Board Of Education Approves $500,000 Cut In Next Year's School Budget

The Board of Education Wednesday night approved cutting $500,000 in expenditures from the budget Superintendent of Schools Elliott Landon proposed for the 2010-2011 fiscal year.

Most of the cuts involved elimination of personnel, with the rest accomplished by reducing athletic equipment purchases and scaling back building maintenance, and restorative and preventative maintenance projects.

The cuts were required because, while preparing and approving the town's budget for next year during April and May, the Board of Finance and the Representative Town Meeting decided to cut $500,000 from the amount of money Landon requested to run the schools next year.

In a memorandum to the board describing the rationale for his suggested reductions, Landon said they, "represent the elimination of positions where there is excess capacity … making consolidation both feasible and practical."

Meeting in Staples High School, the board's 6-1 vote approving the reductions came after listening to pleas from music teachers, parents and a Staples student to continue employing Diane Clark, a secretary in the Curriculum Center who serves the music department.

In particular, the speakers argued that Clark is particularly important to the department because she maintains the central library of sheet music.

Sarah Gutterman, a member of the department's staff, said, "In the role of music secretary, Diane Clark is like the glue holding us together."

Besides eliminating Clark's position, the plan calls for eliminating:

• a human resources manager in the central office
• a fulltime paraprofessional in Staple's library-media center
• a paraprofessional whose time is split between Staple's Career Center and its science department
• a teacher in the reserve teacher allotment

Eliminating these positions amounted to $327,000 in savings.

The rest of the $500,000 reduction was at arrived by a $25,347 cut in spending on athletic equipment, and cutting more than $182,000 from contracted building maintenance, building projects and restorative maintenance.

In his memo, Landon emphasized that at least 60 percent of the reductions are "sustainable," meaning they are permanent and therefore, will provide "continuous long-term budget savings."

He said the reductions fulfill the interests of the Board of Finance and the RTM to "do business differently" for the long-term.

As originally submitted, Landon's budget called for total expenditures of almost $96.6 million in 2010-2011, which would have been a 2.13 percent increase over the current's year's budget.