MINUTES
SPECIAL MEETING
WATERTOWN BOARD OF EDUCATION
Monday, April 13, 2009
Immediately following Joint Meeting
Board of Education/Public Buildings Committee – 7:00 PM
Polk School Library
Present: Karen Baldwin, Superintendent of Schools
Gina Calabrese, Board Chairman
Richard Mazzamaro, Board Vice-Chairman
Mary Colangelo, Board Secretary
Thomas Lambert, Board Member
Joseph Apicella, Board Member
Gary Miller, Interim Director of Operations
James Perruci, Town Times Reporter
Matt Geary, W.H.S. Principal
Marylu Lerz, Swift Middle School Principal
A. Convene Special Meeting
Ms. Calabrese convened meeting at 7:20 PM.
B. Salute to the Flag
Ms. Calabrese led the Pledge of Allegiance
C. Public Participation
None
D. Report and Discussion on Fiscal Year 2009-2010 Operating Budget reduction process
Ms. Baldwin: I thought it would be important for us to get together as a board and talk about the process and timeline and possible areas of reduction. I think we really need to engage in this process and think as a board about what we value and how to begin this process of reducing 1.5 million dollars out of this budget. As I wrote to you in my update last Thursday, I met with the administrative team on Thursday afternoon for about 2 hours. I laid out for them the reality of 1.5 million reduction and just how deep we believe that will go to our programs and to our service delivery (inaudible) and to our overall operation in public education in Watertown. I engaged them in a discussion about our core values. What do we value here, what must we try and hold on to as we go and think about areas of reduction? I’m sure you’re not surprised, we value everything here. This is not just trimming a budget. This is a deep significant cut. I want to share with you some of the concepts or ideas that I shared with the administrators. For obvious reasons, I don’t want to have any sort of document present. I think it’s important that we talk globally about this and as we make decisions, that we talk to the appropriate parties and that communication is clear so that as employees become affected, they know it before any sort of newspaper would pick it up.
Conceptually, some of the areas that we think we can use to help make reductions would be the ARRA funds, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. There is another meeting this Wednesday with the commissioner. Once again, we are getting conflicting reports about the strings attached specifically to the IDEA funds. Supposedly this Wednesday there will be clarification around that. That will be very helpful. At the very least, we think we can use ARRA money to supplement some professional development that exists in our current budget. We also think that we can use it to fund wage increases in Special Education and related services. For example, all of Special Education teachers are covered by the contract between the Board and the Education Association of Watertown. We know that by contract today, they received a 3.25% general wage increase. We believe we can take all of those Special Education teachers who are receiving a 3.25% general wage increase and fund the increase in their salaries through ARRA dollars. We also believe we could do the same thing for our paraprofessionals. That’s a significant sum of money if in fact that can be verified, that someone can tell us that’s an appropriate use of the dollars. We are hopeful that ARRA funds can help. I would say that we’d be considered fortunate if we could get to maybe a quarter of a million dollars through ARRA funds. That is not going to be the end all, be all for us. I think that’s important for any conversation that we have moving forward with Town Council members is to explain that as much as we received this large pot of money through the stimulus act, that that large pot of money cannot replace our existing budget. We think maybe $250,000 and again, we will learn on Wednesday if in fact more can be used and how. There is a glimmer of hope there.
One of the other areas that we think we can use is a recalculation of Special Education excess cost. I’ve written to you about this in a couple of different updates that as you know, our budget assumes 75% reimbursement rate for Special Education excess cost. Again, hard to believe, but we’re hearing from the State that we should anticipate the same level of funding in 2010 that we’re receiving this year. This year we anticipate 90%. We could recalculate the difference between the 75% reimbursement and the 90% and that would be roughly $200,000.
Ms. Calabrese: Will you find that out definitely on Wednesday?
Ms. Baldwin: I don’t think so. That’s all connected to our budget process at the State level and that’s a little bit of a gamble to calculate at 90%. But, everything that we’ve been hearing in the last couple of weeks is sending that message. As quickly as this budget at the state level unfolds, we’ll know more.
Other things to consider is concessions bargaining. As a board we should think about what we can do to bring our (inaudible) to the table and see if there is some sort of give back that would result in some savings for us. Certainly a 1.5 million dollar reduction has significant impact. Even something like a furlough day; if every employee in the system were to take a furlough day, that would result in approximately $110,000 in savings. Certainly there’s a process that we would have to take in order to achieve a furlough day and that’s concessions bargaining. As you know there’s nothing to mandate that unions come to the table and talk to us. Unfortunately what I think we have to do is display the magnitude of reduction and position elimination that’s affected which might compel people to come to this. Maybe through this meeting tonight, maybe there will be a consensus whether we should move forward in scheduling some opportunities to talk to unions again. It should be something that we can think about before we adjourn this evening.
Other areas we believe, we worked hard before we closed on Thursday to verify our teacher retirements to the extent that we can. We do believe that the three teachers are in fact retiring. We have gone from three to one to two, but I believe all three are leaving, so there’s some savings there through the rehiring process, potentially of $75,000.
Ms. Colangelo: I think they used to budget 40 thousand for each retirement.
Ms. Baldwin: Did they do 40? I think all three of those are in a shortage area. Two in math, one in world language. Shortage areas are hard to find teachers, so sometimes if we can recruit and bring in some experience, so we budgeted roughly at a $25,000 savings in rehire.
Other things to think about are the board’s efforts in class size maintenance. We’ve worked very hard, especially at the primary and elementary level to have class size that don’t go above 25 in grades 3-5 and that are at the K,1and 2 level, typically not higher than 23. One of the areas we need to think about is not honoring class size requirements and going upwards of 28 kids in a class.
Ms. Colangelo: A giant step backwards.
Ms. Calabrese: When you say that, are you assuming that you will be laying off teachers?
Ms. Baldwin: Yes. It would result in layoffs at Trumbull, Polk and Judson.
Ms. Calabrese: My question would be for the concessions bargaining, generally one would approach a bargaining unit and propose that a give back would occur in place of layoffs, but with a cut that’s this deep it almost seems inevitable that there will be layoffs. What kind of leverage would we have if we called the bargaining unit?
Ms. Baldwin: You’re right. Concession bargaining is not a one-way street. In order to get something, like a furlough day, typically boards or employers have to give something. If you follow the state budget, what has been given is a guarantee that even through all the restructure of every organization at the state level, people are guaranteed their job. I’m not sure that we can do that. That becomes a challenge for us. It’s to the pleasure of the board, but it might still be worth bringing people to the table to discuss and ultimately as the process unfolds and as we continue to let the political process work as well, we may be able to determine what we can save there and promise.
Ms. Colangelo: There’s probably other options for concessions other than a furlough day. Extending contracts for a year, the unions may even have some ideas to offer as well.
Ms. Baldwin: You can extend a contract out, like we have a three-year agreement with the teachers,
Ms. Colangelo: I’m talking all the unions, not just teachers.
Ms. Baldwin: Right. Other areas are programming, such as Pay to Participate. The 2009-2010 requested budget, we put in a corrective or an adjustment to get it back down to $85.00. The board could consider changing that back again to $100 or $90 or $95.
Mr. Lambert: The cost to bring it back was about $56,000.
Ms. Calabrese: It’s not a lot of money.
Mr. Lambert: It’s a teacher, or so.
Ms. Baldwin: Other programming areas that we’ve entertained at central office just for the purpose of discussion would be delaying the Polk project and the only savings that we can determine there would be a little more than $71,000. It’s the corresponding utility cost of Heminway being open.
Ms. Colangelo: I think the way the bids are coming in, I think that would be a very foolish idea.
Ms. Calabrese: I’m really against that completely.
Mr. Lambert: This is the time to do it, right now.
Ms. Baldwin: So just on that little bit that you see there,
Ms. Colangelo: That doesn’t give us enough.
Ms. Baldwin: No, it does not.
Ms. Calabrese: It does give us a picture of what we need to do. We don’t have many options, but I think what we have to do is do exactly what we propose. I think we have to approach the unions. I think we have to look at all of these and move ahead.
Ms. Baldwin: Other programming outside of Pay to Participate, again I think Mary used the term “taking a step back” in terms of class size maintenance, to look at unified arts and how that’s staffed or not staffed at the middle school.
Ms. Colangelo: We just cut that last year and we just got it back.
Ms. Baldwin: Other areas we can look at are at the high school in terms of programming.
Ms. Calabrese: I wouldn’t touch the high school because of NEASC. Just my opinion.
Ms. Colangelo: I agree with you there.
Ms. Baldwin: Things that we’ve entertained, just so you’re aware, is changing graduation requirements in terms of health and physical education and looking at making some staffing reductions there.
Mr. Mazzamaro: What two areas are they?
Ms. Baldwin: Health and Physical Education. All of this would have impact, not only changing graduation, but would have impact in terms of number of study halls at Swift and at the high school. Children not engaged in other offerings, lots of idle time, having to change our requirements relative to juniors possibly arriving late. What is typically considered a senior privilege would probably have to be extended to juniors because we probably wouldn’t have enough to engage them.
Ms. Colangelo: I think that’s going to affect NEASC. I don’t think we should do that.
Ms. Calabrese: Would you like to come out of this meeting with a clear understanding of exactly what you want us to do. Do you want us to come to some sort of consensus as to where to go or are we just outlining the options?
Ms. Baldwin: We have a pretty clear sense based on our meeting with our administrators on Thursday, based on these broad topics that I’m sharing with you. We know where we can go with those broad topics. I think the issue is sharing this information prematurely is not helpful to the system as a whole. I think it’s a board undertaking at this point to say, we want to leave the high school alone. We can leave the high school alone. If you want us to not look at unified arts at the middle level, we can back off of that. The one resounding area to stay away from was the Polk project. That was clear.
Ms. Colangelo: I can’t support the unified arts idea, we just got it back. There has got to be other areas we can go to besides that.
Mr. Mazzamaro: Is this list going to shared with the Finance Committee and the Town Council? Is this kind of in response to what Gary Bernier asked for? Is there a plan to submit this formally?
Ms. Baldwin: There is. The danger in that is we don’t want to create hysteria in the school system with employees. I think we want to be able to thoughtfully talk to staff about what these potential reduction could look like before we share it with the Town Council. But it was pretty clear last Tuesday night that they want to see something sooner rather than later.
Ms. Calabrese: Very clearly, they want specific information.
Ms. Colangelo: By Thursday, is possible or next week.
Mr. Mazzamaro: Is there a meeting scheduled Thursday?
Ms. Colangelo: He was leaving it open because of vacation week.
Ms. Baldwin: One of the areas we can also look at is as you recall in the enrollment decline projected, we had redeployed four teachers at Swift. If you recall in one of our presentations, we talked about why we couldn’t keep them all the same, that if we just kept the three teachers model and reduce the team, our class size there would go between 31 and 33 kids in a class. I can’t say in any good conscience that we can eliminate four positions at Swift even though we redeployed them, but we might be able to eliminate two positions at Swift.
Mr. Apicella: Ms. Baldwin, you talked about the Play to Participate. I think at some Athletic Committee meetings, we discussed how athletics is not something the board is required to provide to students and I know you speak of what we value about teaching and learning. I think that we as a board, value academics. Is there any discussion about possible elimination of sports programs?
Ms. Baldwin: I know at the middle level, we talked about perhaps eliminating middle school athletics and replacing it with a more comprehensive intramural program which would might be more developmentally appropriate. Allow for more children to participate at all levels through the organization through a coherent intramural program. Overall middle school athletics runs roughly $37,000 and that certainly all would not be achieved as a savings, simply because we would have to develop a comprehensive intramural program for the kids. But that may be more developmentally sound.
Ms. Calabrese: But intramurals wouldn’t involve transportation. What would that save?
Ms. Baldwin: Or officials, or uniforms or things of that nature.
Mr. Apicella: Do we have any idea at the high school level, what our cost is?
Ms. Baldwin: Obviously, it’s more than the $37,000. I think it’s roughly $140,000, but that’s for all levels of programming, freshmen, JV, Varsity, boys and girls.
Mr. Apicella: I’m not saying I would suggest that, but I think that when we as a board look at what is valuable to us, obviously education is in those core academic areas and academic enrichment is an area that we focus a lot of our resources on and while we value sports, it is a supplemental activity.
Ms. Baldwin: Other things that we can look at is transportation. Are there ways to consolidate some runs, eliminate a bus?
Ms. Calabrese: I would be very much against that. We’ve done that before and all it did was create safety issues and I think, I don’t want to speak for everybody who was on the board with me at that time, but we came to regret doing it. On a case by case basis, we would hear from parents the situations that were unsafe for children and it was quite clear that some of the consolidating (inaudible) had led to that. I would be very much against that.
Ms. Colangelo: Unless you can do it safely.
Ms. Calabrese: I don’t think there’s a way to do it safely right now. I think parents are very concerned.
Ms. Colangelo: I don’t think the buses are filled to capacity.
Ms. Calabrese: They may not be, but I know that was discussed the last time we went through this, but there were still problems and students were waiting at unsafe corners because they had eliminated certain stops and it created more problems. Having done that once before, I personally wouldn’t do that.
Ms. Baldwin: As you know, 81% of this budget is in people and benefits. Not looking at the high school from a personnel or programs standpoint, it puts a tremendous burden on the rest of the organization and makes it very hard to find other areas. That’s why transportation comes up. One bus is roughly $37,000. That’s almost a teaching position. Based on your running list there, I don’t think it’s a million.
Mr. Lambert: It’s about $700,000 or so.
Ms. Calabrese: That’s some of it, and the rest will probably have to taken in layoffs, there’s no other way.
Ms. Baldwin: Right, but where?
Ms. Lambert: I don’t know how we cannot affect the high school. I know we have a NEASC situation. We’re not doing it.
Ms. Colangelo: It still affects the outcome. And part of that is community support for education. You don’t have that.
Ms. Calabrese: We can’t. I don’t think we can touch the high school.
Mr. Lambert: We have to do something though.
Ms. Baldwin: What I can do is that I can continue to work and show you some areas and some real numbers based upon even this discussion, although I haven’t heard really any decision relative to class size maintenance and how it affects primary and the elementary level. We’ll be looking at class sizes of 24-28 kids in grade 1 – grade 5. In that reduction scenario, reducing staff and increasing class size, the new request for the Polk grade 5 teachers is included in that sort of scenario. Obviously, that would go away. The art request at the high school stays in tact. That has not been reduced.
Ms. Calabrese: And that’s not a lot of money.
Ms. Baldwin: That’s $28,000.
Mr. Lambert: I guess a lot is left on concessions bargaining. That’s our only real question mark. Teacher retirements are more or less put to bed.
Ms. Baldwin: We can go through the exercise of early retirement incentive plan. But we’re in the final year of paying for the last package we offered.
Mr. Mazzamaro: The thing that bothers me about concessions is what we get this year, we’ll have to give back next year. We’re just putting it off to another year. So you get through it this year and you have to deal with the same cuts next year, plop on the wage freeze that we had, whatever we get in concessions bargaining. It would just be ridiculous. You know we’ll be looking at the same kind of cut next year.
Ms. Baldwin: I actually think from an economy standpoint, next year is likely to be worse. 2009, unemployment continues to rise, it’s not getting better, the state’s revenues are incredibly challenged and the state budget is in disarray. You need to the best of our ability be really thoughtful about the concessions process.
Mr. Lambert: Hartford has moved on some mandates. They have put them off, which has helped. Has any of the representatives from our area even pushing Hartford to push back even more on the mandates?
Ms. Baldwin: All the mandates that have a fund attached to them, some sort of obligation at the local level, I think they have been pushing. I guess the in-school suspension legislation has been pushed back a few years. High school reform has been modified and pushed back and right now they’re looking at districts who would be interested in piloting the high school reform plan. We have not signed up to do that. I think the only other mandate, I see as an unfunded mandate is the revised bullying legislation. That starts July 1 because that hasn’t been critical to professional development.
Ms. Calabrese: I don’t see that being put off though. That’s a very emotional issue. I don’t see the state putting off that legislation and it’s not the same kind of cost as a suspension would be with the staffing and everything.
Ms. Baldwin: In terms of time frame and getting a document together to the Town Council, which is what the town finance sub committee requested, all staff is back in session on Monday, April 20th to the extent that we could put some sort of document together for the board’s review prior to that and begin having discussions at the building level just to inform people. It doesn’t mean that it’s pink slips or anything like that. It’s still at the conversation level. From our prospective, we want to control the roll out of this, and if in fact, we can do that the week of April 20th in an aggressive fashion, perhaps something can get to the Town Council Finance Committee by the end of that week, by April 24th, or April 25th.
Ms. Calabrese: But they had requested sooner than that.
Ms. Baldwin: But we were pretty clear that we were out of session and I don’t feel comfortable putting something out to them this week without having all my principals look at it, without being able to thoughtfully talk to my principals about how we share this information in a very matter of fact, it doesn’t mean jobs or programs, it is where we think we have to go.
Mr. Mazzamaro: When would the plan be presented to the Finance Committee, in a meeting like this, maybe presenting it to the entire committee?
Ms. Baldwin: I think that would be the way to go because that would be a great opportunity for the board to clearly speak how opposed they are to this, how devastating this is to the school system, to be able to advocate for something other than a 1.5 million dollar reduction.
Ms. Calabrese: The presentation you’re seeing would be at the end of that week, the 24th or 25th. It would be the board presenting to the Town Council Finance Committee.
Ms. Baldwin: Maybe the 23rd, dependent upon our (inaudible).
Ms. Calabrese: It sounds like a good target for now.
Ms. Colangelo: The budget chair cannot be there on the 23rd.
Ms. Baldwin: We could look at the next week.
Ms. Calabrese: I won’t be here. I’ll be back Thursday or Friday.
Ms. Baldwin: Why don’t we work on a document, get that to the board, then once we can determine how we can get this information to the school level, we can then reach out to the town and determine what date and times might work out for them and get that back to the full board for a poll. Barbara can call.
Ms. Calabrese: Sounds like a plan.
Mr. Apicella: You talked about the IDEA increase. What about the Title I increase?
Ms. Baldwin: We received Title I this year to the tune of about $89,000. We’re not certain that we’ll receive Title funds again, but certainly if we do, it’s probably 2-3% increase over that amount. It’s not significant.
Mr. Apicella: Nothing with the reinvestment recovery act?
Ms. Baldwin: We received all our stimulus money through IDEA.
Ms. Calabrese: If there are no more questions, and at this point, we seem to agree on this plan that was discussed this evening, so I guess what we can do is adjourn the meeting.
MOTION made by Mr. Mazzamaro, sec. by Mr. Lambert
To adjourn the Special Board of Education meeting at 7:55 pm.
MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY
Respectfully submitted,
Mary Colangelo, Board Secretary
Patricia Barber
Board Clerk
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