Quabbin Regional will suffer cuts

FY11 budget presented to Hardwick selectmen

By Cristy Bertini

Turley Publications Correspondent

HARDWICK – Dr. Maureen Marshall, superintendent of the Quabbin Regional School District, and Cheryl Duval, director of administrative services, presented the district budget to the Hardwick board of selectmen at their April 26 meeting.

Marshall said, “We tried to analyze our needs as specifically and objectively as we possibly could and we put together a zero-based budgeting process, where we didn’t just build on top of last year’s budget, but instead we tried to put together a financial plan that would allow us to deliver the services for the 21^st century education. We did that at the direction of the school committee, and presented them with that budget or financial plan.”

That plan was about $1.8 million more than last year’s budget. Some categories were added, some were removed. Marshall said it soon became obvious that the state was going to further reduce local aid as well as the school’s Chapter 78.

Last June, the state reduced Chapter 78 for the Quabbin district by 2 percent and then by another 4 percent in recent weeks. The school committee then directed that the budget be driven down to level-funded one. “We did that, Marshall said, we cut $1 million and then another $800,000. Then the committee directed us to cut the amount that we would be reduced to Chapter 70, which was another $600,000. So the budget that the school committee finally adopted, is one that is in excess of $600,000 less than last year, and probably $800,000 less than 2009.”

Marshall said that if the state, with all of its financial difficulties, continues to walk away from the schools and from the town’s local aid commitments, they will make it ever more difficult for the schools and the town to backfill what the state didn’t give.

Because of that, “before we even put pen to paper, because of the 6 percent loss of Chapter 70 funding, 2 percent at the tail end of June last year and another 4 percent this year, our budget was negative 3 percent before we started, because the state funds 56 percent of the Quabbin budget.”

Marshall told the selectmen that she surely understands the town’s financial circumstances as well.

Marshall presented the board with Hardwick’s portion of an operational assessment and a transportation assessment.

The transportation assessment is offset by Chapter 71, which is transportation aid. That has not been well funded by the Commonwealth.

The operational assessments are low, but not low enough “because the state has walked away”. Even with what has been cut, there are still some increases and fixed-costs that the district needs help with.

Duval explained the line items in the budget to the selectmen.

The state aid revenue for Chapter 70 aid has a 4 percent decrease from $16,979,189 in FY10 to $16,300,021 in FY11.

The state aid revenue for Chapter 71 transportation aid has an 8 percent decrease from $489,973 in FY10 to $449,968 in FY11.

The total district revenue shows a -13.62 percent decrease overall, due to Chapter 71.

The district is using the same amount of school choice revenue to fund next year’s budget.

Hardwick’s minimum local contribution has increased by 1.16 percent. The minimum local contribution is the minimum that the state mandates for each member town in the district.

Duval said, “The biggest problem is the transportation assessment. The assessment for Hardwick will go up from $292,914 in FY10 to $355,082 in FY11.”

So, the total local revenue, including the operating and transportation assessments for Hardwick will go up 4.35 percent for FY11.

Marshall added, “I think it’s important to note, that there seems to be some movement at the state level in the House budget, transportation reimbursement was added to by 5 percent in the House. We don’t know what the Senate will do with that. We’ve done all that we can to drive down our operational costs.”

The school district has grappled with different scenarios to deal with the new budget. This could affect 26 different positions, including administrative, teachers and paraprofessionals.

The district also considered removing a bus and re-routing students, but found that it couldn’t make that work. There would be too many students and too few buses.

Marshall said, “Our class sizes are going to drive up everywhere, but it’s probably in our best interest to keep our variety and quality of our high school, middle school and elementary school programs as best as we can, hoping that we can move through these very difficult economic times and position ourselves for the best recovery possible.”

The complete budget can be viewed at www.qrsd.org/budget.php