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Schools

School Committee Discusses Budget Needs

It may take more than a 2-percent increase to fit the FY 2012 budget needs, Superintendent Antonucci said Thursday.

Leading a discussion on the Fiscal Year 2013 budget at Thursday night’s meeting of the Westwood School Committee, Superintendent John Antonucci said that it may take more than a 2-percent increase to fit the FY 2012 budget needs.

The town has expressed desire to cap the school’s operating budget at a 2 percent increase, he said, giving the schools about $660,000 to work with.

While he said that this can be done, Antonucci said he'd prefer to work with more because of the amount of needs before the district.

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“I am committed to presenting a needs based-budget, and the FY13 needs-based budget will most certainly exceed 2 percent guideline,” Antonucci explained.

In order to maintain level services, the community should expect a budget increase in the range of $1-1.75 million annually, Antonucci said. This woulud present a 3 to 5 percent increase that would fund contractual obligations, enrollment increases, Special Education mandates, transportation, utilities and inflation.

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However, the actual budget increase over the last five years has been 2.3 percent, he added. Over the last three years, due to a tricky fiscal climate, the district has seen a mere 1.25 percent increase on average.

Fortunately, Antonucci said, there have not been many service reductions due to negotiating responsible collective bargaining agreements, using federal stimulus funds to offset recent budgets, as well as a bit of good luck.

“In the past couple of years, the ball has bounced our way,” Antonucci said.

But the district has still been compromised, due in part to skyrocketing enrollment. There has been an increase of 100 students at since 2006, and in five years, it is projected that the high school will hold 1,040 kids, compared to 810 in 2006. As such, 2011-2012 will have 16.4 percent of sections with 25 to 30 students per class.

The situation is similar at , with an increase of 100 students since 2009. Peak enrollment will come a year from now and then level off, Antonucci said.

These numbers are very similar to five years ago, when 24 percent of classes had between 25 to 30 students.

Antonucci listed several funding requests that the Westwood School Committee should anticipate. This includes additional teachers and student services staff to address the increased enrollment and program needs, as well as funding for basic non-salary items such as textbooks and chairs.

Antonucci explained that it had been a very robust budget process this year, with administrators and department heads submitting individual budget requests. He said that currently they were in “heavy duty budget development mode.”

The School Committee will meet next on Jan. 19 at 7:30 p.m. at the high school.

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