$566k restored to budget including school sports funds

Posted 9/18/14

The Warwick School Committee approved by a 4-1 vote, with Karen Bachus dissenting, the restoration of $566,000 of surplus funds to the fiscal year (FY) 2015 school budget – including the full …

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$566k restored to budget including school sports funds

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The Warwick School Committee approved by a 4-1 vote, with Karen Bachus dissenting, the restoration of $566,000 of surplus funds to the fiscal year (FY) 2015 school budget – including the full funding to athletics - during a special committee meeting Monday night.

The surplus funds target the following three areas in the budget: $140,000 in professional development (PD) funding; $176,000 for textbooks; and $250,000 for sports and extracurricular activities.

After the City Council-approved budget allocation underfunded the school committee’s FY 2015 budget request, the committee had to go back and make cuts in order to achieve a balanced budget. The three previously mentioned areas, among others, were impacted by those cuts.

Once it was established the school department had achieved a $3.4 million surplus in the FY 2014 budget, funds were then reallocated to restore some of the cuts that had been made to balance the budget.

Approximately $2 million of the $3.4 million surplus represented committed funds that had been planned to be included in the FY 2014 budget for projects that had been started that year but because they were not completed before June 30, the cutoff for the fiscal year, the funds had to be carried over to the FY 2015 budget.

That left approximately $1.4 million of unrestricted, uncommitted actual budget surplus funds available to be reseeded into the FY 2015 budget. During the committee’s August meeting, $280,000 was “reseeded” for PD funding as well as $437,000 for technology hardware. Attempts were made to restore additional funds at that meeting, however committee members couldn’t agree on where the funds should be allocated. Motions to reseed $250,000 for sports and extracurricular activities and to set aside $195,000 to hire consultants (coaches) to support the math curriculum were tabled, as the committee wanted more information about how those areas could be affected if cuts were sustained.

The committee planned on addressing the issue during its September monthly meeting, held last Tuesday, but due to a clerical error, the item never made it on the agenda. Rather than wait for the October meeting, a special meeting was scheduled for Monday.

During the meeting, Anne Siesel, assistant director of curriculum, explained the various uses PD funding supports.

“Professional development is used for stipends for teachers to attend district-wide professional development days, one that is mandatory [held in August] and one that is voluntary [held in March],” she said. “It’s also used as funds for contracted services to bring in outside experts to work with teachers on curriculum work.”

Siesel said PD funding is also used for stipends for teachers for after-school PD opportunities, such as grade level meetings, as well as to pay substitutes to allow teachers to get together in teams and review data or discuss curriculum work during the school day.

Of the $280,000 initially reseeded for PD, $30,000 was designated for curriculum PD.

“The $30,000 for substitutes for all this work will only last through October,” Siesel said prior to the committee vote.

Siesel said budget managers were requesting approximately $220,000 in additional PD funding for substitutes and stipends in the following areas: $50,000 in English Language Arts (ELA); $39,000 in Math/Science; $50,000 in curriculum development; $20,000 in technology; and $60,000 in Response to Intervention (RTI).

Addressing the $195,000 request for math coaches, Siesel said with limited funding available should it be approved, the department would only want to target a smaller population in order to achieve a greater impact.

“The trend in math is in grade 5, test scores go down … they plummet. At a cost of $8,000 per teacher to consult with on-site coaches, we would be limited to grades 5 through 8,” she said. “The other funds [PD funds] are more important because they encompass the entire district and speak to our strategic plan.”

Siesel said if the district could afford to hire math coaches on top of the PD funding, the department would be in favor of such a move, but if it’s a choice between allocated funds to PD or math coaches, “our recommendation is not to go with coaches in order to move the district forward.”

Ahearn said she’s having a hard time with how much time teachers miss being out of the classroom for PD training and wondered if the department needs to restructure how it administers PD.

“If we have coaches in the classroom, it won’t affect the kids because the coaches will be working with the teachers as they teach,” she said.

Siesel said if math coaches were approved, it would only benefit students in math in grades 5 through 8.

“In order for all teachers to have a common understanding of what to look for and develop assessments, we need to pull teachers out at one time,” Siesel said. “The kids may be negatively impacted for one day, but the teachers return with a better idea of what to look for.”

Sara Monaco, federal program grant coordinator and who oversees RTI, was also concerned if PD funds weren’t restored.

“My biggest concern is with any big change, you need to continue to nourish that change,” she said. “If we cut funds, you will see a waste of years worth of work because it would come to a stop.”

Ahearn said she felt both PD and the math coaches were important, and asked about moving money from textbooks and using it to hire math coaches.

“Teachers are what teach our students, but if we need $175,000 in books, why can’t we move that into training and get more bang for our buck?” she said.

Siesel explained that the $176,000 would go toward purchasing social studies books.

“The majority of the book budget is in Social Studies to buy a classroom set of books, versus one per student, and use the rest of the money to purchase online support materials that all students and teachers can use,” she said. “Online resources are constantly updated and better aligned.”

School Committee chairwoman Bethany Furtado suggested cutting in half the $250,000 for sports and extracurricular activities, and putting the other half in the classroom by hiring the math coaches.

Dennis Mullen, director of secondary education, said any cut to sports and extracurricular activities would have a negative impact.

“If $250,000 is cut, sports would end after the winter season. If you cut it by $125,000, we could start the spring season but we may not finish it,” he cautioned.

Furtado then suggested fully funding textbooks and sports and extracurricular activities, and supporting all PD requests by half of what’s being asked for at $110,000, which would leave approximately $74,000 in discretionary surplus funding available.

“By spending half of what we have now, working with a living, breathing budget, and starting to reseed professional development would be beneficial to students and teachers,” she said. “Then we can see how things are working and add more where necessary as we move forward.”

Ferrucci said the department is projected to achieve approximately $3 million in savings through breakage, or teacher retirements and layoffs, but he won’t have the final numbers until November. He said if the savings is achieved, it doesn’t mean an additional $3 million of surplus funds.

“If the savings is achieved, it would leave the department with $74,000 of uncommitted surplus that could be allocated to any priority,” he said. “If the savings is not achieved, the $74,000 would be the first piece to make up the difference, and if additional funds were needed, further cuts would have to be made.”

Furtado said the committee would revisit the situation in November, once it determines if breakage is achieved.

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