Schools

Public Schools "Change the Culture" of Doing Business to Balance Budget

The Middletown School Committee unanimously approved the final budget for the current school year Thursday night.

Following a "monumental" summer-long task to make up a shortfall of $651,083, the Middletown Public Schools District came up with a balanced budget plan Thursday night for the 2010-2011 year that spares cuts to direct education, extracurricular and sports programs, but already has school administrators looking ahead to the 2011-2012 budget with increasing concern.

"It's going to be very difficult," Superintendent Rosemarie K. Kraeger said of the next 2011-2012 school budget process when concluding her presentation on balancing the current year's balanced budget, for which board members voted unanimously to approve. "What's become apparent from this monumental exercise is that we have to change the culture of how we do business from here out in all the schools."

Due to state formula changes, Middletown school officials anticipate another $223,783 in cuts from state aid from 2011 to 2012, a 2.4-percent loss.

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The school district this academic school year faced down a $651,083 deficit after the Town Council approved $22.3 million in taxpayer-funded local appropriations short of the $22.9 million requested by the schools. Over the summer, school department officials narrowed the gulf through a scrupulous inspection of all system-wide line item expenses, primarily focusing on any area which would not eliminate education programs or classes and would keep student after-school enrichment programs such as sports teams and extracurricular activities intact. For a brief time in early August, discussions about cutting some sports teams quickly ended when teachers who also coach and lead extracurricular activities were backed by the teachers' union and voluntarily took 10-percent stipend concessions to save the district about $25,000 in exchange for saving those programs.

However, just as school officials worked to identify savings, burgeoning last-minute enrollment figures squeezed the budget further for the year, as full- and part-time teaching positions were added to meet the contractual minimum required student-teacher ratios, adding another $92,845 in expenses for the year.

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Additional revenue of $67,117 from the previous school year fund balance was tapped to make up some ground, although school officials said they did so reluctantly.

"The problem with using the fund balance is that you're spending money this year without the ability to sustain it next year from revenues, so typically it's discouraged. But sometimes it is, unfortunately, unavoidable and you have no choice," Business Manager Raquel Pellerin cautioned school board members during her budget presentation. She and Kraeger noted that further cuts will likely be needed for the 2011-2012 school year, for which the central office has already begun to develop a budget timeline to get ahead of that process.

This current school year, Kraeger and Pellerin also found savings by eliminating $75,000 in some district-wide positions previously left vacant by retirement or voluntary departures, including a central office technology position and another central office business position. In the schools, other cuts came by way of some paraprofessional positions reduced from full-time to part-time, and the elimination of funding for field trips, for which parents will be asked to fund this year on a case-by-case basis.

Other cuts this year came by way of state-level pension reform, where the contribution rate was reduced from 11.89-percent to 11.25-percent and picked up another $110,567; A total of $151,504 in cuts was negotiated with the unions from further concessions on health care and contractual savings; And another $165,884 was cut primarily from expenses related to legal services, unemployment and insurance.

Middletown public schools also cut costs by taking over the management of school bus monitors from the bus company, resulting in another $84,446 in savings.

But one of the most arduous and unusual tasks, said Kraeger, was plugging the remaining $89,410 hole by involving all custodians, teachers, coaches and administrators in every school and facility in that process.

"We were very aggressive with our supplies," said Kraeger, who later described how every supply closet, drawer and cabinet was inventoried, and how everyone on staff was asked to determine exactly what was truly necessary to education and to limit spending.

"The teachers who found they didn't need as much paper or pencils started to communicate with each other and share with those who needed those supplies, rather than ordering more in some cases," said Kraeger. "This is one of those areas where we talk about changing the culture of how we do things."

Business Manager Raquel Pellerin said the new uniform chart-of-accounts adopted by the school district this year in line with state reporting requirements also lent itself to this year's difficult budgeting exercise and is also, in part, responsible for "changing the culture of business in Middletown schools."

The new accounting system forces administrators and teachers to no longer spend to a budget, she emphasized, but instead spend to actual needs. She added, "For every expense, what we all have to look at and ask ourselves is, 'What does this support in your basic education curriculum or our overall strategic plan?' Maybe you don't need $10,000 in this one area and find that you can get by spending $1,000 while still accomplishing the same thing."

Essentially, the most recent budget process required building the budget from the group up, rather than work from last year's budget to find reductions--a philosophical but essential and practical budgeting difference.

"With the chart of accounts, we see where everything goes line-by-line...We can see it right there and ask those questions like, 'Do you really need that number of pencils or that many Post-It notes?'" Pellerin said. She added, "It comes down to that question of, 'Would you want to have $3,000 in Post-It notes this year, or a coach for the football team?'" said Pellerin.


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