Manchester School District

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information, contact: David Scannell at 603-624-6300 (x169)
Coordinator of School and Community Relations

School District Expresses Concerns on ‘Bipartisan Budget’

Manchester school officials expressed concern today about the implications of a $136.1 million fiscal year 2005 budget proposal made Tuesday by Alderman Ted Gatsas. They also questioned some of the figures Gatsas used in drafting the proposal.

“We disagree with how some of the numbers were arrived at and with the assumptions about the priorities of the school district that underlie them,” according to Leslee Stewart, Board of School Committee vice chair.

The Gatsas plan cuts $2.4 million from the school budget proposed last month by Mayor Robert Baines. The Board of School Committee passed a $140.8 million budget earlier in the year, but school officials, citing decreased health care costs and savings from the Gill Stadium project, had expressed an ability to work with the $138.5 million offered by Baines.

Half of the savings Gatsas proposed would come from a $1.2 million reduction in monies allocated for school maintenance. In addition, Gatsas suggested eliminating a proposed $175,000 rainy day fund, tapping $404,000 from a projected school surplus, and using substitutes in place of certified teachers. Hiring substitutes would save an estimated $350,000, Gatsas claimed.

Hiring substitutes questioned

It was the substitute proposal that inspired the deepest concern from school officials. “At a time when state and federal authorities are mandating that only highly qualified individuals should be teaching our children, the Manchester school district should not be going in the other direction,” said Stewart who cited the “professionalism of Manchester's teachers” as one of the district's strongest assets.

School administrators noted that state and federal regulations, such as the No Child Left Behind Act, require the certification of teachers. Short-term substitute teachers are not required to be certified and need only two years of college in order to be hired, according to Mary Donovan, the school district's human resources director.

Any vacancies in the areas of special education have even higher requirements in order to comply with federal legislation like the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and No Child Left Behind, according to Karen Burkush, the district's student services director.

The substitute proposal would also make it more difficult to hire qualified teachers to fill positions in “areas of critical shortage, such as math and science,” according to Frank Bass, assistant superintendent of schools. “I doubt I could find a qualified sub to teach Advanced Placement biology or calculus,” he said.

Board members noted that tuition agreements with surrounding towns that send their students to Manchester high schools require the district to meet state standards requiring the district to hire the most qualified teachers and allow the towns to withhold payments if Manchester does not meet this obligation.

The school district may not be able to realize as much savings as Gatsas projected by hiring substitutes because provisions in the district's contract with the teachers' union require long-term substitutes to be paid a regular salary after 20 days, according to Stewart. “It does not appear that Alderman Gatsas took this proviso into account when projecting his savings,” she said.

Cutting back on maintenance ‘ill-advised'

Gatsas's plan to eliminate all proposed increases in the school maintenance line-item were deemed “ill-advised” by Tom Donovan, chair of the Board of School Committee's finance committee, who noted that the cut would not allow the school district to pay an increase to ServiceMaster that it is “contractually obligated” to meet. ServiceMaster is the contractor that provides cleaning services to the school district.

“At a time when we are significantly expanding the square footage that needs to be cleaned and maintained, I have to wonder about a plan that does not expand the maintenance budget commensurately,” Donovan said, referring to additions to Central and West High Schools that will be open in the next fiscal year.

Citing “a long history of not maintaining the things we build,” Stewart said that an increased maintenance budget “was intended to reverse this historic trend and indicate that we had learned our lesson – that we have to take care of the things we build or else we rob the taxpayers of the true value of their initial investment.”

‘Some of the numbers just do not add up'

Officials raised questions about the numbers Gatsas used in his proposal.

“Some of the numbers just do not add up,” Donovan said, citing concerns about the “true cost of hiring subs, the fact that (Gatsas) does not include in his projected savings on retirees line item the cost of lump sum payments for sick time and Social Security benefits, and the fact that his accounting for new positions does not include the cost of benefits.”

Donovan also questioned the “wisdom of eliminating a rainy day fund that is a hedge against financial uncertainty and has been strongly and repeatedly recommended by both the school district's auditor and the city's auditor.”

Stewart expressed doubt that “generally accepted accounting practices and state statute would allow the district to treat the surplus and the capital tuition as sources for savings in the manner that Alderman Gatsas suggests.”

‘Responsibilities of big city school system'

School officials pointed to recent innovations in the school district that have been made to meet what Superintendent Michael Ludwell termed “the responsibilities of a big city school system” and suggested that cuts would jeopardize these innovations.

“We have waged a war on the drop out rate and made some real inroads reaching kids on the margin,” according to Ludwell, who noted that “these programs do tap our resources; but, ultimately, they are money savers for the community. The more kids we graduate with the skills that accompany a high school diploma, the less taxpayers are likely to spend in other areas in the future.”

Ludwell also cited new curriculum initiatives and textbook adoption policies as areas of innovation “that cannot be sacrificed to budget cutting.”

Responsible fiscal management cited

Board members said they were frustrated by last minute efforts to trim what they consider to be an already lean budget. “The hallmark of this administration is responsible fiscal management. In recent years, we have paid off a significant debt, generated surpluses and thereby lowered the taxpayers' burden, and kept our per pupil costs $1,300* below the state average,” said Stewart.

Donovan pointed out that Manchester is in the bottom 10 percent* in the state in the ranking of per pupil expenditures. “On very little money, we educate the largest and most complex student population in the state, and do a very good job. But our product would suffer under the Gatsas plan. I do not think we can sink any lower on the list.”

*Source – NH Dept. of Education

Supporting Documents

Assessment of Bipartisan Budget (PDF)

Bipartisan Budget (PDF)

Retirements (PDF)