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Date: 6/2/2021
EAST LONGMEADOW – The East Longmeadow Town Council passed a conservative budget for fiscal year 2022 (FY22) after contentious debate over a $404,000 cut to the school district’s requested funding.
The Finance Oversight Committee (FOC), a council subcommittee consisting of Chair James Broderick, residents Christine Saulnier, Richard Freccero and Councilors Kathleen Hill and Tom O’Connor joined the meeting to state their recommendations for the overall budget.
Broderick said that the committee largely agreed with the budget proposed by Town Manager Mary McNally, but had made three substantial cuts. From the police budget, the FOC had cut $40,000, which they said would leave enough to fund a new lieutenant position but no other additional requested personnel. For the Fire Department, the FOC removed $55,000 as they felt the department could go without a new deputy chief position.
The last, and largest, was the from the school department. Saulnier laid out facts and figures along with the reasoning for the cut. The school department requested about $32,471,000, an increase of $870,000, or 2.8 percent, over the FY21 budget. A full $823,000 of the increase was in contractual salary increases and $34,000 was in expenses for non-salary contracted services.
In FY21, the town contributed $19,501,000 to the budget, with the rest coming from state aid. The district’s request would increase that by $795,000. Saulnier said the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) bases a town’s minimum local contribution (LMC), in part, on enrollment, which has dropped in East Longmeadow Public Schools. The difference between the DESE-mandated LMC and the contribution proposed by the district is $3,183,000.
Saulnier went on to say that the cuts to staffing in the district will be limited to a pre-kindergarten teacher, a second assistant principal at East Longmeadow High School (ELHS), and an adjustment counselor, the last of which she said could be paid for with COVID-19 relief funds. She noted that two teachers that had been thought to be cut, the other assistant principal at ELHS and a foreign language teacher at Birchland Park Middle School had been “reactivated.”
Saulnier sought to back up the committee’s position by listing the district’s costs to the town not accounted for in the school budget, including a high school building feasibility study, debt from previous projects that the town is still paying down, community preservation funding to resurface the ELHS track and a modular classroom and security vestibule at Mountain View and Maple Shade Elementary Schools, respectively.
All told, the FOC recommended a school budget of $32,660,537 with $19,390,579 coming from the town’s contribution.
East Longmeadow School Committee Chair Greg Thompson told the council that a level-services budget had been agreed upon at every step of the budget process since it began in February, but that the FOC has chosen to cut $404,000 from the school department’s budget “with little discussion of the ramification of such a reduction.” He cautioned the council that “a cut to a level services budget is a cut to school staffing.”
The School Committee had voted the previous day to return $400,000 to the general fund, and he proposed they use that money to make up for the cut. Saulnier said of the funds, “Clearly, it is money the school [district] had for its operations in this current fiscal year 2021. She reasoned that as leftover FY21 money, it would have to go into free cash at the end of June and be certified by the state Department of Revenue before it could be allocated for anything. Therefore, she said, it couldn’t be used for the budget that had to be passed before the end of June.
School Committee member Sarah Truoiolo also pled the case to fund the full requested budget. She explained that a portion of the ESSER grant funds, which are designed to combat pandemic costs, have been spent on personal protective equipment (PPE), cleaning supplies, tent rentals for outdoor classes and lunches, desks, signage, substitute teachers and upgraded Wi-Fi. The remaining grant money has been earmarked for programs over the next two years to close the achievement gap resulting from the year and a half of remote learning caused by COVID-19. Therefore, she argued, these funds are not available to supplement the budget.
Moving on to other funding issues, Councilor Patrick Henry made a push during the vote on budget approval to increase the road paving budget by $125,000, but the motion was never seconded and so was unsuccessful.
Councilor Ralph Page took umbrage at the proposed 25 percent increase to the School Committee stipend. He said there was not process in place to determine when stipends should be increased or by how much and suggested the town hold off until a process could be designed and implemented. Councilor Marilyn Richards agreed that a process needed to be created but was afraid the denial would look like “sour grapes” in light of the contention between the School Committee and the council. In the end, the increase in stipend was approved, along with the rest of the operating budget as recommended by the FOC at $61,857,111.
There were two additional public hearings conducted. Both facilitated the first reading of proposed bylaw changes. One stipulated that special permit holders keep all required state and local licenses up to date while the other set a pricing schedule for dog kennels. It was found that both amendments were needed after a dog mauling in 2020 brought to light that the town’s laws conflicted with the state’s requirements. Both amendments must be read publically a second time on June 15 before they can be adopted.
Town Manager Mary McNally reported that the timeline to open town buildings has been moved up in light of the Gov. Charlie Baker’s decision to fully reopen the state on May 29. All town buildings will be fully open on June 7.
She also told the council that Baker has extended the ability to run remote municipal meetings until Sept. 1 while the legislature works on permanent amendments to the open meeting law. Outdoor dining has also been extended.
The town election is June 8. Voting can be done in person at Birchland Park Middle School from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.. There are two seats on the Town Council, one on the School Committee and eight ballot questions affirming changes made to the town charter.