Wayland Voters Network
January 21, 2006

Dear Wayland Voter,

After three meetings, the School Committee has increased the "level
services" budget proposed by Superintendent Gary Burton that itself
represented a 3.7% increase from fiscal 2006. Burton's budget included
some additional fees, self-funding of the ski and swim teams,
reduction in teaching staff warranted by the drop in elementary
enrollment, and some consolidation of classes.

Raising the increase to about 4%, the SC restored funding for the swim
and ski teams, and included an elementary math/science coordinator.
Bear in mind this increase does not reflect the expenses borne by the
town's accounting sheets, including health care for all school
employees and pension costs for those not covered by the teachers union.

The one item of disagreement between the administration and the School
Committee is the issue of busing fees. Stay tuned.

There was no discussion by Burton or the School Committee of
recommending any reduction in the budget. The Finance Committee had
requested two budgets from all departments: a level-service budget
(allowing for energy and contractual increases) and one with an 8%
reduction from the level service. Tom Sciacca reports.

MEETINGS THIS WEEK
1/23, Town Building
Selectmen (6:30), School Committee (7), Planning Board(7), Fincom(6:30)
1/26, Town Building
Joint Meeting of Selectmen and Planning Board(7)

"ATHLETICS AS IMPORTANT AS ACADEMICS": BURTON

Your opinion of the School Committee's proposed FY07 school budget may
depend on your judgement of how critical you believe a ski team and a
swim team are to a high school program.

On January 9 Superintendent Burton presented his proposed budget to
the School Committee, which continued discussions at meetings on the
12th and 17th. The committee will finalize its recommendation on the
23rd and present it to the Fincom on January 30, and then make the
same presentation to the public on February 2 at the Middle School.
The Fincom will aggregate all town department budgets into its
recommended budget on February 6 and present it to the public on
February 13. Shortly thereafter they will send it to the selectmen. It
is possible that the Fincom will recommend the previously submitted
"no override" budget, but assuming it does not, the selectmen will
decide on March 6 whether to call for an override vote. The voters
would decide to pass or reject any override ballot question at the
polls on April 25.

Burton's proposed budget would definitely require a large override. It
calls for an increase over the FY06 budget of 3.7%, or over $1M.
What's more, it has been previously estimated that increases in health
and pension costs for school personnel, which for accounting reasons
appear in the general town budget rather than the school budget, will
amount to an additional 4% or so. Even so, Burton was not happy with
his proposal and invited the School Committee to overrule him and add
more. At the meeting of the 17th the committee obliged him by
restoring the athletic teams he had suggested cutting and adding a new
elementary math/science coordinator. Burton was clearly happy about
their decision, saying he wasn't ashamed to be quoted as saying that
"athletics is as important as academics".

Burton began his January 9 presentation by paraphrasing Horace Mann:
"Supporting your public schools does call for sacrifices". But, he
went on to say, "This budget does call for the elimination of some
jobs." A total of 8.5 FTE's (Full Time Equivalents) were cut, most
because of declining enrollments in the elementary schools but one or
two resulting from consolidation of classes that raise some class
sizes to the policy guideline maximum. One retiring elementary school
librarian won't be replaced. At the high school the swim team and the
ski team could be eliminated as school-supported sports; they could be
continued as parent- supported activities if the participants so
choose. He said that athletics cost $714,000 in total. But at the
meeting of the 17th about twenty parents showed up to urge the school
department to "look elsewhere before taking such a drastic measure" as
cutting the teams. Several said user fees should be increased for all
sports rather than single out just two.

FEES TO BE RAISED

Fees were raised by about $50,000, or ten percent over last year's fee
level, in Burton's proposed budget. Burton said his proposed fees
"didn't seem to be out of line" with fees charged by other towns. The
Committee deferred a decision on whether to raise fees further to
compensate for the restoration of the ski and swim teams.

Member Bob Gordon opined that fees are acceptable in areas that are
not part of the core program and where individuals can't easily
substitute for the experience. So, he said, they should consider
busing fees. But the committee members seemed more willing to consider
bus fees than the administrators, who repeated their previous opposition.

At the meeting of January 12 the committee discussed elementary class
sizes and the problem of having to move children from one school which
might have too many kids in a particular grade to another school which
might have smaller classes in that grade. The committee directed
Burton to do no involuntary transfers but to explore voluntary transfers.

Even before the successful parents' lobbying effort, Chair Jeff
Dieffenbach said they should consider keeping the ski and swim teams
but increasing sports fees in general. He also suggested adding the
previously considered new math coordinator back into the budget. In
response, Burton said he would be happy to put anything back in the
budget that they wanted.

"I don't mind if the budget goes up", he said.

Gordon said he would look at adding the new reading teacher as well,
if they could make it revenue neutral. He said if he had a choice
between a ski team and a reading teacher, he'd take the teacher. But
by the 17th the committee decided to defer the new reading teacher for
another year, largely because they already have two. But no one is
filling the math/science role, even though deficiencies in that
program have been common knowledge in the school community for many
years. The committee decided that even with this year's fiscal
pressures, this is the year they wanted to add a new position to
tackle the problem.

Burton suggested a number of times that the committee override him and
restore items he had left out of the budget. For example, High School
Principal Charlie Ruopp had asked for an additional 1.7 FTE's. When
this led to a discussion of what might be acceptable to the Fincom,
Burton said, "The Fincom is only an advisory committee to the
Selectmen" and the School Committee has the ability to go over their
heads if they want more money than the Fincom wants to recommend. At
another point he said that the committee's goal should not be to hit
some predetermined budget number.

AUTONOMY OF SCHOOL COMMITTEE

As to whether to raise more fees or not, Gordon said, "I'm not
suggesting we impose further fees just to reduce others' taxes". At
another point he said that the School Committee doesn't report to the
Fincom or the selectmen, but that they have an independent
responsibility. He urged "responsible financial management", but
thought the budget is "not out of line". He thinks that at a 3.72%
increase Wayland is the "flinty outlier" with respect to planned
increases among affluent west suburban towns.

According to the Boston Globe, Wayland is second in the region in per
capita municipal spending, behind only much more affluent Weston.

HIGH SCHOOL BUILDING ISSUES

Regarding capital budget considerations, Business Administrator Joy
Buhler reported that she escorted an inspector from the new state
School Building Authority. Inspections of schools state-wide is being
done to establish the scope of the school building problem. The
inspector said that the condition of all school buildings dating from
the post World War Two period is pretty poor, and Wayland's high
school is no exception. He thought a major mechanical system failure
is likely in the near future, Buhler reported.

Member Heather Pineault suggested they present a total
short-term/long-term program to the public for the high school
physical plant. Gordon said "I think Heather's 100% right." There were
general comments and laughter about the rarity of his concurrence.

A regional accreditation group has raised issues about the high school
buildings and asked for a plan to address problems. Dieffenbach,
however, said he doesn't care about accreditation, believing a Wayland
High School diploma would carry the same weight whether or not it was
blessed by the regional group, which has no legal authority. He does,
however, care about safety. Some of the problems that have been noted
relate to safety, such as a lack of sprinklers.

"Shame on the town for making a bad decision about the High School
project" if it causes us to waste money on short term fixes, said
Gordon. Voters rejected a $57M proposal a year ago.

DOES A QUARTER PERCENT MATTER?

Over three meetings and many hours, the committee agonized over budget
issues, but the actual amount in play was only about a quarter
percent- the difference between Burton's originally proposed 3.72%
increase and the 4% it turned into with the teams and new teacher added.

Further agonizing is on tap to decide on whether to add more fees to
bring the bottom line back to about 3.7%. The members were split, with
Pineault and member Barbara Fletcher believing there is no need to do
so while Gordon, member Louis Jurist, and Burton said they need to
show the town they are making some good faith effort at economizing.
For example, Jurist said that if they didn't do everything they could
to raise as much as they can with fees, they might be living with the
"minus eight" budget (referring to the "no override" budget previously
submitted), obviously implying that voters might reject an override
perceived as too large. The consensus to date is to have Burton
consider all "extras" at the elementary level and propose a
comprehensive package of fees. In addition, Burton is to look at the
impact of increasing extracurricular activity fees at the middle
school and high school. But final decisions have to be made on the 23rd.

OTHER MATTERS

The Town Crier complained to the Middlesex district attorney about the
School Committee's refusal to turn over the individual members'
comments in Burton's 2004 evaluation. In response, the DA's office
asked the School Committee to send it the comments. Gordon, an
attorney, suggested that they ask that the DA's office agree in
writing not to release the comments to the public. Chair Jeff
Dieffenbach agreed to submit such a request.

A rally was scheduled at the State House on January 18 to lobby state
legislators for increased school funding. The event was initiated as a
grass roots effort by two school mothers in Chelmsford which, like
Wayland, fares poorly under the Chapter 70 school funding formula. The
School Committee only recently learned about the event but unanimously
voted to support it. Burton, who has previously said he has given up
on increasing state funding, said he had not planned to attend but
changed his mind.

On the 17th the committee voted unanimously to support an effort by
Acton officials to have a $2,000 per child minimum state funding level
established. There was also unanimous agreement that the committee
prefers a mixed use town center development rather than a 40B
all-housing alternative.

During a public comment period, a voter said he was disappointed that
the school department did not adopt a top-down budget process, where
they would decide first on an acceptable level of expenditure and then
construct a budget to live within those means.

However, a school parent at another comment session urged the
committee to make no reductions beyond those directly responding to
attendance drops and increase no fees. A few minutes earlier she had
urged the selectmen in their meeting to schedule an override vote this
spring. She went on to author a summary of the January 17 meeting
which appeared on the new waylandenews website.

Yet another parent said he personally preferred to have everyone's
real estate taxes go up by $1000, and people could just skip a few
meals out to support the schools.


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Wayland Voters Network
Michael Short, Editor