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Date: 5/2/2022
LUDLOW – After the Ludlow School Committee asked interim Superintendent Lisa Nemeth to come back with a plan B budget during its April 12 meeting, she presented the revised fiscal year 2023 (FY23) budget during an April 27 meeting.
To begin the discussion, committee Chair Chip Harrington said he and Nemeth worked with the administration team over the two weeks between meetings to work out the budget. Harrington said he and Nemeth also met with the town accountant, town administrator and members from the Board of Selectmen to discuss the school budget and learned that there could be an additional $150,000 available for the budget. However, that money had to be appropriated toward the Department of Public Works for its trash contract and toward the town’s health insurance, which is going up 7 percent instead of the anticipated 3 percent increase.
Harrington also cautioned residents that the budget numbers were not final as of the meeting.
“We are going based on the governor’s proposed budget based on what Chapter 70 funds are coming in for our school district, this is how we do it every year. Everything we are doing now is based on a proposed number, it’s not [a] hard number from the state,” he said. “Oftentimes the number comes back a little bit more in our favor, but we can’t assume that.”
Nemeth said additional state aid would be a slight improvement to the budget.
“We can’t work off the what ifs but hopefully it will come in at a higher percentage, but you can see the state would only give us a half a percent increase from last year, which is $70,000,” she said.
Nemeth broke down new cuts in the budget that would preserve some of the jobs that were proposed to be eliminated per the previous budget proposal. With the new proposal the district would be eliminating two unfilled paraprofessional positions at Harris Brook Elementary School not required by contract, eliminating the business manager and data analyst administrator positions and promoting an assistant for both and moving one position into Title 1 grant funding. The new proposal also includes changing a resigning secretary position to a 10-month position, taking one resignation out of the budget, shifting the interim positions back with the new superintendent taking over, eliminating the technology line item because it was funded by other grants and cutting down to one school resource officer to be shared across the district. With these cuts, the district was able to recover $469,190 in the budget.
In the revised budget, Nemeth said only seven of the positions proposed in the prior budget will be cut including a Spanish teacher at the high school, a Portuguese teacher at the middle school, one physical education teacher, one kindergarten teacher, one first grade teacher and two math teachers at the middle school. Nemeth said the kindergarten, first grade and math reductions were due to enrollment and program changes. Those cuts resulted in a cost savings of $648,956.
Combined with the new presented cuts, the district was looking at a $185,320 deficit as opposed to the original $1,303,406 deficit with the initial level service budget. Overall, Nemeth said the budget amounts to $34,315,965 or a 1 percent increase from FY22.
“Most times the superintendent will have a budget that moves into the next year or moves into June 30 with a $200,000 deficit and we make it up, everything seems to work out,” Nemeth said.
While many parents and students were vocal about cuts to music and art programs at the lower grades during the April 12 meeting, those positions would no longer be cut.
“We were able to put back in full-time band, chorus, special education, social studies and music,” Nemeth said.
Another way the district could find more funding is through retirements and resignations.
“I am hopeful some people decide to retire, whoever we hire in that person’s place there will be a big gap between salaries probably or we might not have to replace that person, we can do some shifting. I am also thinking the same with resignations and I still have four contracts left to negotiate,” she said.
Nemeth also discussed five special education positions currently being funded out of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds and how the district could maintain those positions once those funds are spent as it relates to lower enrollment.
“These five positions we are putting in are good for two years, we have two more years of funding and then what? When I projected what would happen, the lower enrollment will reach the high school and the high school is going to see the ability to lose teachers. I’m hoping when the ESSER funds end we make up the slack through the high school which is unfortunate, but this is what is happening around the country,” she said.
The committee unanimously agreed to approve the proposed FY23 budget, which is now set to be voted on at the May 9 Town Meeting at 7:30 p.m. at the Ludlow High School Auditorium located at 500 Chapin St.