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| By Natasha Clark Reminder Assistant Editor LONGMEADOW The School Committee has submitted their level service budget to Town Manager Robin Crosbie. At last week's School Committee meeting/public forum, the Committee also approved adding $305,158 to the budget. Superintendent Dr. Scott AndersEn explained to Reminder Publications that the figure is "the amount above our projected expenditures this year (FY06)." This amount brings the total expenditure budget to $27,737,247, and does not include potential salary increases, because the district has not finalized any teacher/staff contracts as of yet. At the public forum, AndersEn presented budget information to the community. Longmeadow resident and member of the Longmeadow Adult Center Board of Directors Diane Nadeau said that while there were teachers, principals and members of town boards such as the Finance Committee present, there "unfortunately wasn't enough of the general public" in attendance. "It's the same ol' people that are always there. That's the problem," Nadeau said. "I don't know how you can entice people to go to these meetings to be well informed. It's a real dilemma." "There's always special interest people there. Last time when they were discussing the budget it was the special interest music people that were the mantra of the [public forums]. They wanted fourth grade instrumental music and the cabinet [of principals] did not want that," Nadeau continued. "And the School Committee caved in. Now it's the sixth grade teacher at Williams Middle School (WMS). Williams' principal [Dr. Mary Ann Sedran] wants that, and she has every right to." AndersEn explained the class size issue facing WMS to Reminder Publications. "The current projected class size is a little over 26 per class. That is with students we currently have in the system," said AndersEn. "There is a history of WMS getting an addition of 10-20 students from private school. If that happens, the class size could go to 28-30 depending on the number of transfers in." AndersEn said it is too early to discuss restoring particular services or dealing with issues facing the school district at this point. "We do not have any information from the town about how the financing is going to work [right now]," AndersEn added. |