Published March 28, 2019

By JILLIAN STRING

NORTH READING — A preliminary budget that is 4.3 percent higher for Fiscal Year 2020 (FY20) than the budget approved by Town Meeting for FY19 was presented by Director of Finance and Operations Michael Connelly to the School Committee March 18.

“We’ve tried to take a look at what we need to do to meet our obligations, as well as to move the district forward,” Connelly said.

The recommended budget, totaling $32,083,320, includes an increase in fixed costs, such as insurance premiums, transportation, utilities, out-of-district tuition, and negotiated salary increases, as well as necessary increases in instructional expenses and maintenance costs.

The salary increases include the addition of 5.5 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions across the district: 1.0 FTE kindergarten teacher, 1.0 FTE kindergarten paraprofessional, 0.5 FTE foreign language/STEM teacher (middle school), 1.0 FTE technology/STEM teacher (high school), 1.0 FTE floater custodian (district), and 1.0 FTE facilities engineer (district).

“It’s been a long-standing goal to improve and expand the foreign language program at the Middle School, as well as continue to provide additional STEM curriculum programs at this level. This small modest increase would allow us to start to achieve that,” said Connelly. “The academic teacher at the high school level would help us to expand on our technology/STEM curricular areas.”

Due to projected enrollment numbers for the 2019-2020 school year, the 1.0 FTE kindergarten teacher and paraprofessional will be necessary to keep class sizes at the appropriate levels.

In addition to meeting square footage cleaning areas and maintaining upgraded facilities, Connelly stated that the floater custodian and facilities engineer will save the district money on overtime charges and contracted services.

“The floater custodian is one hundred percent needed,” School Committee member Mel Webster said. “We’re not even close to the state average in terms of square footage per custodial staff. We’re way higher than we should be, and eventually the buildings will suffer if we don’t add that custodian position.”

State aid flat

Connelly highlighted several challenges in creating the FY20 budget, such as flat state aid and constrained local revenue.

“The reality is that our fixed costs, in most cases, really do grow at a much faster rate on an annual basis than values of our annual revenue, so that presents a structural challenge each year when trying to fund a school or municipal budget,” Connelly explained.

Two comparison budgets included

In addition to the recommended budget, the proposed document also contained a level services budget and a full requested budget.

The level services budget would account for minimal increases in fixed costs and instructional expenses. This budget totaled $31,889,349, and represents an increase of 3.7 percent over the FY19 budget.

The full requested budget includes fixed costs, instructional expenses, plus additional staff, totaling $32,482,290 and representing a 5.6 percent increase over the FY19 budget.

In addition to the 5.5 FTE positions listed in the recommended budget, staff requests in the full budget include a 1.0 FTE Elementary Teaching and Learning Coordinator, 2.0 FTE School Adjustment Counselors/Psychologists (elementary), 0.4 FTE reading specialist (elementary), 0.5 FTE digital learning paraprofessional (Batchelder), 1.0 FTE assistant network administrator (district), and 1.0 FTE maintenance mechanic (district).

The district is entering year four of its five-year strategic plan, known as North Reading Public Schools (NRPS) 2021, which focuses on three major strategy areas: Teaching and Learning, Technology Integration, and Student Services.

The full requested budget would take significant steps toward achieving the goals set forth in NRPS 2021 while the recommended budget would make forward progress toward those goals, whereas the level services budget would not be in keeping with the strategic plan.

Upcoming workshop, public hearing

School Committee members commended Connelly for his efforts in preparing the preliminary budget, and reserved their comments for the upcoming budget workshop on Wednesday, April 3. This workshop will be held at 3:30 p.m. in the Superintendent’s Conference Room. Subsequently, the public hearing on the FY20 budget will be held on Monday, April 8 at 6:30 p.m. in the Distance Learning Lab at NRHS.

The complete FY20 preliminary budget document can be found on the North Reading Public Schools website: (www.north-reading.k12.ma.us/district/news/fy-20-preliminary-school-budget-document).