L-S may lay off 10 staff members to balance budget
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Superintendent/Principal John Ritchie presented the Lincoln Sudbury District School Committee with a list of recommended cuts on Tuesday night, but he’s not happy with the losses necessary to gain $1.1 million to close the gap in a no override budget.
Headcount cuts, as opposed to reducing hours to avoid layoffs, include nine teachers and one housemaster, and five positions in library, special education and buildings and grounds. Further cuts included reductions in materials and program support, cuts in athletics and extracurricular activities and the elimination of funding for the Civic Orchestra, a music program that includes both community and student musicians.
Reductions in 10 professional staff positions accounts for $662,543 of the total savings of $1,108,695.
“We’re not happy about any of these reductions,” said Ritchie. “They’re all very painful, consequential reductions.”
Ritchie arrived at the cuts after extensive discussion with senior administration staff and department heads. He tried to make cuts that would preserve the best range of course offerings and could be restored if funding becomes available.
“What we used as our touchstone was to protect what we see as our core mission which is teaching and learning,” said Ritchie.
One teacher would be cut from the English, history, math and language departments, and two teachers from the science department. One teacher from both the Fine Applied and Technical Arts and Wellness departments would also be cut in the no override budget.
“In general we know it will narrow the number of course offerings,” said Berne Webb, a school committee member from Sudbury.
AP biology is on the chopping block and there will be a reduction in music offerings as well as a significant reduction in the Latin and technology program.
It will also mean larger class size, longer wait lists for courses, more difficulty in changing levels and in scheduling two languages.
Ritchie said headcount reductions versus cutting hours, or full time equivalents, is more complicated at the high school level than in an elementary school “where it’s a teacher and a class.” The headcount reductions at the high school mean “painstaking analysis of every department” and curricular decisions to ensure that academic offerings are sufficient to meet the state-mandated 990 hours per year of “meaningful learning” for each student.
Ritchie plans “to tell people if they are vulnerable under this budget,” but job cuts depend on the Jan. 15 deadline for four full-time and a number of part-time teachers currently on leave to notify the school if they plan to return.
“This is our closest estimate now,” said Judy Belliveau L-S Director of Finance who added that calculations in the budget were based on a teacher salary of $57,000. “But when we reduce staff we incur unemployment costs, so that’s a cost we’re adding back into the budget.”
The school committee’s adoption of Section 18, which requires retirees to go on a Medicare health plan, saved the district $125,000.
One parent questioned why creative cost-cutting ideas suggested at previous meetings had not been incorporated into the budget preparation.
By law he has to create the 2.1 percent no override budget 45 days before Town Meeting, said Ritchie, and then he can go back to “explore political, social and community issues to find various ways to mitigate the impact.”
Another asked about the recommendations of the Sudbury Budget Review Task Force (BRTF), released in a preliminary report last month. The task force’s $1 million in recommended savings include combining the Sudbury Public Schools and L-S under one superintendent.
School committee member and Lincoln resident Eric Harris, said that, in his opinion, it would take at least two years to work through the process of changing the structure of the school including the vote of both towns at town meeting. It may be time to change, said Harris who is critical of the BRTF report, “but not in a panic.”
“We have to seriously plan for no override,” said Harris who read a statement expressing his despair over the budget cuts that he feels will permanently change the quality of the high school.
“We have spent less money per student every year for the last 11 years,” said Harris. “The people who have kids coming (to L-S) really have to get out there and work (for an override).”
School committee chairman and Lincoln resident Patricia Mostue also read a personal statement lamenting the effects of a no override budget.
“You have a gem of a school here and it’s eroding from lack of support,” said Mostue.
Parent Larry Mariasis took exception to the “money or quality” statements that a lower budget results in a certain decline in the quality of education.
“They are not mutually exclusive,” said Mariasis. “People want quality and frankly it’s the quality of the school system that’s the driver, and that’s exactly what they want to maintain.”
The elimination of a housemaster — the 1,640 students are assigned to one of four houses which allows for better supervision as well as closer relationships between staff, students and parents — was a concern for the school committee.
“It’s impossible not to acknowledge that there are going to be less services for every student at L-S,” said Ritchie.
Cuts in books and supplies were so deep last year that “we had difficulty going much deeper,” said Belliveau, of the $125,599 reduction in the budget.
“Allocation per pupil for supplies and materials is less than fiscal year 2005 when we had fewer students,” said Belliveau.
Athletics and other programs were reduced by $76,394 in the no override budget.
“This is a budget I would sign off on and live with next year,” said Ritchie. “It’s going to be tough.”
The school committee will continue to debate the no override budget until the final vote in mid-February.
The L-S and SPS budgets will be presented to the Sudbury Finance Committee on Monday, Jan. 12 at 7:30 p.m. in the Town Hall.