Published in the April 21, 2017 edition.
By MARK SARDELLA
WAKEFIELD — As part of our coverage of the April 25 Town Election, the Daily Item posed a set of questions to the candidates running for the Board of Selectmen and the School Committee. We have been publishing their responses all this week.
In today’s final installment, we addressed a question to the five candidates running for School Committee: Christopher Callanan, Ashley Chase, Anne Fortier, Evan Kenney and Greg Powers.
We asked the candidates to weigh in on the following question:
A few years ago, the town established a special education stabilization fund to handle unanticipated special education costs. Are there any other ways that you would propose to deal with the cost of unfunded state or federal mandates?
School Committee candidate Greg Powers suggested a multi-pronged approach to unfunded mandates.
“I would work with my peers on the school committee to reach out to our elected state and federal representatives to lobby for additional funds that the government is obligated to provide,” Powers said. “I would work with my peers, district administration and academic leaders to review student placement in mandated programs. There may be opportunity to place additional students into mainstream programs. This would lower the special education population and decrease expenses.
“I would work with my peers and district administration to assure our budget is fiscally responsible and would encourage administration to continue to think outside the box for process improvements and additional revenue opportunities. The school administration has done an outstanding job identifying and securing revenue from grants to supplement the budget.
“My goal would to be to add to the stabilization fund whenever the schools would be financially able. The fund is a last resort and I would be opposed to drawing from it unless absolutely necessary.
“Mandated programs represent a large portion of the school budget and are mainly supported by local tax dollars. I would like to see a meeting of the minds: representatives from the School Committee, Administration and Selectman’s office to come together to discuss these programs. FINCOM has a school liaison that works with the administration. I would like to see this at some level with the Selectman. We all have the same goals,” Powers added, “to provide a quality education to all our children and meet our obligations.”
Evan Kenney believes that the state should pay for any programs that they mandate.
“The state should pick up the tab for any unfunded mandates they place on our schools,” Kenney said. “It’s unfair to keep making Wakefield property taxpayers cover the cost of the Commonwealth’s mandated bureaucracy.”
Anne Fortier stressed keeping the children in mind when dealing with unfunded mandates.
“Behind many unfunded mandates are children with needs,” Fortier said. “It is important to keep these students as the priority when managing difficult fiscal management decisions.
“Our current stabilization fund for special education services is an important and critical addition to the budget process because these services are a significant portion of the school budget. One unanticipated item can unintentionally impact the overall budget. I propose that Wakefield continue to collaborate with local districts to look for ways to pool our resources so that we can provide services to each of our children in cost effective ways. For example, we could look to professional development opportunities across district lines that may assist with the required SEI endorsement.
“I also suggest that we could look to streamline the process for the reporting requirements of these mandates. Some of the costs may not be entirely budgetary. Instead, there are costs associated with the time each teacher must take from their classroom preparation to devote to reporting, documenting, etc.,” Fortier said. “Ways to lessen the burden on our teachers must be considered as well.”
Ashley Chase said that in addition to the SPED Stabilization Fund, the town could look toward grants and regionalization to mitigate the cost of unfunded mandates.
“The Special Education Stabilization fund is a responsible way to plan for unanticipated costs,” Chase said. “Many education costs are predictable year after year, however some costs are not. It is important that we have and maintain a “rainy day fund” for those costs that may fluctuate greatly, such as Special Education spending and infrastructure costs. The Stabilization fund also allows the School District to respond to state and federal mandates without having to turn to the taxpayers year after year. In addition, the Town should attempt to research and identify potential grants that we can take advantage of.
“Finally, there may be ways that we can mitigate the cost of future mandates and requirements by sharing the cost burden with neighboring towns. For instance, we may be able to share the cost of a required position or equipment to limit the costs to Wakefield alone,” Chase added. “Through additional brainstorming and collaboration with other members of the School Committee and School Department, I am sure that we can work to reduce to burden of these requirements to the Town.”
Incumbent School Committee member Christopher Callanan cited Wakefield’s “POST Academy” as an example of a successful way to deal with unfunded mandates.
“The most effective way to have the least impact from new unfunded mandates is to develop programs within the Wakefield Public Schools and not have them increase the need for sending our students to private outside programs,” Callanan said.
“A good example of how this can work well is the new Purposeful Opportunities for Successful Transitions (POST) program. This program was designed to help some of our students in SPED programs that have received their high school certificate of completion, but for whom we have the obligation to continue their education until age 22, receive the experience they need right here in Wakefield. This allows them to remain in their own community in a space that easily accesses public transportation to their places of employment and they remain with their peers who have become friends,” Callanan said. “This creates a ‘win-win’ since the students stay local in familiar surroundings and the dollars we spend are going directly to our students and not to an outside for-profit company at a much higher rate.”
