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Date: 9/28/2022
LUDLOW – The Board of Selectmen and School Committee came together during a joint meeting on Sept. 20 to discuss the school budget.
Select Board Chairman Antonio Goncalves said, “It was time for the two boards to be spending a little more time together. The school’s budget is a large portion of the town’s budget.”
The school budget currently accounts for 47 percent of the town’s overall budget.
The Board of Selectmen and School Committee look to meet and discuss the budget quarterly with another meeting coming before the year ends. School Committee Chairman Chip Harrington mentioned how difficult the budget cycle can be and that he wanted to be able to be on the same page with the Select Board. “We are currently closing out 2022, we are starting 2023 and this process gets us ready for 2024 so we are dealing with three fiscal years” he said.
Harrington explained how the new superintendent has new plans to change the budget process also. He said, “The past budget subcommittee use to be two community members meeting with the superintendent and decide everything without us knowing. He [Frank Tiano] will now bring the ideas to the full School Committee to fill us in.”
Superintendent Dr. Frank Tiano said he wants to be able to lay out the budget early this year and be as transparent with the committee, board and public. He said, “We want our sub-committees to develop budget priorities ahead of time so that we can get a draft to the School Committee by Jan. 5 and being able to post that draft to the public by Jan.10.” He also wants to incorporate teachers’ departments so that they can create a tighter budget with less transfers next year.
The Board of Selectmen were very happy with the meeting and appreciative with the superintendent and School Committee’s efforts. Because the school budget accounts for almost half of the town’s budget, they indicated they liked the idea of being able to see every line transfer and know about extra money in the budget. Board member Bill Rosenblum said, “It is refreshing to see we are going in the right direction. I think it is good for everyone involved and, in the town, to know where the money is coming from, where it is going, and what it is for.”
Vice Chairman James Gennette added to that and said, “The climate of this meeting shows how we are going to work together moving forward, the entire board will now be in the loop and I can’t thank you guys enough.”
Goncalves ended the meeting asking two questions that the town has been asking the board a lot. The first was, “What is up with the field? It does not look like anyone is paying attention to it.” The field to which he was referring to is the one next to Harris Brook Elementary School.
Secretary Sarah Bowler, who is also on the Building Committee, said, “We had a very hot and dry summer and seed does not grow the best in those conditions. We also can’t have irrigation installed over there because of how close it is to the river and no water means the grass cannot grow. It is a work in progress and people are currently in the process of reseeding it again and hoping for a better outcome.”
The next question Goncalves brought up is traffic and how “brutal” it is to drive around the schools during drop-off and pick-up.
Tiano said, “We are going to look at that. Nikki Reed, who is the principal, has been working on getting the folks out of there as quickly as possible. I have been working out of the High School and sometimes I see lines of cars waiting at 2:20 [p.m.] for a school that lets students out at 3 o’clock.” There are a lot of different reasons that have caused kids to not take the bus like the bus driver being out with COVID-19 or the bus schedule not working with a child’s extracurricular activity schedule.”
Tiano added, “As we transition back from COVID[-19], a lot of people did not feel comfortable putting those kids back on the bus and got into a habit of picking them up and dropping them off.” It is still something Tiano and the School Committee will continue to investigate to help ease the traffic.
Non-union classification plan
The Board of Selectmen continued their meeting with Human Resource Director Carrie Ribeiro to talk about a potential new non-union classification plan.
Riberio came to talk about the final report that was presented to her and the board created by Human Resources. The board and her all thought the final report had vague ideas and were hoping for clearer recommendations.
It did help Riberio come up with an overview of what an increase in pay to the positions that were found inequitable from the studies would cost the town. The final report showed a “comparable of pay” for each position and the data was based on internal and external equities. Some internal equities were the positions being compared to others in town and the external equities were based on population, tax-rate, budgets, how schools and towns were made up of surrounding areas and proximity to Ludlow.
From the data collected, the new classification plan was created with some new job descriptions. There was a common class study done for all the non-union positions with about 29 positions studied.
Riberio said, “We have our contractual employees and the union employees who get looked at every three years and their increases are going up and up. We have a body of people who are not moving because they are non-union and have no contracts, so they are not getting looked at and the gaps are getting bigger and bigger every year. Those are the people this study is focusing on.”
From the study, a classification plan was drafted and would organize jobs by grade instead of department. The proposal includes a management grade from one through eight and non-union like custodians, lead computer technicians and more grade from one through twelve. This clearly would show what grade level each position would be in. Riberio said, “What we have now goes by department and there is room for adjustments. Our proposal goes by grade instead of department and makes it more organized and less confusing. I get how there is still work that can be done on this.”
The Board of Selectmen and Riberio both agreed that it is a great start but there is some work to be done on the scale. Riberio was just looking to get a sense from the board and work from there for a final proposal.