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Date: 1/28/2016
EAST LONGMEADOW – The School Department’s preliminary budget is slightly more than the Appropriation Committee’s request for town departments to stay within a 2 percent increase.
Superintendent of Schools Gordon Smith told Reminder Publications the district is requesting a 2.08 percent increase from the fiscal year 2016 (FY16) budget.
In FY16 the School Department Budget was $27.9 million. The FY16 budget consisted of a 2.1 percent increase from the FY15 budget of $27.4 million.
“We feel that we’ve developed a budget that is going to move forward and [be] respectful of townwide parameters,” Smith said. “We’re certainly working to be as close as we can [to the two percent increase request] and to be as fiscally responsible as we can.”
During the School Committee’s Jan. 11 meeting, Smith stated one of the district’s budget requests is to hire a full-time math coach at Meadow Brook Elementary School.
“We’ve been able to accomplish, not only bringing back all our personnel, but also adding a new math coach at Meadow Brook Elementary School, which would complete our academic coaching model pre-K through grade 8,” he added. “We would have then in every building a literacy coach and a math coach to help us continue to provide embedded professional development and ensure that we’re utilizing the best instruction strategies for our students.”
The request for a math coach at Meadow Brook came from the district’s leadership team, he noted.
“That’s the one personnel request,” Smith explained.
Other budget requests include renovating the East Longmeadow High School library and increasing a supply line item for the district’s Special Education program.
School Committee Vice Chair William Fonseca later said the renovation would include making the library “more modern to students” by adding elements of a media center.
“A lot of [school] libraries are considered media centers,” he noted.
Fonseca added the cost of the renovation has yet to be finalized and he’s unsure if the budget request would be funded this fiscal year until the School Committee meets with the Appropriations Committee on Feb. 2.
Smith also stated during the meeting the district has discussed building a special educational social-emotional program in the district over the course of several budget cycles, which is not included in the FY17 budget.
“You’re not going to be able to accomplish a special education social-emotional program with hiring one person,” he added. “Even if you try to establish it first at Birchland Park [Middle School], you would at least hire one teacher and one [paraprofessional]. However, it’s probably going to be a program, if we start to build this, we’re going to have to build from the elementary grades all the way through.”
School Committee Chair Richard Freccero said more investigation into building the program would need to be done prior to discussions of funding.
The School Committee is anticipated to vote on the district’s FY17 budget likely sometime in March, Smith said.