Minimally Funded School Budget Leaves Worcester with Few Options
Monday, June 09, 2014
Working with a minimally funded budget for the upcoming fiscal year, very little wiggle room is available to make changes. The budget proposed by the Worcester Public School District is not the best budget for the students of the district moving forward, but without additional funding, finding money for programs and other needs may be a challenge.
“I think that we progressed well through the first meeting,” said Dr. Marco Rodrigues, the Chief Academic Officer of the Worcester Public School District. “Unfortunately, the money just isn’t there to do everything that we want to do; we have to prioritize.”
The Worcester School Committee will continue to analyze and make recommendations to create a finalized budget for the 2015 fiscal year. The next meeting will be Thursday June 19.
Working With What’s Available
Unfortunately for the Worcester Public School District, the education budget has been minimally funded, meaning that the bare minimum was given to the school to work with.
Because there is so little money to go around, trying to allot money to things that are important – say for example, finding money so that 40-plus teachers don’t have to be cut – has become increasingly difficult.
“We would all like more money so that we don’t have to cut teachers,” said Tracy Novick, a member of the Worcester School Committee. “We are held captive by how the inflation formula works in this state. We have been funded at a minimum because of how the formula is calculated and because there isn’t a lot of community spending.”
“We have a great school system,” said Monfredo. “We really need to show priority to the issues that are important to us to make the budget the best it can be. We need to be passionate about what we are doing and really put a focus on what is best for the students.”
More Could Be Done
Even though the budget is funded at a minimum and there isn’t a lot of wiggle room to be had, school committee members Monfredo, Brian O’Connell, and Dianna Biancheria have all made it a point to say that there is more that could be done with the current budget to ensure that the student’s best interests are in mind.
At the first budget meeting, the one ticket item that received a considerable amount of debate was pulling the funding out of out-of-state recruitment efforts for new teachers and putting that $5,000 into the Worcester Future Teachers program.
“I was disappointed that we voted down putting money into the Worcester Future Teachers program,” said Biancheria. “I don’t think that we need any money in a recruitment program, especially an out-of-state program, when we are cutting teachers. I think it would be better to use that money to develop the talent that already is in Worcester.”
The first budget meeting was tame in comparison to years past, in part because of the lack of funding. While certainly disheartening, O’Connell believes that this current budget should in no way be the final. Rather than admitting defeat, more scrutiny is warranted so that every possible penny can be found.
“I don’t think the committee is being as aggressive in finding funding as it should be,” said O’Connell. “I would really hate to see the committee take a laid back approach to the budget because there is money to be found. Take for example the funding for administrative positions. There are currently 50-60 administrative positions; I don’t think that many are needed. I would be more than comfortable taking $1 million from the administrative portion of the budget to fund other areas that would more directly help students in the classroom.”
Related Slideshow: Worcester School Committee Reacts to School Budget
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