Town scrambles to fix school budget

Franklin's School Department spending has routinely needed mid course corrections, but this year is worse than usual, Superintendent Wayne Ogden told Town Council members during a recent meeting.

An approximately $1.4 million shortfall, which prompted a freeze on discretionary spending, did not cause alarm at first when it was discovered in early fall.

Spending had been frozen in several previous years until unspent funds were identified and applied to areas that were overspent, Ogden and School Committee chairman Jeffrey Roy explained.

"There had been a budget freeze in each of the last five years," Roy said.

"We believed it was going to work again."

But this fiscal year, the School Department's budget remains in the red, and Ogden and Roy said they plan to ask Town Council for at least $200,000 to balance it in coming months.

They have also decided to cut memberships in professional organizations and drop the high school girls' gymnastic team as well as cut into teacher professional development budgets to find savings.

About $17,000 of the shortfall was the result of paying unused vacation and sick days accrued by the previous superintendent, which is no longer part of the contract the town offers, Roy said.

School officials have been able to explain some of the overspending, but not all.

Along with projecting more income than was realized from state aid and user fees, the previous superintendent, David Crisafulli, anticipated savings that never materialized, Ogden said, including teacher retirements that never took place.

"Over two years, there was no savings from attrition," Ogden said.

He also said that young, new teachers are generally cheaper to employ than experienced teachers, so hiring a replacement for someone who has retired usually saves money.

But the positions Franklin has filled in recent years often have required finding staff with special skills, such as special-education teachers, whose salaries are higher than average.

Roy said the School Committee would have approved the hires in spite of the budget because they need to keep class sizes from ballooning.

Among the new students this year were six special-education students whose needs cost the system about $160,000, Ogden said. Special-education costs have hit the department particularly hard, with an unanticipated $600,000 increase in costs for educating children in special schools outside of town.

Councilor Phil Evans said that drawing up a school budget is like anticipating how much snow will fall and how much the town will spend plowing.

But several councilors reminded school officials that they should have notified the council earlier.

"It would have been nicer to know before October," Councilor Michael LeBlanc said.

Ogden pledged to prepare a realistic budget for the next fiscal year, which will begin July 1.

School Committee members are scrutinizing spending on a more regular basis, he said, including getting detailed spending summaries each month.