New bus for Coakley

The Norwood School Committee met last week and heard from Assistant Superintendent of Finance and Operations Sean Mannion, who gave an update on the budget.

“We had a lot of discussion last time about busing; we are at this point adding a 17th bus,” he said. “We’re currently at 16 buses, and we’re great with the elementary and the high school, but middle school is crowded. We had talked about limiting stops under a mile, but at the end of the day, we had promised we wouldn’t changing busing when we went to the middle school, so at this point, we’re adding a 17th bus – that’s the Connolly yellow bus. It’s $92,000 (a year) that we add. But we offset that a little bit with the fee revenue.”

Mannion said the bus fee is going from $275 to $280 which will result in an additional $9,000 to help offset that cost. The bus fee is applicable when a student lives within two miles of the school and, conceivably, can walk to school. The previous discussion around the Coakley – https://tinyurl.com/2s3dmu53 – had the department considering making students within one mile of the Coakley walk to school.

State law requires that any student more than two miles from their school gets transportation for free, but Mannion said the elementary redistricting took that into account and should keep that to the minimum.

“As well as participation in the fee, as a result of the redistricting, kindergarten students will not be free, they’re going to have to pay,” he said. “With the redistricting of other areas, like Windsor Gardens, they’re not going to be over two miles anymore, so it is expected that every elementary student will be subject to the fee.”

He added that there will be added participation in the fee for another $38,000 towards the new bus, and another $31,000 will be allocated for that bus in the budget.

Mannion also said they are looking to increase fees across the board for the next school year by 2.5 percent, for a net gain in the budget, expected, of about $22,000.

“Most of that revenue will just be held in the revolving funds and helps us fund the programs those fees go to,” he said.

Mannion and the school committee agreed the public budget hearing, where residents can make their voices heard, is coming in the next few weeks.

“We are preparing for the public budget hearing on March 18, and the School Committee vote on March 25,” Mannion said.

To see every line in the budget, go to https://tinyurl.com/n2xena8m

Mannion said the preliminary budget is now the proposed budget from NPS Superintendent Timothy Luff, and is coming in with a 2.96 percent increase from last year for a total of $67,222,432 with and about $1.9 million from last year’s budget.

“Our preliminary budget was level-service, no change in (full-time equivalent positions) FTEs, it was a 2.96 percent increase, and at this point, we’re still at 2.96 percent and up one FTE,” he said. “We reduced the TV manager and the director, added two high school teachers and added one paraprofessional.”

Mannion said the base salary increases amount to $2.8 million and if they were in a vacuum would constitute a 4.31 percent increase in the budget. He said however that because of a planned reduction in five out-of-district placements (resulting in a $1 million decrease or 1.63 percent of the total budget), the total increase is reduced to the 2.96 percent. He said in non-salary increases, they were able to keep most things where they were.

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“And then when you look at all the other increase ($180,698 or .28 percent), we were able to stay very level service with transportation and equipment – you know there were some areas where we saved because we were able to buy laptops for the Coakley and reduce that for one year only – overall we were able to stay very level,” he said.

Mannion said, even without adding more staff, that regular step increases, cost of living increases, stipends, reimbursements and others are driving that 4.31 percent increase.

“Eighty-three percent of our budget is salaries,” he said.

Other changes include the loss of an English Language Education (ELE) Director for $135,000 towards the budget, but the addition of an ELE department with leadership stipends of $10,000.

“We’re not exactly sure how that will shape out but that will help cover some of those duties of the evaluations and things that happen under the ELE,” he said. “We’re also adding a paraprofessional for a K(indergarten) classroom. We do expect we’ll need a para for each K classroom and we’re not changing that model at this point.”

Also, an elementary teacher’s salary will be held in abeyance until later in the spring for $81,000, as Mannion said the department is unsure where exactly that position will end up, along with another $30,000 for an elementary paraprofessional position in the same situation. He said also, as TV Studio Manager Jack Tolman is semi-retiring, that will free up one FTE at $111,000, but they will be adding additional funds for audio/visual and sound support, video production, and school event coverage at $50,000.