FY10 budget numbers finally settled

For the FY10 fiscal year, Franklin’s net loss of positions will be approximately 12. That should come as welcome news to the community, considering that in February, we faced a budget gap of nearly $3.5 million. At an average of $50,000, that gap represented approximately 70 positions. The gap we faced forced the school department to issue 60 layoff notices in April 2009, and many of the recipients of those letters have received recalls.

We reduced that budget deficit through reductions in expenditures (as shown in the column on the left in the table below). In addition, we received revenues from one-time federal and state resources, including stimulus funds, and school choice revenues (shown in the column on the right).

	FY10 Level Service Original Budget	53,807,773							FY09 Level Funded Budget		50,297,820
LESS									PLUS
Reduction in Expenditures		Amount							Sources of Revenue		Amount
Health Insurance Pemium		(192,000)							State Fiscal Stabilization Funding		219,523
Administrative, etc. Wage Freeze		(124,000)							Federal Stimulus Package		343,091
Additional Health Insurance changes		(200,000)							Circuit Breaker Extraordinary Relief Revenue		426,339
FEA Wage Deferral		(800,000)							School Choice		145,000
Degree Advancement		(150,000)
Attrition		(210,000)
Prepaid Tuition to out of district placements		(200,000)
Positions eliminated		(500,000)
Total Reduction in Expenditures		(2,376,000)							Total Increase in Revenue		1,133,953
Revised Level Service Budget		51,431,773							Increased Level Funded Budget		51,431,773

 

Some have suggested that we “found money” or were “crying wolf” during the budget discussions over the last several months. A careful examination of the data demonstrates otherwise.

Some of the confusion lies with the fact that because of contractual obligations, we had to notify 60 staff members of impending layoffs, even though we knew the number would be smaller.  Our budget gap was approximately $1,500,000 when the layoffs were announced in April.  That is the equivalent of about 30 positions that we expected to lose. We had the pay freeze from the teachers voted in June which saved us $800,000, we prepaid some special-education tuitions which saved us approximately $200,000, we had attrition funds available due to retirements, we had some available revolving account money, and some funds in the degree advancement category which allowed us to cover the gap. We were fortunate in this regard, because that helped us absorb some of the stimulus cuts announced in late June which interfered with our ability to bring everyone back.  

In general, we were able to get to this point through a series of cost savings and budget reductions.   It is great news that we are able to be in this position after perhaps one of the most difficult budget seasons in a long time. I appreciate the patience and perseverance from everyone on the School Committee, administration, and staff. This was truly a team effort and we should all be very proud of the hard work that got us to this point.

But all of this does not bring us back to level service on teaching positions. In fact, the actual layoffs for this year involved 12 positions, and 10 of those were teaching positions.  We started the year with 399 teachers.  Next year, we will have 389.  The positions that we will end up losing will be five physical education/health positions at Franklin High School, the five librarians spread throughout the district, one assistant principal at Franklin high, and the data analyst position (for a total of 12 positions).

In addition, you should consider the following:   we had 443 teachers as of October 1, 2007. The historical numbers going back five years show that we are on a dangerous trend for staffing of our schools.  The table below shows that we are down from a high of 466 teachers in 2006-07.    These staffing cuts have taken place at the same time we have seen increasing enrollments, resulting in larger class iszes.  That’s frankly not good for education, and again, dismisses the “crying wolf” theory.

 
 

School year	# of classroom teachers
2003-04	408
2004-05	459
2005-06	449
2006-07	466
2007-08	443
2008-09	399

 

You can get some additional history on teaching positions in Franklin by looking at this blog post from last year which can be found at: http://franklinschoolcommittee.wordpress.com/2008/05/17/information-on-teachers-in-franklin/.