Brookline increases kept minimal

BROOKLINE – The handful of voters who attended the public hearing on the proposed Brookline School District budget for fiscal 2011 received a cut-and-dried briefing Thursday night at Captain Samuel Douglass Academy.

The draft budget reflects the continuing economic downturn and pressure on policymakers to do more with less and use up what’s available wherever possible.

“If we had any money at all, we would look at hiring another teacher, buying new textbooks, spending more on maintenance,” said board Chairman David Partridge, saying the School Board had cut expenses to the bone.

The total proposed budget for fiscal 2011, which well begin July 1, is $9.02 million, or roughly $483,000 more than last year’s budget.

Last year, voters approved $8,537,585 to operate the school district.

School Board Vice Chairman Beth Lukovits presented the draft budget, pointing to a $9,300 decrease in special education and a $3,909 reduction in supply costs.

“We’ve been squeezing everything for the past two years, and there’s really nothing left to squeeze,” Partridge said Friday morning.

Lukovits told taxpayers that the proposed budget covers expenses negotiated in teacher and support staff contracts and holds the line on spending for workbooks, textbooks, library books and other materials.

Budget increases also include an adjustment to substitute teacher pay and a rise in fuel costs.

Partridge said the school district underbudgeted for substitutes at the academy last year and increased the line item to reflect actual costs.

The town’s finance committee is recommending the School Board’s spending requests, which will appear as warrant articles on the ballot at Town Meeting, by a vote of 2-0.

Lukovits said the district will realize savings through an in-district preschool program started last year: By educating special needs children locally, the district eliminates costs for transportation and programs outside the community, and it also recovers some revenue by charging tuition for “typically developing” peers, children without special education needs, who attend the preschool program.

By federal law, the school district must educate special needs children, starting at age 3, and until last year, the district paid to transport them outside the community. Included in that cost was the expense of consulting specialists such as speech and occupational therapists and psychologists.

In addition, Lukovits cited a lighting conservation project funded by federal stimulus funds and Public Service of New Hampshire that promises to save the district up to $30,000 a year in electric bills.

The federal stimulus money for energy savings will go to Brookline and neighboring Hollis and the three school districts the two towns support.

Those attending the meeting had plenty of questions for Lukovits and other school officials. Taxpayers had questions about special education costs, employee health benefits and energy-savings programs.

Before the public hearing, the School Board met to ratify the district’s support staff contract, a three-year accord that provides a 1.25 percent cost of living increase in the first year and 1 percent increases in the second and third years at a cost of roughly $23,000 to the taxpayers.

Professional and support union contracts were negotiated in the Hollis and cooperative school district. In Brookline, the professional staff enters the fifth year of a five-year contract next year.

Last year, during public discussion of the school budget, tempers flared after officials explained they would have to cut programs to avoid laying off staff.

Both professional and support staff responded by giving back negotiated raises, a move to protect colleagues’ jobs.

“We didn’t have that this year,” Partridge said.

Hattie Bernstein can be reached at 673-3100, ext. 24, or hbernstein@cabinet.com.