Schools will get a $10m bailout
Funds will come from city reserves Move will defer closing decisions
Averting imminent school closings and deep classroom cuts, Boston will bail out the cash-strapped school system by giving it a one-time infusion of $10 million from city reserves, school and city officials said yesterday.
The funds will help the district close a $30.7 million budget shortfall and give its new superintendent some breathing room to tighten operations.
Dealing with her first budget since she arrived in August, Superintendent Carol Johnson said she also has identified $18.7 million in cuts, mostly by reducing central office staff, deferring maintenance on school buildings, installing energy-saving software on computers, and limiting the number of teachers and principals who go through training programs.
While she tried to steer cuts away from classrooms, she said, it was impossible to make ends meet without affecting students.
She will reduce stipends for teacher development, cut the number of math and reading coaches, and eliminate the jobs of 10 social workers that were previously funded by grants that had expired.
The school system also plans to raise $2 million by increasing the tuition non-Boston students pay to attend the city's Horace Mann School for the Deaf; being more aggressive in seeking Medicaid reimbursement for students with disabilities who get health services through schools; and asking other communities to share the costs of transporting homeless students who may live in a shelter in one city and go to school in another.
Officials said the bailout defers difficult choices, including school closings, until next year. Johnson said that a handful of schools, which have not been decided on, would probably be closed because of enrollment declines. The system, which currently has 56,000 students, has lost 10 percent of its enrollment in the last five years.
The last-minute injection of cash from the city was announced just hours before the School Committee voted on the budget last night. Members unanimously passed the $827.5 million school budget for the 2008-09 school year, which is a 5.7 percent increase from this year's budget.
"The support comes at a critical time when we're accelerating our efforts to reduce the achievement gap," Johnson said yesterday, laying out her plans in an interview before the meeting.
Johnson and Mayor Thomas M. Menino revealed the plan yesterday after days of huddling with top city and school officials. Last week, school officials had said that numerous programs and classroom positions were in jeopardy. Under consideration were elimination of summer school, teacher layoffs, cutting preschool teachers' aides, shared principal assignments, and shortened school days in troubled schools.
The bailout money is coming from city reserves, money that finance officials are typically hesitant to use for operating costs. In January 2007, the city had $63 million in surplus funds, said Lisa Signori, the city's finance director.
Signori said the money will buy Johnson the time "to make strategic, informed decisions, rather than doing so at the point of crisis around balancing a budget."
Menino said he chose to dip into the reserves because it was important that Johnson be able to move forward on her agenda to boost the achievement of the most academically challenged students.
"It was a very difficult choice to have to use one-time revenue," Menino said. "But it's Boston, and we have to make sure our schools work. Classroom instruction remains our top priority, and we cannot retreat on progress."
Community activists, a student, and the president of the Boston Teachers Union, publicly thanked the mayor last night for the eleventh-hour rescue.
Still, some feared it would not be enough.
"What the mayor did today was pretty amazing, but there's still a bit of selfishness in me, and I want more," said Moriah Smith, a junior at Boston Latin Academy and the student representative to the School Committee. She said the schools should focus on private fund-raising to increase science and arts opportunities.
Richard Stutman, the union president, said the long-range solution to the budget problem would be for the city to have an independent revenue stream, such as raising the meals tax. "Without that, we will continue to walk this economic tightrope," he said.
To draw more middle-class families to the public schools and boost the achievement of the neediest students, Johnson said, about $8 million in her budget will be spent on expanding preschool programs and K-8 schools, adding arts and music programs, boosting dropout prevention efforts and support for students who are learning English as a second language, and providing more college-level classes for the highest achievers.
Cuts planned for next year include about 80 central office staff positions, many of which are now vacant, and limiting or freezing salaries of nonunion staff.
Like many school systems with declining enrollment, Boston is coping with limited state and federal funding amid rising costs for utilities, employee benefits, and transportation. As a result, Menino and Johnson warned, additional cuts will be necessary in the future, including the closing of at least six schools.
Currently, the system has 5,000 empty seats in elementary schools and between 2,000 and 3,000 empty seats in middle schools, Johnson said; the high schools are fully subscribed.
Her staff will continue to study where school-age children live, where they currently attend school, how popular schools are among parents, and their academic performance. Underenrolled, underperforming, unpopular schools would probably be targeted for closing.
Johnson hopes to present her recommendations for future school closings and other cuts to the School Committee by September, and will update the public monthly on progress toward streamlining school system operations.
"We really need to be thinking about this almost immediately," she said.
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