 April 2008

Superintendent Susan Lusi presents proposed budget with School Committee Finance chair Dick Carpender. Behind, Deputy Town Clerk Joanne Mower, Councilors Peter McIntyre, Huck Little.

Less than a dozen residents were at Town Hall tonight to hear the schools present their 2008-09 budget to the Town Council, and the questioning was largely around state funding, rather than the budget itself. As you may have read here, the proposed budget of $32, 611,083 comes in under the S3050 cap, with an actual increase of $1.6M, or a 3.47%. But some of the cuts to get there are deep, and councilors on both sides of the aisle (and Tailgunner Gleason, whatever the hell side she's ostensibly on) wondered if even more needed to be slashed.

With the budget anticipating level funding from the state, half-a-year's revenue from the wind turbine, and nothing allocated for Prudence Island, Councilor Jim Seveney expressed concerns that most of the Council seemed to share. "We're up in the area of $200K of financial risk," he observed. "I would ask that you think through some contingencies. In that list of numbers, something isn't going to go your way."

Unfortunately, there wasn't much left to cut. Even PCC, Inc. President Larry Fitzmorris, while praising the School Committee for containing costs by staff reduction noted, "Someday, we're going to run out of positions to reduce."

And there clearly isn't fat left elsewhere in this budget. PHS Principal Robert Littlefield, who addressed the Council (as did all the school principals) in a video produced by the high school students, noted that instructional supplies and texts were not even level funded in inflation-adjusted dollars, but were actually down by 4%, compared to 2001 levels. And what the Berkshire Associates report concluded was that to reach nationally accepted standards for library and instructional materials, it would take an additional $221K.

And yet, despite freezing teacher steps this year and capping Step 10s to a 3.1% increase (below the cost of living), and despite the fact that fully 18% of the entire allowable S3050 increase was eaten up by State-mandated contributions to pensions, despite all that, someone from the audience got up to attack the amount of spending on teachers.

Resident Sue Wrobleski got up to the podium and said, "I have a big problem with 80% of the budget being salary and benefits." Wrobleski questioned whether that money benefits the students since it "doesn't go to them at all." The Council, and the school administration tried to explain that education is a knowledge industry, and that textbooks don't teach children, teachers do. "The teacher is standing in front of the children," said Seveney. "It does go to the kids." And, noted Lusi, Portsmouth was in line with the national average for percentage of budget spent on salaries and benefits. (Not just benchmarked against our neighboring towns, Justin.)

Would I like to see our kids taught by the cheapest possible teachers? All Step 1, fresh out of grad school? With no help from more seasoned folks who've put in some years behind the desk? I have tremendous respect for teachers, and it is no slight to people just entering the profession to acknowledge that Portsmouth, with a good percentage of more senior professionals, is in a very strong position. Does that cost us more? Sure.

Would you want your brain surgery performed by a first-year resident? If you're going to court, do you want the junior associate or the partner at your table? In industries where intellectual capital is the competitive advantage — and education is clearly just such a place — you want experience, and those who appropriately value such skills are willing to pay for it. This stuff just makes me crazy. And you know what else does?

Larry Fitzmorris, in a very clever move, tried to get the Council to buy into the idea of reducing the school budget in anticipation of cuts to state aid. "We all know that the state is in trouble," he said. "The State is facing a $380M shortfall. That estimate is going to be changed in the next week or so. Many people believe that is going to get much worse. A 5% reduction in aid to education is going to mean somewhere in the vicinity of 280K, and it could get much worse. It is a serious risk in this budget estimate."

Now see what he'd trying to do here. The Schools have come in with a budget at cap; barring something really crazy, I can't imagine the Council not approving it. But if Larry could get them to reduce it based on fear, and then the State actually manages to pony up the full school aid number, the Council would be in the position of needing to revise the budget mid-year. Does that ring a bell for anyone? Yeah. Remember when Larry told the Council they couldn't do that? Nice try, Larry.

The meeting wrapped up about 9 pm. And I just have to report on something that happened right afterward. I'm a big believer that once is circumstance (scroll to the bottom), twice is coincidence (scroll to the bottom), but three times is enemy action. (Here you are, at the bottom.)

PCC, Inc. President Larry Fitzmorris and Town Councilor Karen Gleason talking after the school budget meeting.

That will make a nice montage, come election season.

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Stormie

Thu, 05/01/2008 - 4:01pm

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Town Council hears 2008 School Budget presentation

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