AND THEY"RE OFF!!!

The school department is first out of the gate in the sweepstakes race for the FY09 override. The School Committee was presented with an override and debt exclusion menu amounting to nearly $4,000,000 to be forwarded to the Select Board. Only the Select Board may authorize an override or debt exclusion vote by the town. MGL here (NOTE the local authorizing authority referred to in the statute is the Select Board for our form of town government) The school department initiative and supporting literature can be found here and here(PDF) The first proposed override question is for $985,078 for "priority needs". Of the proposals made, this is one I could get behind with a few tweaks. If you have read my other posts, you know that I think the priorities should be teachers and curriculum. Most of this proposed request seems to be for classroom teachers. Bravo! Just take out the secretary and assistant principal positions from the Middle School request, saving $95,000. Put the two teaching positions considered but not requested back in for Middle School($90,000) and I'd be interested in supporting this request. Nearly 20 additional teachers if you include the additional two that I put into the Middle School. Some questions I like answered before giving my unqualified support are, Why 1.5 phys ed teachers? What are you doing for phys ed now and why does that require additional staff? Why is the School Resource Officer (SRO) in this request and does the Police Chief think that this is a priority for his department.
For the second override question proposal, we have $685,000 for textbooks and technology. Meets my criteria right, spend for teachers and curriculum. No, this needs to be a debt exclusion which is a one time, one year tax increase. Prudent administration would include some money in the school budget every year for these items so that they can be kept up to date. That didn't happen and now they want a override which is a permanent tax increase to fix it. One time, one year, and then get a plan for future spending into the normal school budget.
Third override proposal, $325,000 for school fee elimination. See my post "Where are our priorities" for my thoughts on fees.
Fourth and Fifth override proposals, Reopen Gidley $226,788 and Cushman $197,565 and reconfigure the school population among buildings (Additional override required!) Why wasn't this the plan last year before closing these buildings. And the costs are only $424K to open both but we had to close them because ????
When I see this kind of stuff, I understand why the town is so reluctant to pass an override. Things just don't seem to add up.
The last proposal is for a $1,525,000, debt exclusion. I oppose this because these items need to be sent to the town's Capital Improvement committee for review and prioritization. The town budget processes need to be observed and adhered to or we may be spending unwisely.
Overall, this whole override question process for the schools has been pushed out ahead of normal budgeting because they need to get the questions to the Town Clerk before an early February deadline for the April general election. We didn't fall into this fiscal crunch overnight and we are not going to get out by passing overrides as fast as we can. Let's set our priorities, get our fiscal house in order, go to the voters with a plan that addresses the long term needs of the town and does not involve serial override requests. What is needed is fundamental change in the spending structure that requires these overrides.